York Repair

Thursday, February 11,  2016    Steve Jezowski celebrated 40 years with York Repair Inc, recently.  Steve (pictured on far right, next to Kevin Krupp, President, and Frank York, Founder, who is telling one of many funny stories with Steve) came to York right out of the Navy.  Steve was the 2nd employee at York, and he has seen it grow from a small company (where Steamers Pub used to be in Bay City) to the now 80,000 square foot Technical Center it is today.

Earlier this month, York celebrated the 30th anniversary of Brian Martin at a luncheon with all employees in attendance. Brian, a graduate of the now defunct Southwestern Tech in Jackson, Minnesota, which specialized in teaching electric motor maintenance and repair, came to York after working for a competitor in Chicago, a year out of school. Starting on the tech center floor as a winder, Brian quickly moved up to supervisor, then plant manager. But ultimately, he has served as the main go-to person on the phone when the customer calls for a repair or parts, many a time in a frantic rush.

We got a call in the afternoon that the stator from Sanford Lake Dam was about to be removed using a large crane.  This project was started earlier in the winter, when 1 of their 3 lines went down due to failure.  This is the first time one of these generators have been off-line due to breakdown since they were installed- in the 1920's!  Pretty amazing that they have gotten almost 100 years of use without failing.  Before they could remove the stator and rotor and all the related turbine pieces, they had to cut a hole in the roof, and then construct a removable slide piece.  

Escalating investments in the exploration and production of conventional oil and gas is propelling the adoption of pumps around the world. The Western hemisphere will lead the way in uptake as production surges owing to the shale oil and gas boom in North America, oil sands in Canada, and conventional reserves in Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico. New deep-water and ultra-deep-water reserves in Asia-Pacific will contribute further towards oil and gas production, and in turn, the sale of pumps.

John Monville has been a fixture at York Repair and with its customers for 30 years now. You don't see that very often anymore. Our commitment to our customers is mirrored by people like John.  John's commitment to the job and the customer is second to none. Without that commitment, York wouldn't exist.  A master service technician, John runs the field service department.  But he is also an excellent motor winder, a machinist, and can pretty much do all repairs on motors and other industrial equipment that comes in. Thank you for your outstanding hard work and sticking it out here.

Last week, York hired a company called SMS Tank Cleaning Services to come in and clean our 2,000 gallon VPI tank system.  We use it for motor stators up to 8,000 HP after they have been rewound.  The polyester resin coats the windings before being “baked on” for protection.

We have completed our new servo motor repair lab to accommodate more technicians and more repairs! The 1980 sq. foot facility was transformed from an existing warehouse into a well-lit, spacious room with a high ceiling and lined with large windows, to let the sunshine in. It is equipped with a new Econoline sandblaster, new paint booth, 1/2 ton lifting capacity, and a newly finished floor.

Fellow Team member Randy Badour, pictured 2nd from left, has a passion for guitar playing, singing, and good times.  He is a member of the legendary local-band, The Matt Ryan Band.  He jangles and twangs across the stage like a lunatic fringe, showing anyone in attendance that it is quite OK to have a good time!  He writes some of the songs and collaborates on others, he sings back-up and some of the leads, and of course, he jangles.  His band is very polished as well.  They play all over the state of Michigan, opening for national acts along the way.

We are proud to announce, that today at 12pm, the entire staff at York Repair will gather at our pavilion to hold a luncheon in honor of Jeff York and Kevin Krupp, for their 20 years of service at York. Kevin has served as President for most of his time here and Jeff is currently Vice-President of Sales. Both have been key members in the growth and development phase of York, adding both new divisions and hundreds of regional accounts along the way.

Last week, we got an emergency call from the Fox Theatre in Detroit, asking if we could fix an elevator motor from their stage elevator that suddenly went out.  Knowing that we have repaired many large elevator motors through the years, we drove down and picked it up.  The motor was from a 1920 Otis elevator!

Not only was it from 1920, but it still had original windings in it!  This motor had never burned up in almost 100 years of use.  Extraordinary!

Company founder, Frank York, celebrated his 70th birthday down in Daytona Beach, Florida. His sons, Jeff and Jade, surprised him by flying down to spend the weekend with him. Also joining the group were son-in-law Kevin, his twin, Keith, Frank's oldest grandchild, Dakota, and family friend Chad. Frank's good pal Freddy, arranged to meet the group at the North Turn Bar and Grill on the beach, where they sat outside on the patio awaiting his arrival.

It all started as a servo repair for one of our largest customers.  Jason, from our servo team, came in last Saturday morning and repaired a Fanuc motor, which was then sent into the plant.  The problem was, this wasn’t “The Answer.”

We got a call from the plants control engineer saying that their machine has been down for 5 days now and they could not get it running.  Our solution was to send in “The Truth,” Jeff Migut, for a field service call.