Equipment report

Torxx adds VP of sales and business development

Torxx Kinetic Pulverizer, headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario, has announced that Terri Ward has joined the company as its vice president of sales and business development. Ward brings 30 years of experience in the solid waste and recycling industry, including in capital equipment acquisition and sales, facility construction and operations, and consulting engineering. Ward was a key member of the team that grew SSI Shredding Systems, Wilsonville, Oregon, where she promoted size-reduction technology and related systems having been involved in applications and solutions development, product and plant design and process optimization.

Torxx chairman and CEO Peter Everson says, “As we mourn the recent loss of Nicolas Belanger, we’re fortunate he had recruited Ward to join the team based on his own experience working with her over the years. He appreciated Terri’s passion, knowledge and hands-on experience bringing waste processing equipment to the market. He also valued her ability to develop loyal customer relationships. We’re confident she’ll help us leverage the momentum Nicolas started.”

“I’m honored to build on Nicolas’ legacy, just as we’re starting two flagship Torxx installations in the U.S.,” Ward says. “I look forward bringing this technology forward to help operators reduce cost and increase diversion by accessing new end markets. This effort won’t be without its challenges, but Torxx has invested substantially in product development, engineering support and parts and service to ensure customer success and long-term satisfaction—all of which are critical to achieving sustainable growth.”

The Torxx Kinetic Pulverizer uses a patented “matter against matter” principle to size reduce material. Feedstock is agitated in the machine, forming vortices that create enough force for material to shatter against itself. Brittle material is reduced to finer particles, while ductile material is converted to larger, more consistent sizes, according to the company. The technology also has proven to effectively liberate compound objects and can maximize recovery by transforming material recovery facility fines, contaminated organics, mixed glass and other problematic materials into useful end products, according to the company.

At Torxx, Ward joins fellow industry veteran Michael Drolet, who recently was promoted to vice president of product development.

Drolet says, “Losing Nicolas has been extremely difficult, but our team is strong and committed to executing his vision as well as developing innovative systems built on Torxx’s unique technology.”

General Kinematics celebrates 60th anniversary

General Kinematics (GK) celebrated its 60th anniversary this September by thanking its employees and by acknowledging the support of its customers and community.

Albert Musschoot founded General Kinematics in a small storefront in Barrington, Illinois, in 1960 with a box of letterhead, an electric typewriter and a grapefruit crate to use as a desk. As demand for GK vibratory equipment grew, GK built a fabrication facility in Crystal Lake, Illinois, in 1975, which is the company’s headquarters today.

In 1998, Albert Musschoot’s son, Paul Musschoot, took over leadership of the company after his father’s death, leading GK’s growth across multiple new markets and establishing manufacturing facilities and offices worldwide. Albert’s grandson, Tom Musschoot, leads the business today.

The company says its in-house manufacturing takes place in a 220,000-square-foot fabrication facility and uses the latest material cutting, forming and welding technology. GK also has expanded its global manufacturing footprint to include outsourced fabrication partners in Canada, China, England, Germany, Italy, Japan and Thailand.

According to the company’s website, “Collaborating with our customers, GK continually innovates with the express purpose of achieving our customers’ goals.”

General Kinematics says its technology is designed to solve a variety of processing challenges: “Your process can rely on our equipment, from heating and cooling your material to moving it across a network of feeders and conveyors.”

GK Director of Resource Recovery Dick Reeves, who has been with the company for more than 35 years, says in a post on the company’s website, “There have been a few instances while visiting some foreign country, either at a trade show or visiting a customer, I catch myself in disbelief of how far GK has come in 60 years. We are now a third-generation privately held company, with a fab shop located in the suburbs of Chicago along with five offices around the world. Much has changed over the years, but GK’s dedication to its employees, the equipment and its customers remains the reason for our success.”

Superior adds crusher dealer in Texas and neighboring states

Morris, Minnesota-based Superior Industries Inc. says La Grange, Texas-based McCourt Equipment will now carry Superior’s crushing, screening and washing equipment to offer it to its customers in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. McCourt already offers conveyors made by Superior.

“McCourt Equipment has a long history of supporting its customers with a strong inventory, application-experienced resources and responsive service,” says John Garrison, Superior’s vice president of sales. “There’s no better partner in the South Central United States to supply and support the market with these products than McCourt Equipment.”

“Our two brands align well because we’re highly focused on the needs of our customers and energized to do the right thing for them,” says Paul McCourt, president of McCourt Equipment.

Founded in 1999, McCourt Equipment focuses on the aggregates industry and says it has “dozens of employees spread throughout the region.”

Superior says it debuted its new group of crushing, screening and washing equipment in 2016 and 2017, “after several acquisitions and some in-house design projects.” The new products joined its existing and evolving conveyor and custom plant line “to form a complete portfolio of aggregate processing and handling solutions from rock face to load out,” says the firm.

Its products now include jaw, cone and impact crushers; horizontal, inclined and grizzly feeding vibratory equipment; scrubbing, classifying, washing and dewatering solutions; and unloading, transferring and stacking conveyors.

Lindner breaks ground on new headquarters

Spittal an der Drau, Austria-based shredding technology provider Lindner Recyclingtech has broken ground on a new factory complex in nearby Spittal-Ost. The firm says the new building will double its existing capacity.

“In addition to a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, the new headquarters will become an international Center of Excellence for waste recovery and recycling–in keeping with the circular economy concept,” the firm says of the 45,000-square-meter (480,000-square-foot) campus underway.

The company, founded in Austria in 1948, opened the doors of its current factory in the 1940s, when it manufactured sawmill equipment. Lindner says it began a transformation toward becoming Lindner Recyclingtech in the late 1980s when it became “one of the first [that] started to delve into shredding and waste processing.”

“At the moment, the industry is undergoing a major change,” says Manuel Lindner, the company’s owner and CEO. “Recycling rates and quality requirements for end materials are constantly rising, and so we are continuing to develop new systems—systems that enable our clients to meet these requirements. To ensure that we can continue to do this efficiently, we are doubling our capacity and relying on the latest production technologies that meet industry 4.0 standards.”

The new campus will include what Lindner Recyclingtech calls a robot-assisted manufacturing facility and a modern logistics center, plus an academy focusing on recycling technology.

Michael Lackner, managing director of the firm, says, “We were one of the industry’s pioneers and have accumulated an enormous amount of application expertise. Today, we see ourselves not only as a machine manufacturer and technology partner but also as a source of knowledge for our clients. That’s why it is so important to us to constantly expand this know-how, develop new solutions and systematically prepare and pass on the knowledge gained. We are looking forward to welcoming you soon to the new home of recycling.”

Lindner says it manufactures machines and system components that are exported to nearly 100 countries. These include stationary and mobile shredders, systems for plastics recycling, scrap wood processing and solid recovered fuel production.

Fuchs appoints North American director of sales

Fuchs, a Terex brand with North American headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, has named Scott Williams to lead its North American business as director of sales.

Williams has extensive leadership experience in the scrap and recycling equipment industry, according to Fuchs, having held senior-level positions with Harris and Danieli. He also spent 12 years with Alcoa Inc., where he developed the Alcoa Recycling Co.’s aluminum used beverage can (UBC) recycling network and held manufacturing leadership roles in Alcoa’s Tennessee operations, having participated in the company’s Line Leadership Development program.

Dominik Vierkotten, managing director of Germany-based Terex Fuchs GmbH, says, “We are excited to have Scott join our North America leadership team. He brings a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, which will help position Fuchs as the best choice in material handling.”

Detroit Edge Tool names East Coast sales representative

Detroit Edge Tool Co., based in Detroit, has announced that Dave Fodor has been hired as the company’s East Coast sales representative. In this role, Fodor will be based out of his home in Youngstown, Ohio.

Fodor has 10 years of experience in the scrap and construction and demolition recycling industries, including time spent as regional account manager at Superior, Wisconsin-based BladeCore.

Detroit Edge Tool manufactures mobile and stationary shear blades. The company also offers machine ways, surface grinding, large CNC machining, machine knives, flame hardening, wear plates and liners to industries globally.

New Millennium Rentals hires Jim Gill as business development manager

For more than 20 years, New Millennium Rentals, Orange County, Florida, has been a market leader in renting excavators with specialized attachments to the demolition, recycling, construction, environmental and reconstruction industries.

Recently, Peter Menner, the company’s president and owner, has made a strategic decision to expand the company’s product offerings into the material handling market. This expansion has been spearheaded with the acquisition of two new product lines and the addition of Jim Gill, who will join New Millennium Rentals as business development manager.

Gill previously spent 10 years as an operations manager for one of the largest scrap processors in the Northeast, where he became familiar with the equipment used in the scrap market and witnessed an “evolution of how the materials were handled.”

“When I first entered the industry, the most common approach to moving and sorting scrap metals in a yard was modifying an excavator that was designed to move dirt into a scrap machine,” Gill says. “These machines were definitely not built for the task at hand, but it got the job done. However, in the process, it literally tore the machines apart.”

Over the course of the next decade, Gill worked for a couple of different equipment distributors representing two European manufacturers. Over time, he worked with many scrap processors from Philadelphia to New York City to help select the right machine for their material handling needs.

Gill is now joining New Millennium Rentals to head up its efforts to introduce the Atlas and the Mantsinen material handlers to the Northeast region of the United States. He says he is looking at this as a tremendous opportunity not only for himself, but also for his customers.

“Atlas is a manufacturer out of Germany that is extremely well-engineered. They have a long history in the scrap market that goes back decades and manufactures machines ranging in size from 20 to 65 tons. The machines are as advanced as anyone else’s; the significant difference is the company is not burdened with a lot of heavy overhead and the machines are extremely well-priced,” Gill says.

Mantsinen is in a similar situation; however, it’s a much bigger machine, says Gill.

“They manufacture material handlers ranging from 50 to 300 tons, primarily for the port market. Mantsinen is manufactured in Finland and is world-renowned for making a quality product and [it] offers some tremendous pricing advantages over its competitors in the same size class,” he says.