History
A Dream Becomes Reality
In 1976 Sid Prozinski started his career with AMERICAN DEFIBRATOR as a Draftsman in the engineering department. After a few years, Sid moved into the Field Service Department and was able to utilize his mechanical background doing field service work. Sid was involved in startups of MDF plants, Fiberboard plants, TMP plants and Semi-Chemical plants over the next twelve years. During that time SUNDS, a Swedish company, purchased AMERICAN DEFIBRATOR and formed the company SUNDS DEFIBRATOR. Sid’s experience in the field, where he worked to solve customer’s problems, led him into a position in the Customer Service/Aftermarket Business.
In the spring of 1987, Sid worked with all of the Regional Salesmen helping them with technical support. This is where Sid and Rick Taylor, while traveling throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, came up with the concept of a company with aftermarket service and support as the primary focus.
RPM was formed in May of 1988 with Sid doing mostly Field Service and Technical Consulting work. Sid worked with various vendors over the next eight years to develop RPM’s high wear alloy Screw and Throat program and to develop the best way to provide rebuild services to the mills in North America. The company’s product line and customer base grew over the next nine years to include all refiner manufacturers and companies around the world. The company’s growth rate led Sid to the conclusion that in order to maintain a high level of customer contact and support, he needed to bring Rick back into RPM full time in the summer of 1998.
Breaking Ground
The first step taken to increase RPM’s ability to help our customers was to open RPM’s temporary manufacturing facility. This happened in January of 1999 and was quickly followed by our first permanent manufacturing facility which opened in September of 1999. The RPM manufacturing facility staff was built by hiring personnel that had vast experience in the operation and maintenance of various refiners.
Stepping It Up
Over the next ten years, RPM has added industry veterans in Field Service, Customer Service, Regional Sales, CADD Services, and a veteran Refiner Process Specialist. All this has made RPM the company that Sid and Rick first envisioned on their many trips through the Southeast US.
RPM continues to grow as a supply source to the wood products industry and in order to continue our drive to be the best supply source to our customers, RPM has purchased land to build a new larger shop facility that will be help us continue our efforts well into the future.