Page 92 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Top to bottom: S&R welder works on packaging unit; Matt George on a job at the San Jose airport
up an alliance with two local HVAC contractors to form a TC service department. S&R Mechanical and Sno Valley Process Solutions moved into Pe- terson’s Benicia facility and started packaging tem- perature control projects. “They gave us turnkey capability, which nobody else in the market was offering at the time,” says Young. “With them, we could provide complete beginning-to-end services better than anybody out there. All customers had to do was flip the switch. That’s why people came to us.”
In June 2016, Sno Valley decided to consolidate their operations and now handles Peterson’s TC installations and repairs for the Pacific Northwest
from their headquarters just outside of Seattle. S&R still resides in the same Benicia facility— now known as MSR—and continues to provide installation and repairs for Peterson’s TC group.
Peterson equipment serves a wide spectrum of temperature-driven industries. Some are routine like the aging state capitol in Sacramento that needs a shot in the arm every summer when tem- peratures hit triple digits. Some are one-off situ- ations that stretch the imagination and tickle the soul. And others are so secretive the customer can’t even talk about them beyond the job specs. Yet all require specific expertise and are often time-sensi- tive, which Peterson’s TC crew thrives on. Follow- ing is a sampling from the past twenty years.
AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY: CHERRY HARVEST
All along the West Coast, cherry growers use temperature control to minimize damage during harvest. “Farmers harvest tons of cherries a day and need a way of cooling them down to keep them from being crushed in transit,” says George. “During harvest, they dip the cherries into a big vat of water—or hydro-cooling tank—fed straight out of the irrigation lines in the field. During drought years, they reduce water use, increase the volume of cherries, and decrease the time in the bath. Using our PY [Peterson–York] air-cooled models, the water chills down into the thirties, tightening the skin around the cherry ‘must’ and protecting it from being crushed.” The process has been credited with saving up to 20 percent of the harvest. “In the early years, I would go home, get a bag of cherries, throw them into some ice water, and time them to see how long it would take them to get firm,” says George, who also consulted en- gineering fundamental manuals in his calculations. “It’s really just a big jigsaw puzzle. It doesn’t matter what the product is that you’re working with, the fundamentals are the same.”
90 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG