Manufacturer: Made in South Philly, from U.S. parts

Jim Still, boss at Global Cooling and Postharvest, a Media company that designs and builds JetReady Precooler fruit-storage cooling machines from the vast Rhoads shed at the old Philadelphia Navy Yard (I wrote about them in today's Philadelphia Inquirer), tells how he met a customer request last week:

I got the order, late Tuesday, from a Pacific Northwest tree-fruit company. It was verbal, like so much is in the produce industry. I wrote up an invoice and sent it to them. I do all of that myself. The invoice is a type of marketing, too important to be left to someone else. I committed to finalizing and shipping six Jets by late morning Thursday.

I told my shop manager, Frank, a former GI who lives [nearby in South Philly], and John, my electrical-wiring partner, who owns RCR Electric in Palmyra, about 5 blocks from the house where I grew up...

Next day, RCR finalized electrical mounting and connections on four Jets, leaving two to go for Thursday early...The jets I sell for approximately $20,000 each. A cold storage provider can easily make a few thousand dollars a week in profit (from longer shelf life during the hottest weeks) so each Jet pays for itself in a few weeks... Bryan in my shop worked on mounting more foam pads and labeling.

I made the decision to hire a dedicated tractor-trailer to haul the units from South Philly to Wenatchee, Washington, wiith a team of drivers, so they could leave South Philly around noon Thursday July 3, drive straight through, and be in Wenatchee by 5 p.m. Saturday July 5. Cost me about $9,000. That's another type of marketing.

I let my contact at the customer know, and sent a revised invoice. Late in the day he called to tell me the payment of the first 50% of my invoice had been approved, and a wire transfer to my company was in progress. I stayed at the shop with Bryan late, working on details and aesthetics.

Thursday morning was an early start, 6 a.m. It was going to be a hot one, and FedEx Express Guaranteed was due in to pick up around noon. RCR finalized the last two Jets, Bryan the same on the labeling and touch-up, and around 9 a.m. I began my final quality check of each of the six units.

I failed one, and then brought back RCR to finalize another unit to replace it. Luckily their men were still at the Yard, working on another job, and they came back within 15 minutes.

I decided to sign and date each finished Jet I approved, to mark them as ready to ship, and to make them a little special, at least to me, and maybe to the customer, too.

So around noon we were finally done all six, just as FedEx Dedicated showed up. It was a team effort to get all six loaded.

The customer called to tell me the wire (payment) had gone out. And also that it seemed pretty sure that the state public-utility department would reimburse up to 75% of the cost of my Jets, because of how energy efficient they are.

I used...our world-changing forced-air cooling design, and made-in-American parts and equipment:

- Super-E motors made by Baldor, in Fort Smith, Arkansas,
- Propellers, made by Multi-Wing in Urbana, Illinois,
- Mounted on steel fabricated here in Philly by Rhoads,
- and hot dipped galvanized in Wilmington,
- with foam pads and tarps I have made to my specs in Phillipsburg, Pa.,
- with electrical panels built for me in Bridgeport, Pa.,
- using a variable frequency drive made out in Pittsburgh by the Curtiss-Wright company,
- wired by RCR from Palmyra, New Jersey,
- and quality checked by yours truly,
- saving electrical use in the state of Washington, so that power could instead be sold to California.

Hard U.S. dollars from the other end of the country wound up in my company's bank account in Media, Pa., so I can write checks to all these companies, so they can pay their men and their bills, with a little bit left for me.

Now my Wenatchee demo Jet, is going to be moved to Oregon, where we will see how it does cooling blueberries, not cherries, in another state [where cheap hydroelectric power drives industry]. I am pretty sure it will do just fine.

I am to get my final 50% wire from the cherry company when all 6 Jets have been received and are powered up and running. By Monday [today].

My son Jim [moves East to join the business] late Wednesday, and will be with me when I [quality-assure] the final 6 units from this production run, before we fly together to Wenatchee next Saturday, transiting Los Angeles and Seattle. We're booked on Virgin America except for the last little jump, and looking forward to the trip... Also going to Clackamas, Oregon to demo some units for berry growers, then to Salinas, Bakersfield, and back to L.A.