I caught up with David Petersen, Director of Sales & Engineering for Brand Hydraulics, at the IFPE show at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this month at the company’s booth.

The Omaha-based company is well-known for its hydraulic valves, flow controls, relief valves, monoblocks and hand pumps. But it seems that some customers are genuinely surprised to hear about the company’s lines of electronics, including wireless controllers, such as the V Series of Radio Remote Control Transmitters. These transmitters (seen on the center shelf of the booth photo at right) are ergonomic, durable, sealed and easy to use, with exposed components made from non-corrosive materials. They are a nice complement to the company’s variety of stackable directional control valves.

While this year’s IFPE show (along with the CONEXPO-CON/AGG mega-shows held in conjunction with is) was disappointing from a crowd size perspective — due to the coronavirus crisis — Petersen was quite upbeat about the engineering professionals who did come over to the Brand Hydraulics booth in the South Hall, as well as the things they were asking his staff about.

“This year, the quantity of the conversations, it’s down significantly,” Petersen said. “But the quality of the conversations is up significantly. So, the people that are here, they want to be here, and that’s obvious because of the [crisis] environment we’re in.”Petersen said that many of the people who came by the booth were fascinated to see and learn about the company’s V series and RP series, the wireless radio receivers.

“They are relatively new, having been out only for a couple of years. Most people coming to the booth have been shocked to see them. Because we don’t advertise or market as well as we should, with our electronics,” he said. “So, a lot of people think about us for our cast iron bodies, our flow controls, our mono blocks, that kind of thing. Most of the time when they see our electronics, and not just our V Series, our EC series, they’re like, ‘Wow, I never knew that you guys did this.’ That’s kind of the normal reaction.”

According to Petersen, the next thing people always ask is, “Where are you guys bringing these products in from?” … assuming that they must come from another company and probably another country.

“The answer is that we do all of this stuff in-house,” he said. “We do everything ourselves.”

Brand Hydraulics
www.brand-hyd.com