54 | The Fisher Story
1976 New 96,500-square-foot valve manufacturing
plant opens in Sherman, Texas.
Sales meeting
utilizes the theme
“The Spirit of ‘76.”
(Innisbrook in
Tarpon Springs,
Florida)
Left to right Bruce Duncan,
Bill Bestmann, Art French
and Tony Casciato
Advertisement shows Chuck Karns, manager of the Sherman plant, and the
headline reads: We built a Texas-size plant to fill Texas-size orders, 1978
Environmental
Stewardship
I
n the 1970s, faced with
escalating fuel bills and
pollution, Americans began to
recycle, to conserve and to
enact legislation focused on
environmental protection.
Anticipating tough new U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) regulations,
industrial producers took a
hard look at their processes
and turned their expertise to
reducing waste and
fugitive emissions.
Fisher engineers, too, began
to develop environmental
solutions for internal and
external applications. As the
only control valve manufacturer
to take part in the EPA air toxin
regulatory negotiating
meetings, Fisher Controls
subsequently introduced
products like the ENVIRO-SEAL ®
valve packing and bellows
system, designed to reduce
fugitive emissions from leaking
valves, pumps and flanges.
Fisher manufacturing teams
also made a number of
environmental breakthroughs in
production processes. In
Marshalltown, for example:
• A powder-coating (painting)
system collected and reused
more than 95% of the powder
over-spray.
• A biofiltration system
eliminated emissions in the
painting area.