Effective 9/18/23, Josh Pelletier has joined URC to fill the newly created role of VP of sales enablement and customer service.

From numerous customer surveys, including our most recent 4th-quarter 2023 survey process, we know that the delivering value and service is a major priority for our customers.

URC’s 4USERVICE culture is based on customer service, and as we increase our share and presence in industries ranging from foundry, steel, aluminum, contractors, cement and petro- chem, we want to ensure our 4USERVICE model continues to improve at delivering increased value to our customers.

Josh’s background and experience will enable him to support the sales team in various ways, including project management, process improvement, strategic development, and specific technical details that make a real impact on our customers.

He will also manage our customer service team. Aside from being involved in every day aspects of service improvement, Josh will be looking long-term at ways to improve our process and programs.

Since 2010, Josh has been serving the refractory producing industry in various technical support and sales roles at Kerneos and then Imerys ( by way of acquisition). His most recent role at Imerys was Sales Director – Refractory Producers, where he lead an international sales team representing a broad portfolio of refractory raw materials. Prior to that, Josh worked as a project manager for Zampell for four years. All of these positions have given Josh a unique view of both refractory customers and producers.

Josh graduated from Clemson University in 2006 with a degree in ceramics and material engineering, and later earned his MBA from Regent university.

In summary, URC’s model of 4USERVICE Is important to our customers… And we know that Josh will improve and strengthen our service culture in both the short and long-term. Josh will report to Brad Dickerman, our COO responsible for sales, production, and product development. Please join me in welcoming Josh!!!

Jim Caprio
Senior V.P. Sales & Marketing

Effective 4/24/23, Shaun Hale joins URC as the Vice President of Technical Sales.

In this position, Shaun will support URC’s 4U Service model by further supporting our ability to deliver valuable, trustworthy technical data and customized technical solutions to our sales team and their customers. Shaun’s initial focus will be the Aluminum industry along with serving as the conduit between product development and the sales group.

Shaun has been the National Sales Manager for Capital Refractories since 2006. In that role he started and developed Capital’s U.S. business by increasing sales, building his sales team, setting up manufacturing and distribution, and working with R&D to develop new products. He started in the refractories industry in 1997 in the UK, working for Hepworth Refractories, which became Vesuvius where he had roles in marketing and sales engineering.

Overall, Shaun’s contribution of skills and sales/marketing experience makes him a valuable resource to support our customers, our sales force, and the 4U Service model.

Shaun lives in the Cincinnati area and will have an office at the Brookville plant, reporting to Brad Dickerman.

Jim Caprio
Senior V.P. Sales & Marketing

Effective April 1, Rick Volk retired from URC , leaving a legacy in the area of monolithic product development.

Rick started in December 2002, with a proven history in the area of foundry products. This was a perfect fit for URC, as the foundry application made up a majority of the customers. As Rick quickly grew close to our foundry customers and developed an impressive URC foundry arsenal, including a line of dry rams and cupola products, the growth goals of the company quickly took him in a new direction.

About 10 years ago, Rick started to develop a platform of URC products for aluminum… an effort that drastically grew sales and customer relationships. Similarly, URC focused on the contractor segment, which required user-friendly shotcrete, pumpables and gun mixes. Rick’s new product formulations help grow this segment as well, as did his efforts to develop value added products for the cement industry.

Aside from meeting the needs of the customer, Rick developed a number of very unique products that still stand alone in the refractory industry. Examples include our line of cement free CF shotcretes and the UNI – BRADE line of abrasion resistant products.

Behind the scenes, Rick constantly worked with the production group to juggle the enormous challenge with refractory raw materials, availability, and pricing. His work in this area was key to our success over the last four years of supply chain issues.

Lastly, Rick was… and is… a great teammate. There wasn’t a customer that couldn’t relate to Rick , and the sales team constantly leaned on him for technical and practical advice. He is the original refractory pro!

Congratulations to Rick Volk…luckily, Rick will be available for special projects and transitions on a limited basis, as he needs a rest from an unrivaled career in refractory product and customer development.

Jim Caprio
Senior V.P. Sales & Marketing

Although John Gallo’s URC career was a quick three years, he was the perfect champion to improve and grow United’s aluminum product line and customer base.

After spending over 40 years in the industry, John joined URC in May 2020 to expand the aluminum platform started by Tom Robich and Rick Volk.
John’s combined experience with sales and sales management, technical products, and fieldwork was exactly what we needed, as both sales and product offerings have flourished during his tenure.

Specifically, John grew the sales of our base products by reaching new accounts. Under his watch, we established new products such as UNI-2TUFF high fiber products, large aggregate compositions, and ultralow offerings for specific aluminum areas.

In an effort to enhance our GP gunned plastic mixes, John helped to promote and sell the OPTIMIZER system to improve installation results while reducing excess packaging. As some customers turned from gunned plastics to colloidal silica compositions, John worked with product development to customize improved colloidal silica products currently in trials.

As both our offerings and customer base grew, John continued visiting customers… often presenting our expanded aluminum platform, and specifically discussing prescriptive solutions for each individual account. With almost every aluminum customer discussion, an order or inquiry would follow!

In summary, John was a great example of an application champion that made a real impact in a market segment. Although his term was short, we are grateful for all of the work and contributions during this very fruitful time for our aluminum customers, and we wish John good health and prosperity as he begins his retirement.

Jim Caprio
Senior V.P. Sales & Marketing

On behalf of the entire URC Team, please join me in congratulating Brian Rhoads on his 6/30/22 retirement.

Brian’s 40 years in the refractory industry…including 17 years at URC…have made a lasting impact on his teammates, his customers and an industry that is better because of his dedicated service.

Originally from Wyomissing, PA, Brian earned a BS in Ceramic Science and Engineering from Penn State University in 1982. From there, Brian spent 18 years at 3 different refractory companies focusing on the manufacturing and quality side of the business. In 2002, he landed at URC, where he quickly made an impact at the Sharonville facility. Brian soon became famous for his relentless work ethic, which included a 4 AM start time and a “whatever it takes to make it right for the customer” attitude.

On a daily basis, Brian made sure the production and quality process was on track for our customers. Specifically, his overall knowledge of the products and process enabled him to make substantial contributions to the roll out of a new ERP system in 2008. This same knowledge and his incredible work ethic made the move from Sharonville to Brookville, IN seamless to our customers. Most recently, Brian worked his magic to successfully startup the new production facility in Birmingham… while simultaneously working with a major new licensee across the world.

Much could be said about Brian’s technical prowess and his accomplishments in production and quality. To his teammates and his customers, Brian is simply the genuine article…the no nonsense guy who earned everyone’s trust through hard work, competence, great follow through, excellent people skills and a sincere desire to do it right…and make it right for the customer. Perhaps his real legacy at URC is the transfer of his approach to the process and other teammates, thereby making our 4U Service model better.

Thank you, Brian…get some sleep and good luck with your retirement plans! You will be missed!

Awarded to a URC teammate who routinely goes above and beyond to serve and love our customers.

Shannon was hired in March of 2000, and at every URC position he has put the customer first. Shannon is currently the Director of Logistics , and he formally works with customer service and production to schedule the orders to insure we meet or exceed the expectations of every customer. Regarding above and beyond service, Shannon has been known to personally drive critical components to job sites…along with driving employees back and forth to work to make sure our labor force meets customer’s demands.

Thank you SHANNON FOR YOUR GREAT WORK…you are a key component of 4U SERVICE!!

… customized to fit every customer’s needs.

Jim Caprio¹, Matt Ciarrocca¹, Brian Rhoads¹

¹United Refractories Co., McMurray, PA, USA

Keywords: Iron, Steel, Refractory, Reheat Furnace, Rolling Mill

Continue reading “TECHNICAL REFRACTORY CHALLENGES TO CONSIDER IN STEEL REHEAT FURNACES” →

It is my pleasure to welcome John Gallo to URC! Effective 5/1, John will begin his transition to VP of Non-Ferrous Metal Markets, as Tom Robich intends to retire 12/31/20.

Continue reading “Welcome John Gallo” →

Dear Customers,

URC remains open!

Over the last few days both the states of Ohio and Indiana have issued stay at home directives. These directives require employees of non-essential businesses to stay home for an initial period of two weeks.

In Indiana and Ohio, essential businesses and operations include the manufacture, distribution and supply chain of critical products and industries. Some of these critical products and industries include agriculture, waste disposal, transportation, steel products, fuel, mining, construction and defense.

These essential businesses are not affected by the stay at home directives. Since URC is in the critical supply chain of these essential businesses, URC is considered an essential business and part of the critical manufacturing infrastructure.

Throughout the coronavirus precautions, URC continues to take steps to help maintain a safe and healthy workplace, in addition to maintaining federal, state, and local guidance and directives.

If you have any questions or special needs, please contact Donna, Kathleen or your URC rep. Thank you for your trust and patience…We will be in touch with future updates.

Jim Caprio
V.P. Sales & Marketing

We are pleased to welcome Robert Piestrzynski into our URC Family!

Rob earned his BS in Product Design Engineering from Ferris State University in 2001.  Shortly after graduation, Rob broke into the Portland Cement Industry as a Tech Services Engineer with St. Mary’s Cement.  With assignments in Detroit and Chicago, Rob worked closely with QC and production on product lines, raw material selection and production processes.

In 2014, Rob made the transition to sales as an account manager for Magotteaux’s Cement division.  At Magotteaux, Rob leveraged his cement process experience to value sell proprietary alloy castings within the cement production process.  Rob successfully called on and managed cement plants in over 10 states in the west and south.     

Living in Nashville with his wife and three children, Rob will have direct sales responsibility for approximately 20 accounts in the U.S.  In addition, he will act as our Cement Champion to develop our value added cement strategy and work with other cement salesmen to understand the needs of the cement customer and deliver top quality 4U Service.

Join us in welcoming Rob to the URC Family!

We are pleased to welcome Brian back into the URC Family!  With a ceramic engineering degree from Penn State and 36 years experience in the industry, Brian rejoins United after working at both our Sharonville, Ohio and Brookville, Indiana plants from 2002 to 2016 in a number of management capacities. Starting today, Brian will be our Director of International Licenses.

As International Licenses Director, Brian will use his vast refractory knowledge base to communicate, teach and collaborate with both current and prospective URC Licensees around the world.

Please join us in welcoming Brian back to URC!

With a ceramic engineering degree from Missouri S&T and over 20 years of refractory experience at Vesuvius, Plibrico LLC and Holland Mfg., Justin has an extensive knowledge of the industry.

In particular, Justin has monolithic experience ranging from low moisture technologies to plastics to precast… all key product areas that are critical for URC to deliver 4USERVICE to its customers.

Relative to our customers, Justin’s experience lines up well with our customer base, as he has developed and pioneered products for the aluminum, iron, steel, incineration, cement and HPI Industries.

Aside from a vast product development resume and multiple patents, Justin also has extensive experience in raw material sourcing and QA disciplines… key areas that bridge the gap between good research ideas and robust products that cost effectively perform for end users.

URC’s main objective is to continue to improve our 4USERVICE and provide increasing levels of value to our customers. We believe Justin will be a great leader and teammate to make this happen!

To provide more focus, support and 4U Service for customers in the foundry segment, we have made the following alignment improvements in our sales team.

Brent Buchcuski Director URC FOUNDRY Market

Entering his sixth year at URC, Brent brings nine years of supervisory experience at all levels of the foundry, including the job as foundry and melt area manager.  Brent will continue to work with Rick and Pat in the Midwest, along with working with all other URC salesman on foundry market details. These details range from collaborating on key account strategies to joint calls to input on product development needs for the foundry application. Brent will be accountable for maintaining and growing our sales to direct foundry accounts and foundry distributors.

Ron Stewart Foundry Sales/Service Rep

URC is pleased to welcome Ron Stewart to the team!  Ron will be coming on board at the end of July in the role of Foundry Sales/Service Representative.  Ron will be a great compliment to our foundry group, which is an industry leading source for products, knowledge and support.

Ron has been at Cadillac Castings for 30+ years and has held various management positions including foundry, finishing, and melting.  For the last 17 years, Ron has held the position of Melt Superintendent.  In this role he was responsible for all aspects of the melting operation including the cupola, channels, repairs, and auto-pouring.  He has been an active member of AFS and has done several presentations at Cast Expo and Casting Congress.  Currently, he is the Chairman of the 8F Cupola Committee.

We are excited to add Ron’s experience and knowledge to our team, as his background and people skills will improve our ability to add real 4U Service Value to numerous accounts and distributors.  Ron will report to Brent and be based out of Kalamazoo, MI.

URC is exhibiting at Booth 420 on April 25-27^th in Milwaukee, WI their latest industry leading refractory products designed for Aluminum, Iron and Steel along with their PriorityU Technical Services and 1Source turn-key product and project offerings.  Sales and Technical staff will be hand to discuss and help provide information on how URC can add value to their customer’s operation!

URC is excited to announce that Mike Rzepczynski has joined URC! Mike, who was formerly at Harbison-Walker, has been in the refractories industry for 31 years and brings a great deal of refractory knowledge to the team.  He will focus on the aluminum market, but also cover other industrial applications in his Midwest geographic area out of his home base in St. Louis, MO.

“Tom brings a great deal of experience to the United team, as he has an excellent combination of sales, management and technical skills” Jim Caprio VP sales and marketing

Tom Robich has over 36 years of experience in the refractories industry with Harbison-Walker Refractories Co. Throughout this 36 year career at HW, Tom held various territory sales positions, starting in Houston, Texas and progressing to a larger maintenance territory in Dallas, Texas. After 6 years in Texas, Tom moved into a new application-focused glass sales assignment in Toledo, Ohio for 4.5 years and then progressed to project sales in Pittsburgh, Pa., handling all new furnace construction activity in the US and Canada for the next 2 years. Tom’s career path continued into technical marketing as he assumed the position of Marketing/Application Manager for Non-Ferrous Metals for the next 5 years. After this assignment, Tom moved to Indianapolis, Indiana as the Regional Sales Manager for the next 3.5 years. Tom was then called back to Pittsburgh, Pa. as Senior Director-Industrial Metals Sales Unit and held this position for 15 years.

“Tom’s professionalism and customer focused approach fits perfectly with our 4U customer service, as he will help us improve and get to the next level of customer solutions and service.”….Doug Niesen CEO

In addition to many years of strategic planning, account development and sales process design experience , Tom holds a BA in Economics & Administrative Management Science from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MBA in General Management from Bowling Green State University.

This presentation is an overview of the basics regarding form design and refractory composition, selection and properties, including the importance of refractory conditioning and proper introduction of the metal.

The American Foundry Society (AFS) will be hosting the International Ferrous Melt Conference in Nashville, TN  USA.  At this conference, experts from around the world will be presenting on various iron and steel topics ranging from alloy and treatment ladle optimization to refractories.

URC’s Johnathan Nguyen will be presenting a paper entitled “Channel Furnace Refractory Maintenance” during Session 5 on Friday, October 9^th at 10AM. 

http://www.afsinc.org/news/event.cfm?EventID=40131  

UNITECR – September 15-18, 2015 – Vienna, Austria

The Unified International Technical Conference (UNITECR) has become the most important international conference for the presentation and sharing of technical ideas and findings in the refractory world. UNITECR brings together the refractory industry, raw material suppliers, consumers, and scientists.

This year at UNITECR, United Refractories will be hosting a presentation session over the advantages of refractories with cement free bonding systems. The presentation is based on the technical paper, “Gel Bonded Cement Free Shotcrete” written by Richard Volk, Johnathan Nguyen, and James Caprio.

This year, UNITECR is being held in Vienna, Austria from September 15^th through the 18^th. Johnathan Nguyen will be presenting for United Refractories. This session, covering cement free shotcretes, will be held in the “Monolithics IV” lecture, September 17^th from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

http://www.unitecr2015.org/

United Refractories Co. will be exhibiting this year at the GIFA Expo in Düsseldorf, Germany, from June 16th through June 20th, 2015.

As the world's largest and most comprehensive foundry technology focused trade show, GIFA provides a fantastic opportunity for URC to not only connect with its existing global network, but reach out to new potential international refractory manufacturing and distribution partners.

From an industry standpoint, URC will focus on Metal Casting for both Ferrous (Steel & Iron) and Non-Ferrous (Copper & Aluminum) applications at GIFA.

URC will be featuring its market leading UNI-RAM VR Coreless dry-vibratable technology, the UNI-SHOT/PUMP RF CF “Gel Bonded” no cement series and its FOUNDRY SOLUTIONS approach for steel and iron applications.

Find United Refractories Co. at GIFA in Hall 10, Stand D77!

Click here for more information on GIFA.
Click here for more information on URC industrial capabilities.

Just in case you missed it, on Monday, October 6th United Refractories Co. was showcased on Manufacturing Marvels, a 2 minute production that spotlights American manufacturers and their unique products, competencies and facilities! You may now watch the segment here!

The development of our new Brookville, Indiana facility coupled with our continued focus on quality, customer service and product development are just a few of the reasons that United Refractories Co. was highlighted by the producers at Manufacturing Marvels.

Contact a URC sales representative today to learn more about our 4U Service methodology.

We introduced our dynamic "4U Service" positioning at the CASTEXPO and Metalcasting Congress in 2013–four points of difference anchored in quality, response, product and trust that further distinguish URC from its competitors.

 

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our company’s founder, Raymond J. Niesen, on Saturday, April 6^th, 2013. 

All who knew him — as a loving husband, father and grandfather… as a trustworthy friend or stalwart brother-in-arms… as an earnest and honest businessman… and as one of the guys who “done good” from Pittsburgh’s North side — know that today the world is a little more dull, a little less smart, and a lot less colorful without Ray in it.

If a life well-lived is indeed its own monument, then what Ray leaves behind in family, friends and in our company will stand tall and true for generations to come.

To learn a little more about Ray, visit his biography page.

To visit Ray’s memorial page and for service information, click here.

Building on it's reputation for quality, technology and service, URC is moving its UNI-REF INC. plant to a new, much larger and modern facility. Read more.

Come visit us at CastExpo in Booth #2095 April 6-9, 2013!

Richard J. Volk receives 2012 Theodore J. Planje – St. Louis Refractories Award. This award was established “for the purpose of recognizing and honoring distinguished achievement in the refractories field.” Rick will receive this honor at the American Ceramic Society 48th Annual Symposium held at the Hilton St. Louis Airport Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. CONGRATULATIONS RICK!

China Foundry Expo – China Metal: China International Exhibition Center, May 9th – 12th

Fundi-Expo 2012, Monterrey, NL, Mexico Convention Center, April 23rd – 27th

AFS Metal Casting Congress & Expo, Columbus Ohio Convention Center, April 17th – 20th

United Refractories Co. launches new web platform: Our new site amplifies and simplifies customer and employee access to product-related materials, plus makes it easier for prospects to connect directly with staff.