Kansas governor visits Superior Boiler new facility in Hutchinson

Superior Boiler, LLC celebrated the opening on Wednesday of a new water tube manufacturing facility that it relocated from Richmond, Virginia to Hutchinson, after considering four other sites in other states.

Gov. Laura Kelly attended the event to congratulate the company on its $2.786 million investment in Reno County.

"Kansas is lucky to have Superior Boiler Works join an exciting roster of cutting-edge business choosing to call our state home," Kelly said.

Founded in Hutchinson in 1917, Superior Boiler has operated and manufactured boilers for more than 100 years. With the acquisition of Richmond-based English Boiler LLC last year, it expanded into water tube and flex tube technology, employing around 40 more people.

The water tubes are utilized for steam generation and will go into the company's line of steam-generating boilers used for industrial situations.

Adding the water tube technology and moving its operation to Hutchinson's centralized location grew the company's sales by a third, according to Don Whitman, Vice President and General Manager of the Water Tube Division, who moved here from Virginia with the operation.

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It also allowed for the entirety of Superior's boilers to be made in Kansas.

Whitman offered a great example of what the water tube technology can be used for, noting Cargill Salt in Hutchinson uses its boilers in salt extraction. This is done by forcing steam into the ground to dissolve the salt into the water, to then be collected.

Superior Boiler President and CEO of Doug Wright announced new developments with the move and said Kansas created a huge opportunity for the company to grow.

"Enough pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place and we couldn't be more thrilled about being here in Hutchinson," said Wright.

With this move, he said, there are more jobs coming to Kansas for the business.

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"If you know somebody's brother or cousin that needs a job, we want you to come out here and work," Witten said. "We are hiring every week. We've got more boilers, more backlog than we know what to do with, so we need Kansans to come to work."

Witten also announced two new patents, which were developed by his team of engineers in June. These patents focus on hot fluid generator designs.

Kelly used the event to speak on the "aggressive" work her team has done for the Kansas economy.

"Making these improvements supports our aggressive goal," she said. "We will not settle for being anything less than the best in the Midwest in preparing people for emerging opportunities."

Moving more business capital to the state is "setting the stage for sustained growth," Kelly said.

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Kelly's administration has focused on economic development throughout the pandemic. After adding $2.5 billion in investments in the state last year, Kelly said 2021 has already exceeded that record.

This move was supported by the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce. Both organizations directly contributed to the move.

Multiple members attended the opening, including two Kansas Department of Commerce members cited as major contributors to accomplishing the project — Alicia Hutchings, manager of business recruitment, and Marla Canfield, in-state development project manager of the South Central region.

Debra Teufel, president and CEO of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce was also cited as a major contributor to the project.

"We worked as a community and a state to make the case for Superior Boiler to continue to invest in a place that they had been for over 100 years," Teufel said. "It wasn't a foregone conclusion that it would be here in Hutchinson, there were many competitive elements they had to evaluate."

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Today, they are the United State's leading company in boiler manufacturing, as well as the green energy leader within the industry. One of their latest innovations includes expansion into a clean-air emissions technology.

The boilers they create range from industrial-level technology like their Waste Heat recovery boilers, to large residential use, like their Domestic Low-Temperature Hot Water boilers. They also announced a new design of water tube boiler used for steam generation, named the "Cheyanne."

Superior Boiler has shipped more than 21,000 boilers throughout the United States and worldwide, as well as manufacturing industrial boilers used for steam processing.