SILVER CREEK – Old and new come together at the S. Howes plant in Silver Creek. Silver Creek Village Board members recently took a tour of the facility and its new expansion.

The company, which has been located in Silver Creek since 1856, made its name manufacturing grain cleaning equipment. Now, the company makes mixers, separators, grinders, filters and other equipment used in food, chemical and biomass industries across the globe.

Village Board members were guided through the plant by Owner Fred Mertz, whose family bought the business in 2001.

Several board members had past experiences with the plant, but had not been inside for many years.

“My father worked here in the ’60s,” Mayor Nick Piccolo said.

Although the plant has been updated, there were still old touches left in much of the plant, including an old safe full of catalogs detailing equipment previously manufactured by S. Howes, antique doors and a meeting room original to the 1940s.

Mertz introduced board members to employees still onsite after the normal workday had concluded. Many of the workers are also village residents.

One of the employees is Piccolo’s neighbor Carl Ewing, head engineer at S. Howes.

Ewing explained the function of the pieces of equipment in the test lab.

“Companies are able to rent this equipment and see if they like it. Recently a kitty litter company rented one of our mixers and liked it so much they ordered two of those big mixers you saw being built in the other building,” he said.

Also in the test lab was a noticeably older piece of machinery.

“That is a wooden grain cleaner from the 1920s,” Ewing explained. “S. Howes was built on that kind of machinery. We have people call us all the time saying they found a 75-year-old S. Howes machine and want to know if we can make it work again.”

Ewing said engineers are in the vault daily looking up old machines so that the parts can be manufactured. S. Howes does this for newer machines as well.

Mertz pointed out a filtration system, one of the company’s new additions to its equipment line. He said S. Howes sold a million and a half filtration systems last year.

Mertz along with Manufacturing Manager Paul Allen showed the board the new addition. The expansion of the plant used to be a parking lot and was built to accommodate a larger crane.

“We needed the crane capacity because we are doing larger and larger projects,” Allen said. “We hope this also allows us to grow.”

Mertz explained when his family bought the company there was a “strategic product repositioning” and Allen makes sure the plant maintains a “lean manufacturing concept and makes sure everything is efficient.”

“There are always opportunities to lose money,” Mertz said. “We try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He said one of the challenges S. Howes faces is a lack of engineers to hire.

Piccolo said the entire board was surprised by the difference inside the plant from what they remembered years ago.

“I was very impressed with all the improvements and advancements they have made overtime. It is a positive and great thing to have the company in the village and we want to see them be able to expand,” he added.

Trustee Warren Kelly thanked Mertz for the tour.

“I want to thank Fred Mertz and his company, S.Howes, for making a decision to invest in his company and in the village of Silver Creek. We appreciate his faith in our village. And the village board will support his company now and in the future in any way that we can,” he said.

For more information on S. Howes visit its website showes.com.