FocusOn Global Insights is a series of interviews with executives from the manufacturers that serve the industries you, our readers.
For 2024 we have an interesting line up for these FocusOn Global Insights Interviews and we kick off the New Year with Marty Silverman, Vice President of Marketing at General Pipe Cleaners. Marty is the third generation of Silverman leadership. Fourth generation Silverman’s are now working at the company.
FocusOn Publisher Rick Vandekieft sat down with Marty for a virtual interview to talk about past, present and future.
Rick Vandekieft (FocusOn) When did you join the family working at General Wire Spring Company and what was your first job?
Marty Silverman (MS) That’s a long time ago. I would come to the factory with my father on weekends and he would put me to work sweeping and doing all sorts of odd jobs.
FocusOn General Wire Spring Company is truly a family affair, how many Silverman’s are working at the company today?
MS So, my father and uncle have never officially retired even though my father is 90 and my uncle is 87. I worked with my brother and four cousins. And three of their children have joined the business. So, I think 11. That’s the second, third, and fourth generation in that headcount.
FocusOn Marty, we all hear about so many companies that participate in the same industries as you do, that have been bought up by conglomerates, and the number of family businesses left as is getting fewer and fewer, but it’s always a joy to talk to those that have remained as family business. Has Pittsburgh always been the home of General Wire?
MS Yes, it has, although this is our fourth location. My grandfather Abe Silverman first started the business as a spring manufacturer in 1930. He broke away from his uncle’s business, Rapid Wire Spring Company, to start General Wire Spring. Interesting story, how we got the name General Wire Spring, my grandfather he needed a name of the business and his brother-in-law said, well, what’s good for General Motors should be good for you, so we became General Wire.
In 1930, we were based on a small building on First Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. In 1936, he needed a larger spring coiler that just wouldn’t fit in the building. He had to move from there to the building on Second Avenue, in the uptown part of the city. And that’s fortunate because just a month later, the big 1936 flood hit Pittsburgh and flooded the whole downtown area. Had we still been in our original location the whole business would have been underwater and out of business.
So just because we needed bigger space, it saved the business. From there, we moved to the south Side of Pittsburgh, in the ‘40s, and then in the late ‘60s we moved to where we are on McKees Rocks, just down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. Since then, we’ve added on the building several times, so we’ve had quite a run over these last 93, almost 94 years.
FocusOn That’s quite the travels! I do spend a lot of time with manufacturers and almost always, staffing shortages comes into the conversation. Almost all have a difficult time finding qualified people to work in the factories. Is this also a problem with your company?
MS I’m sure many businesses have had that issue of getting a workforce during a time when there’s a shortage of people. We’re lucky that we have not just the ownership as a family, but a lot of our employees are also related to each other. They’re brothers, brothers-in-law, fathers, uncles, grandfathers. We have some guys here that their grandfather worked with my grandfather, which is pretty cool. So, we figured out probably about 40% of the workforce is related to one another.
It’s a family business both on the factory floor and in the office.
FocusOn When did drain cleaning products become a major part of the company?
MS Well, that’s an interesting story. We were an originally a manufacturer of custom industrial springs back then. One day, a plumber came in and asked, can you make this spring. It was a drain cleaning snake. My grandfather said, yeah, we can do that easily. And then he figured a way to make it better
Back then all drain cleaning cables were hollow. My grandfather came up with an idea of putting a wire rope, the same thing used in suspension bridges, inside the cable to make it stronger and less likely to kink than the hollow cables, and patented it. And from there, we started making replacement cables for other brands of drain cleaning machines and grew the business there. At the first rental shows, people didn’t believe how strong our cables were. The big player in the rental industry for drain cleaning back then was a company named Burton. They made a hollow cable and that’s what everybody had. No one really believed that our cable was so strong and that we would guarantee it for a year. So, we had to give a few away to get people to try them out. But over the years, rental centers started buying our cables and putting it in the other brand machine. And then we thought, well, let’s make the machine for them as well. We started making drain cleaning machinery in the ‘40s. And open cage drain cleaning machinery for the rental industry in the ‘60s.
FocusOn When I was looking at some of the company history, it looked like that that’s the Flexicore that you’re talking about, right?
MS That’s right. First came the patented Flexicore cables, and then we design machines for them. So, the very first machine was called the Sewerooter for clearing 3” to 10” drain lines.
And, then we introduced the Sewerooter Junior, a smaller version of the original, to clear smaller 2” to 4” lines.
Actually, our current machine, the Sewerooter T-4 is an evolution of the original Sewerooter Junior. It’s carried forward in various designs. The other machine that’s come a long way was the handheld power sink machine called the Handylectric. My grandfather liked to combine words for machine names. So, it’s not Handy and Electric. It’s Handylectric, without the E in front of it.
That evolved into the Super-Vee, which had a different kind of chucking system, instead of a Jacobs chuck, the Super-Vee had a slide-action chuck. And then from there, we designed an automatic feed system that’s used today on the Power-Vee.
The Power-Vee of today, was originally introduced in an earlier form in the ‘40s as the Handylectric. So, you can see a lot of longevity in our products as we developed it and advanced the design through the years.
FocusOn Yes and when you’re talking about longevity, an invention like Flexicore 80 years ago and it still becomes an industry standard, now that’s longevity.
MS That’s right.
FocusOn On the General Pipe Cleaners website, it lists that you’re company is doing business in 80 countries. Have you had an opportunity to visit some of the dealers around the world?
MS I’m not part of the international sales division. My cousin David Silverman does that. My father created our international sales division that first. So, we have representation and distributors in many countries around the world. I have visited a few of them as a tourist but not as a sales manager. That role belongs to David. So, I just enjoy traveling, and I’ve been to 57 countries and all seven continents.
And I’m always looking inside plumber’s trucks wherever I go.
FocusOn Yeah, I’m sure.
I was reading about when you first introduced the camera system, it was the first sewer camera. Was everybody on board with that or did they think it was kind of a gimmick and that wouldn’t catch on? It’s kind of a change in direction from the cleaning equipment.
MS Actually, while my role is in the marketing and advertising, and I’ve always had an interest in video production. So I had a good feel for what the video inspection camera was and what it could do way back then. In the late ‘80s, inspection cameras were big expensive trucks and, miniaturization hadn’t really caught on yet. Then we introduced our portable video inspection camera in the early 90’s. Back then it was black and white picture and we were the first to include a recording device – a VCR – remember those?
FocusOn Yes I do! I still have one to view the old family tapes!
MS That was novel. And the monitor box weighed nearly 50 pounds because it was long before a flat screen TV’s. But we saw a market for it and launched into it a long time ago. The technology has advanced through the years, cameras have gotten much more compact and lighter weight than they were originally. But in the drain cleaning industry, we were one of the pioneers in the video inspection category, and I believe the first in the rental business to offer a camera system.
FocusOn That answers my next question which is, ‘Is the Gen-Eye inspection system an important part of the rental business?
MS It is, I would say, cameras are the most asked about product at the rental trade shows. Mostly because it’s new. People know about our Flexicore cable drain cleaning machines and that they are reliable and don’t wear out. So, rental stores don’t need another one because the machine they bought from us years ago is still working just fine. They’re so satisfied with its longevity and performance they say, ‘I like that machine, what else have you got?’ So, they ask about our camera systems.
Mostly, I think, because rental customers have been asking to rent a camera because they see their plumber using it. We tend to down-sell the camera. We explain that the camera is not a drain cleaning tool, it’s an inspection tool. And what your renters are going to do is they’re going to say, oh, I see a stoppage. And then, instead of going back and renting the right tool for the job, they are going to see if they can push that stoppage out with a camera head.
Now, putting a camera into a sewer line, is like putting your stereo down the drain, it’s not as durable as our Flexicore snakes. So, we have to teach that it can be a lot more expensive to repair the camera, and there will be a repair needed at the end of the day. I think our customers really appreciate our honesty. We recommend that you should rent cameras to contractors and building maintenance people. It’s not really a homeowner device because if they break it, it’s going to cost you a lot more.
Our customers have been with us for so long. We’ve been exhibiting at the rental show for more than 50 years. They appreciate that we give them a straight story on this. Cameras are a good tool for one application, not for every application.
FocusOn Well, absolutely, when you have built customer loyalty, you trust them and they trust you. As you know, that’s interesting what you say about the Gen-Eye say that, Marty, because we have featured Gen-Eye in FocusOn Equipment Rentals and Industry Insider – Equipment Rentals, and it always has very, very high readership and views of the video. So, hopefully, the education is getting through to these rental guys that it is an inspection system, not a drain cleaning system.
Moving on to the rental show, I’m sure you’ve been to many. Have you got any idea how many times you’ve attended the ARA rental show?
MS Well, I’ve been here 41 years, and I probably gone to the ARA show almost every year.
I mean, our company has been going to the show for 50+ years. But, the last couple of years, I’ve let the younger guys go to that show instead. I know that they are looking forward to New Orleans as the next location.
FocusOn What do you really see as the next challenge facing the rental industry? Not necessarily your business, but the rental industry in general?
MS Well, the days when independent rental stores were the mainstay of rental, we had people behind the counter who knew the product, knew the customers, and could make sure the customer knew how to use the product before it was rented out.
As the industry has shifted towards large box rental stores, oftentimes the person renting out the tool doesn’t know the tool or the customer, and is not able to teach them how to use it properly. So, we see a lot more issues with like mistreated tools and injured customers to the big boxes than the independents.
I miss the days where the independents had a well-trained staff, and I would encourage the larger stores to make sure the counter people and customers are properly trained. What we do to help make sure the customers know how to use the machine properly is we have an instructional video for each machine that they can watch before using the machine. There’s a QR code on each machine they can scan with their phone and watch the video to learn how to operate the machine safely before they use it. We also have laminated instructions attached to each machine. They can see that also. So, we’re trying to make sure that the customers that rent the machine use it properly and safely.
FocusOn Do you track how many views you get on those instructional videos? As you know, video production is not cheap so it’s great to have numbers on how much it’s used.
With all of the different vendors that we deal with, advertisers on various equipment that’s very simple or very complicated, I find the approach that you’re taking is one of the best and then there is no excuse for not knowing how to properly use it. Everything is there available to them.
MS Yes, and we do—you know, we can track how many clicks the QR code gets, and the Easy Rooter —so our flagship rental machine, gets the highest view rates of any video out there. So, I think they’re getting used a lot.
FocusOn Marty, when the day ends for you, the workday ends for you, what has made it a good day?
MS Well, I enjoy working with my family. I worked with my father for many years, it was wonderful, and now with my brother and cousins. I enjoy talking to customers as well. It’s interesting, when I started 40+ years ago, my father was the answer man. Now, I’m the answer man here. And it’s nice to train my younger cousins and help them out. I enjoy writing as well. And at the end of the day, I like to go off to the ski slopes in the wintertime or paddle the wonderful rivers around Pittsburgh in the summertime.
FocusOn Keeps you in shape! Great! My last question was, based on the rumors circulated that Marty Silverman was retiring. But now listening to you talk about family and the Silverman history it doesn’t sound like Silverman’s ever retire from the business.
MS Well, that’s true. Though I expected to retire. No one has actually officially retired here, so I would be breaking new ground. But if I see that I will be needed here in one form or another, I’ll be the answer man. If I could do the Vulcan mind meld to transfer all my years of experience into somebody else’s mind, that might be faster.
But I’m happy to be a resource if needed. And if so, I’m in the office a couple days a week, and the rest of the week I am enjoying my home in the mountains and getting outdoors.
FocusOn Excellent! As a partner in media with General Wire for several years, I look forward to our relationship continuing for many years to come. We always enjoy our interactions with you and your team, and I hope that you follow the Silverman tradition of staying involved for many, many years to come.
MS Yes, some great memories. Do you the show in I believe Atlanta, when a big winter storm hit the northeast and I was the only one from General that was able get out of the city before the airports closed down. So, I was in the booth by myself. A lot of the attendees couldn’t get there either. So the show was pretty dead the first couple of days.
Yeah, there’s lots of stories over the years. I was thinking of another wonderful experience at the rental show when a good customer from Montreal became President of the ARA. I don’t know if he was the first Canadian President, but many Canadian flags were waving in the audience as he took the stage. That was the year the featured entertainment at the event was Ray Charles.
FocusOn Yes, that was one of the great shows. Marty, I really appreciate your time, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you and I do Iook forward to sharing more and more of the stories when we next get together.