DeZURIK opened its Sartell, MN plant to the public Sept. 22 for its 90th birthday party.
The big public turnout astonished DeZURIK employees. At least 1,750 people lined up for tours at the plant from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Each tour group ranged in size from 30 to 50 people. The visitors, including many children, gaped at the giant valves in the plant, one of them 12 feet wide. And many in the tour groups remarked on the sheer size of the DeZURIK plant – more than 400,000 square feet.
Each tour began with a verbal presentation and slide show by Scott Crane, DeZURIK’s chief financial officer. The company was founded in 1928 by Matt DeZurik of Sartell, a self-styled genius of a tinkerer and born inventor who worked for the Sartell St. Regis Paper Mill at that time. The paper mill was desperately in need of a valve to regulate the flow of wood-pulp-and-water slurry vital for paper production. DeZurik decided to invent a valve just for that purpose. After tinkering in his garage, what he came up with revolutionized paper production, and that valve and its variations are still used nearly 100 years later in the paper-making industry. DeZurik then opened his own business in a brick building of only 2,400 square feet that still remains on the current DeZURIK site. Matt DeZurik was head of the company for about two decades. The company he founded became, along with the paper mill, one of the economic bedrocks of Sartell and remains so today even though the paper mill shut down after an explosion and death.
One of the informational stops on the tour was the engineering test lab where employee Craig Pundsack explained how valves are designed and then prototypes of them are made in two 3-D printing machines. The prototypes are then analyzed, fine-tuned, tested and pondered over by experts in all areas of the design and production. That way, Pundsack said, any kinks or flaws can be worked out before production begins, which he said is the surest way to ensure quality products and to prevent having to start the process all over again, from scratch, which would be a waste of money and time.
DeZURIK’s biggest sales are in valves for water and waste-water-treatment systems. Other kinds of valves are made for power plants, pulp and paper productions, mining operations, and refining and chemical processes.