Chant Engineering operates from this facility in New Britain, Pennsylvania.
“Tat was where we landed, and then some research showed that there were some universities working on giant rooms with UVC—filling a room with a thousand masks and sanitizing—but we were thinking about something much smaller, a box. I asked them, how fast can we do it?
“I also thought, if we can make this inexpensive, and help people and keep my guys busy in the shop making it, then everybody wins. And that’s how it really all started.”
CORE FUNCTIONS Chant Engineering currently boasts 15 engineers, the majority of whom have been there ten years or more. “We have some recent grads who work here as well, and a few of the guys are professional engineers,” indicated Chant. “Our disciplines are multiple—hydraulic, electrical, mechanical, software—so we have a pretty wide gamut of engineers in order to do a lot of custom stuff.” Chant said the decision was made years ago to be a
very diversified business. “And for instances like what’s happening today—so that if one area is down, the other area could be up—we just want to be smart, long-term.” Chant Engineering is broken up into thirds. “About
a third is lifting/rigging, about a third is government and aviation, and about a third is general industry,” he added. “And all of that has a focus on test equipment and related products. So, test equipment is really how we started— one of the core functions—and as we’ve grown over the years, we’ve added lots of other products.” But the custom nature of the equipment the company produces for both the government and industrial sectors requires a healthy roster of engineers. “We engineer so much from scratch, so we need all
30 JULY–AUGUST 2020 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE
A family business (left to right): Andrew, Jim, Phil and Mason Chant
that engineering in-house,” said Chant. “To design everything, to build it, to test it.”
NEW WAY OF THINKING Once Chant and his engineers returned to HQ from Kansas City, they set to work on what would quickly become the 5 minute sanitizer “It was a very linear process,” he pointed out. “We wanted it simple. Easy to make. Affordable. And the whole goal behind it is to help the employees of organizations that have to wear masks. It was really easy for us to start from scratch, get a prototype built, get it tested—because we’re used to doing custom stuff.” Once the team was established, Chant was also encouraged to patent the invention. “Our patent attorneys came back and said there’s nothing on this— you should file a patent. Which we did.” Te team got off to a quick start, and, according to Chant, was focused on using materials they could find. “Like the box itself,” he explained. “You want a box
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