Hartford Business Journal

14 Hartford Business Journal | February 8, 2021 | HartfordBusiness.com By David Krechevsky Special to the Hartford Business Journal B oris Levin sees advantages to leading an employee- owned company. Levin is CEO of Farmington-based Mott Corp., which is 100% owned by its approximately 250 employees, who design and manufacture high- precision filtration products for the aerospace, defense, healthcare and semiconductor industries worldwide. "When we do well, our employees do well," Levin said. "That's how we're able to attract very capable scientists and engineers who stay here for a long time." Another advantage is the shared responsibility for ensuring products are made with high precision and delivered on time. Meeting delivery schedules can be difficult, but during a pandemic it can be even harder, since an outbreak among employees could cause production delays. That's one reason Mott spends $30,000 every two weeks to test 150 employees at its manufacturing plant for COVID-19. Some staff members have tested positive, but the company has avoided shutdowns thanks to regular testing and other safety protocols, Levin said. Test results The aggressive and forward- thinking testing policy helped Mott secure a contract worth more than $10 million to manufacture and supply gas and liquid filtration systems for the PEMEX Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco, Mexico. Mott won the deal, announced in December, with help from Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, who connected the company with PEMEX via the U.S. Department of Commerce's Connecticut office and the Office of the Mexican Consul General in New York. PEMEX, officially Petróleos Mexicanos (Mexican Petroleum in English), is a government-owned oil company. As of 2018, according to statista.com, PEMEX was the second-largest company by revenue in Latin America, behind only the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobras. Levin said the PEMEX refinery is critical to Mexico, so the government wants to avoid production delays. Bysiewicz and Commerce Department officials helped PEMEX "to understand the amount of effort we go through to protect our employees," he said. He added that few companies test as many employees as Motts does. "At the end of the day," Levin said, "we want employees to come into work and feel there's an extra layer of protection." Rocket science Mott was founded as a family- owned business by Lambert (Bud) H. Mott, a graduate of the Stevenson School of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., with a degree in metallurgy. He served with the Navy in Guam during World War II, and after the war worked for 3M Corp. Levin, though, said Mott dreamed of starting his own business. That finally happened in 1959, when Mott and his wife, Judith, founded Mott Metallurgical Corp. in a rented four-bay garage in East Hartford. It manufactured porous metal, which Levin described as "tiny powders meshed together," creating a material that is like metal but has pores that allow liquids to filter through it. Mott's first customer was the U.S. Department of Defense, for which he collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on designing and manufacturing nose cones for military rockets. The porous metal helped keep the nose cones cool. Gray matter Mott Metallurgical relocated in the early 1970s, constructing two buildings in the Farmington Industrial Park at 84 and 75 Spring Lane, on the Farmington-Plainville line. Additional change came in 1993, when Mott was acquired by Harry Gray Associates, an investment group formed by the retired United Technologies Corp. CEO. At the time, Gray said he would take over as Mott CEO and use his contacts to double its $15 million in annual sales over the next five years, the Hartford Courant reported at the time. Bud Mott remained as president, but Gray's longtime friend and business partner, Roger Klene, assumed a significant hands-on role. The company rebranded in 1995 as Mott Corp. Eleven years later, as Gray prepared to step away, 100% of Mott Corp.'s stock was sold and transferred to an Employee Stock Ownership Trust. Klene became CEO; he retired in 2013 and Levin was hired to succeed him. Levin had previously served as group president for Nypro Healthcare in Clinton, Mass. New applications Today, Levin said, Mott's revenue, which has doubled in the past few years, "is in the neighborhood of $100 million." "We are growing by finding new applications for our technology," he said. Mott now serves four core markets: clean energy, defense and space exploration, medicine and semiconductors. It develops and manufactures technology to help make hydrogen generation cheaper, as well as filtration systems for fossil fuels to help them burn cleaner in refineries, like the one in Mexico. Levin described the PEMEX project as "technically challenging," and it "will force us to get creative." He said Mott likely will hire additional engineers and scientists to support it. "We hope to get more projects down the road with PEMEX and other Mexican customers," he said. Mott also helps serve the growing demand for increasingly smaller and more powerful semiconductors, which require filtration during the manufacturing process. As more devices become "smart" — from automobiles, appliances, and homes, to implantable medical devices that dispense medications — Mott is "positioned really well for this global trend," he said. Iqbal Shareef, a director at Freemont, Calif.-based Lam Research, said his company provides technology used in the production of semiconductors and praised Mott as "one of the best filtration suppliers in the world." Mott provides filters for the ultra- high-purity gasses Lam Research uses. "The No. 1 killer of semiconductor devices is particles," Shareef said. "Mott's filtration system arrests particles to the size of nanometers. We believe there is no other company that can match Mott in terms of performance and pricing." Mott Corp. CEO (right) and President Boris Levin talks with applications engineer Al Marena at the Farmington company's Spring Lane headquarters. Competitive Advantage Aggressive COVID testing policy wins Farmington manufacturer Mott Corp. new business At a Glance: Company: Mott Corp. Top Executive: Boris Levin, CEO HQ: 175 Spring Lane, Farmington Company Website: https://mottcorp.com/ Phone Number: 860-747-6333 PHOTO: | CONTRIBUTED

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