By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Nordic Air, the Harpersfield Township industrial/military air conditioning manufacturer, has been acquired by HDT Engineered Technologies of Solon.
Nordic Air employs around 190 workers. How the sale will affect local employment levels was not addressed in a press release issued by The Abernathy MacGregor Group, public relations firm for HDT. A request for additional information from HDT was made through the firm, but the company’s response was “no comment.”
All requests for information made to Nordic Air were referred to Ron Clutter, who is out of town.
Ashtabula County Commissioner Joseph Moroski said Clutter spoke Wednesday at a meeting of the joint economic development district (JEDD) in which Nordic Air is located, and indicated the sale was “primarily a good news thing” for the area.
The amount and terms of the sale were not released, however, the press release from Abernathy MacGregor Group stated Clutter will join the HDT board of directors and continue to lead Nordic Air under HDT’s ownership. Moroski said Clutter indicated there would be a new corporate headquarters, but its location has not been determined.
One source said Clutter said Nordic would add “considerable” new employment in the next few months. Moroski said Clutter told the JEDD group he recently distributed $2.5 million in annual profit sharing bonuses to Nordic’s employees.
Nordic designs and manufactures air conditioning and ventilation equipment for heavy industrial and military applications. The company’s products have a reputation for being able to perform in the world’s harshest environments. HDT provides mobile-military and emergency response solutions, including rapidly deployable tactile shelters, highly engineered environmental control and power equipment, and nuclear, biological and chemical collective protection systems.
“Nordic has a long history of designing and delivering high quality environmental control units for industrial and military applications,” said John Gilligan, chairman of HDT International. “Nordic has built and exceptional reputation among the technical experts within the U.S. armed services and has demonstrated a first-class ability to assist military and industrial customers meet urgent needs and achieve mission success.”
HDT also recently acquired Airborne Systems Group, which specializes in troop parachute, aerial delivery systems and related products/services. HDT is operated separately but under HDT’s leadership. HDT is majority owned by the private equity firm, Metalmark Capital.
“We anticipate the common ownership of HDT, Nordic and Airborne Systems Group will help each entity better support the evolving needs of its customer base,” said Jeff Siegal, managing director of Metalmark Capital. “Like Airborne, the addition of Nordic further accelerates HDT International’s objective of providing innovative products and services that help military and emergency response organizations support lighter, more agile forces, which are able to quickly deploy, utilize technology-enabled applications, counter asymmetric threats and achieve mission success.”
