With an Eye on their Customers, California Compression Experiences Rapid Growth

California Compression is a relatively new authorized Sullair distributor—and company—but based on their quickly expanding footprint, you’d never know it.

Owners Jim Morgan, Scott Gerner, Tyler Costa and their team members have been in the compressed air business since 1975. Up until 2017, the team sold and serviced competitive compressed air equipment, but something wasn’t jiving.

A lot of our customers at the time didn’t feel valued,said Flavio Poenar, a senior advisor with the company. That doesn’t align with how we do business.

Morgan, along with co-founder Scott Gerner, went back to the drawing board. They wanted to build a company that was focused on valuing their customers and partner with a different OEM. In 2017, the duo founded a new company, California Compression, with only four employees at the time.

Around the same time, in early 2017, it just so happened Sullair was seeking a distributor in Northern California.

Sullair sought to have a strong, customer-focused partner in the Northern California territory, said Brian Tylisz, Senior Vice President, Sales, Americas. Northern California is a hub for high-tech, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and more. We were excited about the end-to-end capabilities and highly trained and experienced compressor team that we saw in California Compression.

Sullair and California Compression’s visions aligned, and the rest is history. California Compression now sells and services Sullair oil free and oil flooded industrial air compressors and air treatment equipment in central and northern California.

To say California Compression has been successful would be an understatement. California Compression has nearly doubled or tripled in size each year. Today, the company has 25 employees, including service technicians, sales and support staff. To accommodate the rapid growth, California Compression recently expanded its Livermore facility from what was 1,700 square feet to now 12,000 square feet. The new facility allows the team to better serve its customers. They’ve expanded their office support staff and their capabilities, too. They can now test and repair equipment, stock new equipment, and host training events and seminars.

With our ability to stock additional new equipment, we can lessen delivery times and better serve our customers, added Poenar. “It also makes a statement to anyone who walks into our facility that we mean business. We’re a full operation, from soup to nuts, and we’re ready to serve our customers.”

Number One Priority: Customers

Serving its customers and treating them as the number one priority is, in Poenar’s view, a differentiator and a key reason for California Compression’s success.

We understand that without compressed air, a customer’s operation is down, said Poenar. We play a critical role in a customer’s day-to-day success, and we keep that top-of-mind.

California Compression’s primary facility is in Livermore, a mid-sized community on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Livermore facility sells and services a mix of oil free and oil flooded compressors. Poenar estimates about 40% of California Compression customers use oil free compressed air systems, while 60% use oil flooded systems. Their customers come from several industries, including semiconductor, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, automotive, hospitals, power plants, refineries and water treatment.

We are very focused on our customer base and strive to create a true partnership by helping our customers achieve their goals, said Poenar. Our goal, as their partner, is to supply the most efficient compressed air equipment available while reducing energy costs and offering the safest, highest quality of workmanship available in today’s market. And that is exactly what Sullair products offer.

If the first four years are any indication, it’s clear California Compression is, once again, on its way to building perfection in Northern California.