Yet, hundreds of people pass by the SES LLC facility every day and have no idea of the innovative work conducted there. 

Formed in 1976 as Steel Equipment Specialists, the company is a leading supplier for specially milled equipment in the metals and metals forming industry in the country. 

Members of the Alliance Rotary Club got a glimpse of the operation earlier this year when it took a tour of the facility with company CEO Rich Retort as well as Brooke McCarty, vice president of administration and marketing, and Jason Erb, vice president of engineered equipment sales. 

All three have been with the company for nearly 30 years and have been a part of its growth to a global company with 177 employees in the United States and Canada and revenue of more than $120 million annually. 

Those three SES officials don’t mind that most people are oblivious to what the company does.  

“It’s an internal joke around here that we like to fly under the radar,” said Retort. “We like to do our thing, keep our employees happy, keep their families healthy and safe, and just go on from there.” 

Retort addressed Rotarians from inside a basketball court that SES has on its premises for use by employees. The recreation area includes a fitness room and a kitchen area for their use. Its property features a walking trail as well. That is just one of the perks for the people who are the backbone of the success of SES as an industrial leader. 

“Most of the work we do here is a custom job. We don’t have templates that we go off of, and the innovation our employees come up with can be dramatic and is fantastic,” said Retort. 

That’s because the engineering teams at SES believe any problem can be solved. 

“There isn’t any project that we won’t take a look at,” said Retort. “It can’t be done is never our theory. We believe everything can be done for the right price and with enough time.” 

Home of the SUPERLEVELER, the world’s most powerful tension leveler at 280,000 pounds of tension, the list of services SES provides goes above and beyond that of a traditional engineering company. 

SES has two joint European ventures, owning 50 percent of both SES Salico in Italy, and SES Achenbach in Germany. Both companies perform the same kind of work in process lines with one difference. SES Salico works with materials 4 millimeters and larger, while SES Achenbach builds mills that work from 4 millimeters down to 4 microns, which is 10 times thinner than human hair. 

SES, which also has a small division in Canada as well as plants on Lake Park Boulevard, in Sebring, and in Leetonia, also has strategic partnerships with four other companies in Pittsburgh, Japan, Italy, and Germany. 

“These joint ventures and strategic partnerships allow us to compete with foreign companies,” said Retort. “Of course, we always choose to manufacture here in the U.S. if we can.” 

And SES supports other local shops. 

“We may have 177 employees, but we like to say that we actually support about 500 local families when you take into account the other local shops who rely on our business to keep them going,” said Retort. “That’s something we are very proud of here.” 

Retort also spoke with pride as he summarized many of the multi-million dollar projects that SES has been a part of from all over the world, including one in Siberia and another that made international headlines as the company works with SpaceX. 

SES improved the transporter that hauls the Falcon 9 rocket from the hangar horizontally and places it vertically onto the launch pad. 

“We went down for the initial launch and roll out,” explained Retort. “We were on site and pretty excited and we were told Elon Musk was watching on closed circuit TV. I started getting nervous when our electrical engineers said, ‘Well, we think it will work.’” 

It turned out, it worked perfectly. 

Prior to SES’s involvement in the project, the operation of moving Falcon X from hanger to launch pad took 7.5 hours to complete. Once SES installed its new car, the procedure was cut to 2 minutes, 38 seconds. 

And though it is reaching those kinds of engineering feats, area residents have no idea. 

“Did any of you realize that’s what we do here?” asked Erb following Retort’s remarks. As most Rotarians shook their heads, Erb continued, “See, we’re flying under the radar.”