Wilsonville, Oregon-based SSI Shredding Systems Inc. has won the “Mayor’s Global Leader” award presented during a World Trade Week ceremony hosted by the Oregon Consular Corps. The annual event is designed to recognize companies that make significant contributions to Oregon’s economy through involvement in international trade.

SSI says its “Global Leader” award recognizes the company’s growing international business, its effective approach to building demand for its products globally and innovative methods of working with overseas partners.

SSI was founded in 1980 in Wilsonville by Tom Garnier. A combination of factors early on in the development of SSI influenced Garnier to expand into global markets, he says.

In an interview with the Port of Portland, Garnier commented, “We don’t really plan for growth—growth is a byproduct of a job well done. Our goal is to always do the job right, and if the money supports that and follows, then that means we have been successful in our task.”

Recounting part of SSI’s history, Garnier added, “I was very fortunate when I started the company that I met a gentleman from Korea and he took me on a walk along the Portland waterfront. He explained to me that when you have business outside the U.S., you expand your market share, so you are not totally reliant on the economy in your own country or state. You learn more about what the world’s needs are, so you are not just providing the world’s needs today but you are getting to look at what might be coming down the road.”

Garnier says he sold his first product overseas to Japan in 1987. Due to his time spent in Japan and interaction with manufacturers, he adopted principles from the Japanese manufacturing process that are still used in the SSI shop today.

SSI says its success in the Japanese market has allowed it to more easily do business in other areas of Asia, where the Japanese emphasis on quality and product longevity is well known.

In 1998, SSI supplied all of the shear shredding equipment for the Tuas South Incineration Plant, Singapore’s fourth and largest incineration site. SSI’s involvement in large fuel preparation projects in parts of Asia allowed it to get a head start on perfecting its technology and application experience, according to Garnier.

SSI has installed more than 3,000 systems in more than 60 countries. About half of its business is export business.

Says Garnier, “We get involved with someone who has a true need. Then we go through the discovery process of finding out what the true need is, and then we get to solve the puzzle and come up with a solution.”

This solutions-based approach with each customer has served SSI well in the international market, according to the firm. For example, Hong Kong prefers to landfill its waste because of public opposition to incineration. This has prompted the government to extend the life and modify some of the land requirements of its four existing landfills, so compacting the waste is critical.

The Hong Kong government and waste transfer station operators have been receptive to SSI’s compactor technology, which includes a reduced voltage electrical system to deal with power concerns the government has. They also wanted SSI’s compactor functionality, which gives them the option to pre-crush, pre-load and compact all in one machine. The transfer stations also had permitting regulations that wouldn’t allow them to do any compacting outside of the building. Thus, the compactors had to be much smaller. SSI redesigned its compacting equipment to have the same functionality but on a much smaller scale. SSI started selling equipment to Hong Kong in 1994, and by the end of 2016 all of the municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in Hong Kong will be compacted with SSI equipment.

A customer in Saudi Arabia who was decommissioning aircraft and other military equipment required a multi-purpose, portable solution that could withstand temperatures that can soar to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The customer also needed to process everything from metals and seats to vehicles, electronics and tires. SSI designed a machine that could process the wide range of material and operate in extreme heat.

An Australian company needed to process packaged, containerized, hazardous waste and it needed a consistent particle size. Due to the flammability of the waste, the customer required a nitrogen-purged system, which uses nitrogen to displace oxygen from the processing chamber to limit the risk of fire. SSI says it designed a wedge rollout system for the shredder, which allowed the customer to remove the shredder from this nitrogen-purged system for simpler, faster maintenance.