Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick Caouette.
Rick, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 1989 I lived in Central Texas and was fresh out of college buying and selling real estate, flipping property and doing construction. The Iraq war took all my customers and tenants so I came up with the brilliant idea of moving to Queens NY and starting a clothing company called Bond Street Clothing. Basically, we were the Kirby Vacuum of clothing. I would take the high-end ladies clothes into homes in Queens because they didn’t have a Galleria or Malls and they had to go into Manhattan or Long Island to shop. In 1991 I came back to Texas and met someone who owned an Aerospace company doing lab analysis on engines. I thought this was pretty cool and he hired me to do Marketing and Sales for a new chemical fuel additive. Within a couple years I was running his sales department and took them from 4 sales reps to 24 and grew the business by 70%. They had some trouble with the FAA so I spun off and started my own company developing filters, hardware, and kits for the aerospace industry. I knew a lot of buyers and OEM companies so it was a good fit. Founded in 1995 to service corporate and regional aircraft we have emerged as a very specialized boutique manufacturer of filters, hardware and custom kitting for the aerospace industry.
We have over 100 FAA PMA projects in the hopper and full certification and FAA approvals on 27 filter projects such as Nitrogen Gas Filters for Boeing and Airbus, Cabin Air Filters, Oil Fuel and Hydraulic elements for Boeing, Airbus, Canadair Regional Jets, Embraer Regional Jets, Bell Helicopter, and all corporate aircraft configurations such as DeHavilland, Cessna, Learjet, Falconjet, Beechcraft and many others. We are fully approved and vetted by the FAA and carry full certification to AC0056B programs and are ISO9001 compliant.
We are a Boeing Licensed supplier and currently, we have 30 projects for Boeing in the works with another 5 tanker filters that we were approved within a conference in San Diego in August of this year. Being a licensed supplier we will have access to the specifications and drawings which will fast-track any PMA applications. Also, we are working with Southwest Airlines on a new Hydraulic program utilizing the metal fiber sintered media to remove the contaminants from the Hydraulic systems and will reduce maintenance costs by 10 times. An unprecedented accomplishment in filtration solutions. If the testing on these elements does what we think it will, it will reduce their maintenance cost by 10 times. In 2016 we achieved approval from the FAA on a series of NGS (Nitrogen Gas Filters) for commercial aircraft. These were mandated on every carrier aircraft by 2018. Highly technical and highly efficient NGS filters take the contaminants out of the air and produce pure air which is converted to nitrogen and keeps the fuel from burning everything up if there is a crash.
Another program we have is custom Kitting solutions for Boeing, United Technologies, Honeywell and much more. We can build 100, 200, 300-hour maintenance kits. All variations of filter maintenance kits for Boeing Aircraft for APU’s, Fuel Pump Filter modules, air filter pressurization modules, IDG and CSD Scavenge filter kits and more.
Has it been a smooth road?
Right after starting our company, my previous employer sued me for breach of a Non-Compete. Because they had issues with the FAA that eventually resulted in them losing their lab authorization, we didn’t think it was a big deal. But we lost a lot of sleep and they made it into an expensive ordeal for a new company. We had to hire an attorney to help us fight them off. His name was Rusty Hardin. Luckily he was just getting started in his private practice and he took our case and made short work of it.
Then we finally felt we were off and running but the first filter we received from a manufacturing company in California had some issues. We had a contract with Cessna to provide an element and the units we received around Christmas were defective. To add insult to injury, the manufacturer sidestepped and an agreement he had to supply these same elements exclusively to another vendor who threatened to sue us if we did not cease and desist. That manufacturer filed bankruptcy and we had to find a new supplier to stay in business. The new manufacturer we found was Western Filter and we were one of the largest distributors for them for 14 years. The owner sold the company to Donaldson, a billion dollar filter giant who promptly canceled our distributorship. We found another manufacturing company, Parker Hannifin, who we sent hundreds of elements to and sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Purchase orders and after 3 years, they could not produce the product for us. So we are now doing it through a series of third-party manufacturing in China, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
What sets us apart from others is the idea that we can produce a very good product and an extremely competitive price without sacrificing quality along the way. We are a smaller company so the attention to the customer is there along with being able to react quickly to an opportunity or situation. We have been on the Houston 100 fastest growing company list, the INC 500 fasted growing private companies in the United States.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Houston is one of the most diverse climates for business you can find. Here you have a very deep base of employees from universities and the very large workforce that are talented and hungry. You have a banking system that caters to small businesses and helps companies grow. There is a diversity not only in the people but access to facilities to either build or lease space, there are technological advantages as well as being close to NASA, the energy sectors and other businesses. There are groups like the EO Houston group that will bend over backward as peers to assist you and give you advice based on years of experience. You can not get that in college and can not buy it. It comes from taking the hits, learning, adjusting and coming back to do it again.
Contact Info:
- Address: 6115 Skyline Drive
Houston, Texas 77057 - Website: www.globalfiltration.com
- Phone: 713-856-9800
- Email: rick@globalfiltration.com
- Instagram: globalfiltration
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/globalfiltration
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
