Clean rooms help Shelton company thrive
J.M. Coull, a full-service construction company, opened its new office in Shelton in April and has found that cleanliness, long a partner to Godliness, possesses a profit factor, as well.
“We have been working successfully in Connecticut for almost 10 years now and are currently working for a number of customers in Connecticut, so it makes good business sense for us put down roots in the area,” said Andrew Coull, president of J.M. Coull.?J.M. Coull, headquartered in Maynard, Mass., was founded in 1984.
“We”™re new in Shelton,” said Thomas Zabel, senior business development executive of the Shelton office of J.M. Coull. “We”™ve had substantial profits coming in over the past 10 years or so from the Connecticut area and we decided in order to service this area to put an office in Shelton.”
Besides general design and construction, J.M. Coull specializes in commercial clean rooms.
“A clean room is an environmentally sterile space that”™s used for manufacturing and or laboratory purposes,” said Zabel. “It”™s basically a space that takes all the dust, dirt and any atmospheric contaminants that you”™d normally have in a manufacturing or laboratory space and ensures that the space is sterile.”
According to Zabel, there are varied levels of clean rooms, most of them associated with laboratory operations as well as pharmaceutical, medical and semiconductor manufacturing.
“These can be places that are relatively clean to an operating-room level of clean, where people are dressed in clean suits from head-to-toe,” said Zabel. “What makes these rooms specialized is the equipment, layout and filtration systems that need to be put in place. It also has to do with the types of materials that go into the building of these facilities.”
Zabel said clean room construction is a process of tailoring results to each client”™s needs. The specialty has worked to the company”™s advantage in the economic slump. Â
“Everybody has been touched by the economy as a whole, especially commercial construction has been hurt the downturn,” said Zabel. “We are seeing some positive activity this year now. It was very slow in the first quarter, but things are picking up. There”™s still some struggle at this particular point.”
J.M. Coull”™s clean rooms apply to the industries of the area that are not as harshly effected by the downturn, like health care and pharmaceuticals. Clean rooms have proven to be of great benefit in supplementing general commercial construction.
“To be qualified in this particular market place it gives us a bit of a step up,” said Zabel. “If you”™re a general guy, there are a million of you out there and everyone”™s going after the same jobs. Even though we do do general type construction having a specialty definitely sets us apart.”
Zabel said that the clean room contracting has not completely supplemented J.M.Coull”™s general contracting business, but it has enabled a greater sense of security in the downturn. Because of the indirect ties to the medical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing industries, Zabel keeps abreast of developments in those sectors.
Zabel said that industries that need clean rooms have not been immune to the downturn, though some have fared better than others. He also said the Obama administration”™s reinstating of the federal funding for stem-cell research and the advent of the H1N1 virus have both brought about needs that will spark movement in those industries.
J.M.Coull”™s processes are also tied to the education and health care industries and their budgets because of school science labs and hospital space.
Past clean room projects include work for F.W. Webb in New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury; work for Photronics in Brookfield; work for ATMI in Danbury; and projects for 3M Corp. and Enthone in West Haven.