BALTIMORE BASED ELLICOTT IS A WORLD-WIDE LEADER IN DREDGE MANUFACTURING
January 23, 1998
Baltimore, Maryland, USA — From an unprepossessing warehouse, office and manufacturing complex in South Baltimore, Maryland, Ellicott International offers a window to the world. The company, an international leader in the manufacture of hydraulic dredges, has in recent years served clients ranging from the Suez Canal to China's Xinjiang Salt Lake Chemical Co., and from Arkansas' Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel Co. to the Maryland Port Administration. Its dredges are used for mining salt in Saudi Arabia and paint pigment in Australia. They handle wet waste from wastewater treatment plants, fly ash from coal plants, and pulp sludge from paper makers. They also maintain shipping channels, carve out new ports and collect trash. The Port of Baltimore plays a major role as a key distribution channel for Ellicott; more than half of all shipments are funneled throughout the state's maritime facility.
Ellicott, founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1885, has long been known for innovation — the company currently holds more than 20 patents in nine different countries. It's also acclaimed for the quality of its manufacturing operations. Ellicott is the only dredge manufacturer that designs and builds all key components of the dredging system — including winches, pumps, excavators, and spud carriages. As a result, dredges made more than half a century ago are still in operation. And, ironically, Ellicott's dredges are so solidly built that the company's biggest competitor is itself. Ellicott does a whopping business in parts replacement that can keep a dredge going for decades.
In Ellicott's conference room, a photo of President Clinton wearing an Ellicott International baseball cap is the first tip-off that this local company is not a run-of-the-mill manufacturer. The walls are ringed as well with color photos of dredges at work in exotic locales such as the Dead Sea. Just outside the conference room, in case one forgets the international thrust of this business, hangs a giant map of the world.
Peter Bowe, president of Ellicott International, a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Yale University who earned an MBA from Harvard, and who cut his teeth on Wall Street before joining the company some 15 years ago, talks about dredges with the enthusiasm of a young boy. And why shouldn't he? Under his leadership, Ellicott has positioned itself as a major resource in economically booming Southeast Asia. There, rapid development has created a serious need for infrastructure — new airports, seaports, and transportation links. "The market is exploding," Bowe says.
In the past few years, Ellicott became the first American company to sell capital goods to Vietnam since President Clinton lifted the 20-year embargo on sales. The $12 million contract, which called for two "Super-Dragon" dredges and parts to upgrade five others, was more than a nice business deal. It marked a moment in history.
"Ellicott is a fine company which represents what our [administration's economic and export] efforts are all about," remarked the President. Interestingly, Ellicott won the contract in large part because Vietnam wanted to buy replacement parts for the Ellicott-made dredges that were built for the country some 30 years ago.
On the heels of this success followed another. In a deal with the government of Indonesia, Ellicott landed a $21 million contract to build five split-hopper barges and one tugboat. One recent morning, a state-of-the-art Mud Cat™ 370, destined for Russia where it will dredge gravel, is loaded onto a block-long flatbed truck for transport. Another Mud Cat™ was recently sent to develop a shrimp farm in Sumatra; another headed to Hong Kong to handle fly ash; and still another was on its way to mine salt from the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. Ellicott also sent a 73,000-pound dredge to Malawi in East Africa. The company has started on new orders like the multi-million-dollar contract from several customers in the Middle East for Ellicott's newest design — the Series 670 "Dragon", a compact dredge that maintains river channels and small harbors.
Since the construction of the Panama Canal, for which Ellicott supplied all the original dredges in 1904, the company has focused more on exports than on domestic sales. Partly, this has been due to the fact that America's infrastructure has long been in place. In addition, Bowe says, the U.S. market has a history of using old equipment, preferring to purchase replacement parts rather than new models.
That's changing. In July, Ellicott International announced the formation of a new affiliated company, United Marine International, LLC, to design and build environmentally oriented water management boats. These include trash skimmers, oil skimmers, aquatic weed harvesters, and related water management equipment needed by port authorities, hydroelectric power companies, and organizations that handle maintenance for lakes, canals, marinas and harbors.
Already, UMI "TrashCats" are being used by Baltimore's Department of Public Works to clean the Inner Harbor, seven units total. UMI also has provided equipment to New York, Chicago, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Washington, D.C. Customers span the globe, and include France, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Brazil.
Ellicott's dredges have played a role in some of the 20th century's most exciting events — man made and otherwise. These range from the Panama Canal to the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, to the transformation of third world countries into first world industrial nations. Momentous occasions certainly, but what really amuses Peter Bowe is the role that Baltimore's Inner Harbor has played in marketing his "TrashCats" worldwide. It seems that watching the "TrashCat" in action as it sweeps the harbor clean is every bit as fascinating a spectacle for tourists as the National Aquarium. A couple of Korean visitors that work as transportation executives happened to watch the "TrashCat" show on a visit to Baltimore. Much impressed, they purchased several for use in South Korea.
Source: Port of BALTIMORE Magazine
