Leading A Fast-Growing Business

Thanks to increased demand for carbon-neutral chilling systems, PRO Refrigeration continues to expand its U.S.-based manufacturing operations.

So says Jim VanderGiessen, Jr., CEO and co-founder of the Auburn, Washington-based company, which has been designing and manufacturing highly specialized, American-made packaged chilling systems since 1990. These units help dairy farms, craft brewers, wineries, distillers and other businesses ensure the quality of their products by keeping them at the required cold temperatures during processing.

Vandergiessen talks with Chief Executive about why he expects business to triple this year—and how he plans to meet the growing demand.

Tell us how you’ve grown your manufacturing operations.

In 2013, we reached capacity at our production facility in Auburn, and we were thankful we found our East Coast home in Mocksville, North Carolina, after searching more than 30 potential sites.

In 2017, we relocated to PRO Refrigeration’s current 70,000-square-foot production center, doubling our footprint from the original Mocksville site. The team upfitted the larger facility with some great, state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment that included a computer numerical control press brake, laser cutting machinery, mechanical pipe bending equipment and overhead cranes.

This equipment increased our capacity—and our quality, leading us to make the big decision in 2021: to close down our West Coast production facility and consolidate all of our manufacturing operations in North Carolina.

From day one, Mocksville welcomed us with open arms and we quickly became a part of this vibrant business community in Davie County. This was demonstrated when then Governor Pat McCrory and NC Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker both attended our grand opening.

Today PRO partners directly with the high school and regional trade schools to promote the skills and training our factory needs. PRO also supports both the North Carolina Wine Guild and the North Carolina Brewers Guild by collecting and storing their products from several events each year that helped these markets grow.

The PRO Team has grown to almost 60 people, with approximately 40 working from our facility in North Carolina.

In 2020, you led efforts to create the PROGreen CO₂ Chiller System to help dairy farms looking to meet sustainability goals and future-proof their operations. Tell us about that.

Our new system accomplishes these goals in two primary ways. First it decreases their carbon impact by more than 99 percent, which is achieved by replacing synthetic chemical-based refrigerants with all-natural, refrigerant-grade CO₂, also called R744.

The second way is by recovering waste heat—the heat we are removing from their milk, and using this as the farms’ primary hot water heating source. This allows dairy farmers to reduce and even eliminate their reliance on heating systems that burn fossil fuels.

All paths are leading to natural-based refrigerants as dairy farms’ cooling solutions, now and in the future.

What are Pro Refrigeration’s plans for the future? Do you have plans to expand your manufacturing operations

With production shifting from the synthetic, chemical-based systems to the natural refrigerant-based equipment, our team is expanding our production capacity by developing two additional production lines and a training program to educate technicians on these new technologies.

In 2025 the team will significantly increase the production of PROGreen Systems. In fact, the current plan has us tripling our production from 2024.

You are a family-owned company with members actively working within the company. Please share your secrets for running a successful family company.

I was 21 in 1990 when my Dad and I started PRO, and neither of us could have imagined it could grow into the business it is today. We’ve never been afraid to hire family members—six of our own family members are currently on our team, and we also like to hire the family of the other team members. In total, we employ three different groups of siblings, spouses and parents. We believe this has helped us build a dynamic team and provides us with some of the “secret sauce” that helps us compete and get further faster. It’s a big reason for some of our successes.

We have also had success focusing on hiring good people and training them with the skills needed to build the PRO Systems, versus bringing in highly skilled experts and plugging them into the team. We’ve learned our biggest lessons from taking big bets to stay relevant and keep ahead of our competition. The team understands that growth comes from lessons learned making the right moves and when we make mistakes.