"The history of Lochinvar dates back to 1919. That's a long time by American standards," jokes Bill Vallett, President of the US-based water heating business.
In spite of the humour, Vallett is proud of Lochinvar's record, and has a clear vision of its future. "Our passion is heating water. The success of our business is built on our focus on water heating. Some might be tempted to grow the market by moving into other areas of operation, but our whole motivation is to stay focused on water heating."

Lochinvar (more on that name later) is the only family firm left in the US water heating business. Others have privatised or sold out, but the Vallett family is still very much in the driving seat: Bill as President, brothers Jeff and Tom executive vice presidents.

Vallett says that being a family member doesn't guarantee and easy ride. "We all had to learn the business from the bottom. We weren't allowed in the office until we had our degrees. This has taught us to drive knowledge of the business from the bottom up."

Although a business rather than an engineering graduate, Vallett understands the value engineers bring to his business. While the UK may do history better than the USA, the Americans can certainly do things bigger. Two years ago Lochinvar began work on its 33 500 m2 headquarters and manufacturing plant in Lebanon Tennessee. The site includes engineering research and development labs, as well as a 104-seat training centre.

Innovation has been a key part of the Lochinvar story. Vallett's grandfather, and founder of the company, went to work for a water heating manufacturer straight out of school. "He was a true pioneer, and was instrumental in the development of the first automatic gas-fired water heater early in his career. And in 1939 he founded the Walter Vallett Company."

Vallett explains that his own father continued the trend in innovation. "Bill senior had a real vision of energy efficient products, even back in the late 1970s. He developed the system which designed today's range of high efficiency water heaters and boilers."

In spite of the image of the USA as being largely unconcerned with energy use, Vallett says that nothing could be further from the truth. A country which is experiencing the effects of energy shortages with power-outs on its west coast, is keen to adopt energy efficient products. One of today's Lochinvar boiler range achieves 97% thermal efficiency. "Up to the mid 90s, gains were being made in energy efficiency. Once you achieve 97%, you can't get much better than that," comments Vallett.

While energy efficiency is at the heart of Lochinvar's product range, a key focus of today's research is into building management systems. "Once we achieved as much as we could with energy efficiency, we began to look at innovation from the controls technology side. We need to stay up with the latest intelligent buildings technology. Not necessarily for our own ends, but so that our products can fit into customers' systems."

Vallett has a lot to live up to as head of the family firm. Since 1919, the company has gone from strength to strength, with the last 10 years averaging 12% growth each year. It also moved into the UK and Western European markets through acquisition of its agent, Oxford based Lochinvar Ltd, in 1998.

And the unusual name and logo? Vallett says: "It's not as romantic as people think. When Walter Vallett bought out Michigan Tank and Furnace, it had a product range called Lochinvar which he adopted for the new company. But at our annual sales meeting each year, we do request one of our sales managers to stand and recite from memory the whole of Sir Walter Scott's Lochinvar poem. They don't know who'll be chosen, but it keeps them on their toes."