By: Davies Hood, Induron President
2025 was a FANTASTIC year here at Induron Coatings! There are many different ways to measure success for a company, or any team for that measure. Before I get too carried away with the financial results, which were record setting on almost every single line of our Annual Tally, let me explain how I like to measure success:
Success in business, like in sports, is the result of several different teams pulling in the same correct direction with effective results. For a football or baseball team (my favorite team sports) to be truly successful (championship caliber) they need to both score points AND prevent their opposition from scoring points. It’s not only offensive and defensive success.
For example, in football it means that not only is the quarterback making correct decisions and good plays, but the offensive line is also effectively doing their collective job, the receivers are in the correct place and making plays, the running backs are both blocking and hitting the right holes with authority, and so on. In baseball, for instance, the pitcher must make all of his pitches effectively, but so do all the members of the bullpen who are called upon. The players in the field, whether they are the shortstop, center fielder or catcher, all must do their respective (& very different) jobs correctly and ONLY then can you prevent the other guys from scoring more runs.
You see, it really does take a true team of dedicated people with different skills and responsibilities pulling in the same correct direction to reach “championship-level” success. I keep saying “pulling in the same correct direction” because you can be effective but pulling in the wrong direction. That’s where leadership, or “coaching,” comes into play.
At Induron, we hit on all cylinders in 2025. As an example, I would like to share the outline of my speech to the team at our Annual Company Christmas Party. To summarize 2025, I bragged on our success because of three main factors: People, Place and Products! As an industrial coatings manufacturer that specializes in protective coatings for critical infrastructure, the products that we make matter, the place where we make those products matter AND the people who design, make, sell and service those products are especially critical to our success.
Product Innovation
In 2025, we introduced several products to the market. I’m proud of these products because they exemplify our core value of “Innovation.” I always talk about innovation being about more than just technical breakthroughs with our products. Innovation can include “how” we manufacturer something, promote a new product or service or even structure our order entry process so that we don’t have any shipping errors, BUT in these cases, the new technologies that we introduced into a very mature market truly exemplified “what they say can’t be done!”
PermaClean 100 SL is a 100% solids, high build NSF approved ceramic epoxy lining designed for potable water immersion that is APPLIED with Conventional airless spray equipment. For a couple of decades, PermaClean 100 has been established as “the most user friendly 100% solids” in the marketplace. We have significantly improved THAT advantage by formulating a product that can be applied with conventional equipment. If you have doubts, we’d love to show you in-person!
Novasafe Novalac Epoxy is an uber-corrosion resistant ceramic epoxy designed to protect steel and concrete in extreme wastewater immersion services. As the manufacturer of Protecto-401 Ceramic Epoxy (the industry leader in ductile iron sewer pipe lining), we figured because we are already protecting some of the most corrosive substrates in the whole wastewater market, we might as well utilize some of that technology to help protect and extend the useful life of other wastewater treatment assets, such as concrete clarifiers, chlorine contact chambers and even manholes.
MortarChem, which is technically not a “new” product but a 5+ year old cementitious epoxy re-surfacer, has been modified so that it can also be applied to vertical surfaces with a traditional airless spray gun, not a peristaltic pump or “chopper gun.” This is true innovation, not in terms of material but in application properties! This innovation should help improve transfer efficiency, save our customers countless hours and reduce the overall cost of costly concrete rehabilitation projects. We honestly think that this could be a “game changer” for the entire industry!
Investments in Place
In terms of place, we made a significant long-term investment in replacing several of the steel tanks in our on-site tank farm in 2025. This was a long-term commitment to our manufacturing facility located in downtown Birmingham, AL AND to the families that work for our company. Induron is celebrating our 79th year in business this year and are making capital investments in order to set us up for the next generation! This project is just on concrete (steel actually) example.
People on the Move
Last, but certainly not least, we experienced some incredible experiences with our people in 2025. Induron has a longstanding history of very little employee turnover. Over the course of the last few years, we have had some healthy transition to our management team through retirement. 2025 was no different. We saw longtime plant manager Mike Nelms retire and ride-off-into-the-sunset. Although Mike helped manage the aforementioned storage tank replacement project, Aaron Williams stepped into an oh-so-important plant manager role abd exceeded all expectations. This on the heels of Chase Murphy replacing Jeff Lackey in 2024 as Technical Director and prior to this year’s leadership transition in our Accounting/HR Department. All in all, having good people, effective training and a cohesive transition period really makes for smooth sailing!
Looking Ahead
In closing, I am proud of the successes that Induron had in 2025, BUT I am even more excited about the opportunities that we have in 2026 and moving forward in a large part because of the people, place and products that make up this incredible third-generation family business.