THEY BUILD 'EM BIG IN INDEPENDENCE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 26, 1992                   TAG: 9202260064
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHARLYNE H. McWILLIAMS BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE                                LENGTH: Medium
THEY BUILD 'EM BIG IN INDEPENDENCE
Workers in this small town in Southwest Virginia are accustomed to making big things. The latest example are three compressors used to maintain the Panama Canal.
An inspector from the Panama Canal Commission last week inspected and approved the compressors made by CompAir Kellogg to be used in the maintenance of canal locks.
The company is no stranger to government projects; four of its compressors are used at Cape Canaveral in the construction of space shuttles.
The latest compressors are 15 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, 8.5 feet high and weigh 11 tons each. Paul Smith, product manager for the plant, said it took about two hours to move them, one side at a time, and an hour and a half to test them.
CompAir also had to rent a transformer to convert its 460-volt capacity to 2,300 volts just to test the compressors. CompAir is spending $15,000 to rent special equipment to move the machines.
"Whatever the job requires, we'll do," Smith said.
It took nearly four months to produce the compressors and the plant dedicated 25 percent of its facilities to the project, Smith said.
CompAir, owned by Siebe PLC of Windsor, England, provides 78 jobs in the town of little more than 1,000. It has produced air compressors and related equipment in Virginia for three years.
The plant got the contract a year and half ago through one of its 178 national distributors, Ron White's Air Compressor Sales and Service in Anderson, S.C. The job initially drew five bidders.
The project cost the commission $450,000, said Jorge Vasquez, inspector for the commission.
This week, the compressors will be loaded on flat-bed trailers for a trip to New Orleans, where they will be transferred to a boat and shipped to the canal.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB