MWI Pumps has a simple philosophy: Provide innovative, high quality pumps at competitive prices and take care of each customer.
MWI Pumps is a pump manufacturing company, located in Deerfield Beach, Fla., with a simple philosophy, to provide innovative, high quality pumps at competitive prices and take care of each customer.
Founded in 1926, MWI is preparing for its 90th year in business. The company specializes in the design, manufacture and use of high efficiency axial and mixed flow propeller water pumps worldwide for a variety of applications, including construction dewatering, bypass pumping, flood control, emergency pumping, storm drainage, irrigation, water transfer, mines, water diversion, water infrastructure security and open pit dewatering.
Throughout the years, the company has grown organically, as well as through acquisitions. In 1983, the company purchased one of the oldest pump companies in Florida, Couch Pump, founded in 1917. In 1998, MWI purchased the assets of Sloan Pump Company, a pioneer in the development and use of hydraulically driven trash pumps for construction dewatering.
In 1968, MWI also got into the pump rental business, with the invention of a hydraulically driven axial flow pump which could move larger volumes of water at lower cost than anything previously on the market. The company named it the Hydraflo. Today, MWI is one of the leaders in providing pump, dewatering and sewer by-pass solutions throughout Florida, according to the company. Over the years, the company has added multiple locations for the rental division from Fort Myers to Jacksonville, along with rental distributors in multiple locations outside of Florida and representatives throughout the world.
In 1989, MWI built a 26,000 sq. ft. (2,415 sq m) repair facility situated on 20 acres in Vero Beach, Fla. This facility repairs and services all makes of axial and mixed flow propeller pumps as well as any brand of dewatering equipment.
The company still remains a family business — and all are engineers from the University of Florida. Dana Eller is the president of the company. Eller’s brother Daren is the vice president, and is a licensed professional engineer who heads up the company’s engineering department. His sister Danielle also is a PE with her masters in environmental engineering, and works part-time (when not home schooling her five children), and their father David serves as the company chairman. John Springer runs the entire rental and repair branch, which makes up a sizable portion of the company, and Marc Boudet is head of engineered product sales for the factory.
“I think we added up the other day — with our top 15 leaders of the company, we had over 415 years of experience,” Eller said. “That’s not too bad. All of our upper management has been here almost 30 years.”
On the construction dewatering side, the company builds off forecasts, so engine builds are locked in and are generally John Deere and Yanmar, although they can use any type of engine a customer requests. Most pumps from 4 to 12 in. (10 to 30 cm) are generally available with short deliveries. On the large engineered product side, bigger engines are generally used, such as Caterpillar, John Deere, Detroit Diesel, and Cummins. These engines drive pumps that can be as large as 12 ft. (3.6 m) in diameter and move more than 800,000 gpm.
On the horizon, Eller mentioned a small rotary dewatering pump that MWI has been testing in the market for the last year and a half.
“It has been received quite well, and we’re planning on rolling it out in larger scale,” he said. “It’s a little six-inch, and we’ve named it the ’little sucker.’ It’s 12.5 hp, and uses very little fuel to accomplish big results. It’s a quiet unit — very small and compact — for very small dewatering jobs. Customers really seem to take a great interest in it, so we’re planning on starting to roll that out more. We’re also always looking at improving our construction dewatering equipment and pumps. With over 20 patents to our family name, there is always some exciting R&D going on at MWI, as we continue to explore ways to advance the field of moving water in ways that provide tangible benefits to our customers. We love moving water. You can say it’s in our blood.”
For more information, call 954/427-2206 or email [email protected].
Brenda Ruggiero
Brenda Ruggiero has written for CEG for over 20 years. She lives near the town of Accident in far western Maryland. Her favorite assignments so far involved interviews with Survivor’s Boston Rob and hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut. Both were involved in construction at one time.
Brenda holds a BA in Mass Communication with a writing focus from Frostburg State University and minors in Public Relations and Political Science. She works full time as a staff writer for a weekly newspaper, the Garrett County Republican. She enjoys feature writing the most, which gives her the opportunity to talk to people and share their stories.
Brenda and her middle school sweetheart, Reuben, have been married for over 34 years and have three grown children and four cats.
Read more from Brenda Ruggiero here.
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