Sikeston businessman's work used in Australian foam plant

SIKESTON, Mo. -- A Sikeston man has made his mark at an Australian business.

Floyd Presley Jr., owner of Presley Sales and Service, recently completed the installation of a thermal storage unit at a foam plant in Australia.

Presley came up with the concept for the units, which cool the chemicals in foam plants, about 30 years ago.

Presley has installed 11 such machines in the United States.

"I found a niche, I guess you can say," he said.

The Australian job came as a spinoff from some of those in the United States. Hennecke Inc., is the U.S. branch of a German firm that build machines that pour the foam.

"They had heard about our units, and we had worked with them on projects before," Presley said.

"The people from New Zealand came over to look at Hennecke's foam machine at the plant and they happened to look at one of my ice banks that was there."

The chemist who pours the foam at that plant told company officials how well he liked the machine, and they then asked Hennecke to pursue obtaining a quote for the device, according to Presley.

"We shipped the equipment over there, and their pipe fitters piped it all up," he said.

"Then I went in and charged it, set it up, balanced it and taught them how to operate it."

Although no other thermal storage units are in the works right now, Presley said the Australian job makes it "very possible" for more overseas in the future.