Talk With An Expert: Personalized Fluid System Help From Swagelok Northern California

Sometimes you need to know more than which part is the best fit for the job

If you want to learn about a specific Swagelok component, any of our customer support representatives will be glad to get you solid information.

But sometimes you need to know more.

Sometimes you may not even be sure that the component you have in mind will actually solve your problem, even if it's a perfect fit for your fluid system.

That's when you should call Morgan Zealear, our product manager for Assembly Solutions.

Long before he came to work for us, Zealear earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California Santa Barbara. 

Prior to joining Swagelok Northern California, Zealear was a manufacturing engineer at Sierra Instruments. That's when we first got to know him as a customer. We knew he was the kind of person we wanted on our team.

So Zealear literally knows Swagelok products from the inside and the outside. 

Free for all

As long as your facility is in Northern California or northwestern Nevada, Zealear can give you the time you need in a phone consultation. You don't even have to be a current Swagelok Northern California customer. We figure that helping you gives us a chance to make a good impression.

You also aren't limited to a phone call. Some people prefer to come to our offices and talk about their systems. Zealear can even come to you and take a look firsthand.

"We really deep-dive," Zealear says. It's not unusual for him to spend an hour and a half on site. Recently, Zealear spent time with young startup company that is designing a new generation of a high purity fluid system. The staff asked us about the right kind of hose to use.

One reason the company had been counting on hose is that they needed something that could flex slightly as a lid on another component opened and closed.

"Our advice was that no hose was going to give you ultrahigh purity," Zealear says. "You need to go to hardline tubing and bend it effectively into a big spring. That way, when the lid opens, the tubing can effectively contract, and the movement will be so slight it will not cause particles to shed."

Another customer was having problems with diaphragm valves on a water line. When the valves were quickly shut, the system generated water hammer that ruptured the valves.

Zealear's advice: Use speed controllers to close the valves slowly and prevent water hammer. 

"Even I never would have known that if I hadn't dealt with the issue with another customer," he says.

No hard sell

Zealear's primary mission is to improve the design of your fluid system, not to sell you a bunch of parts.

"You could call me the worst salesman ever, because I am always trying to eliminate components from a system," he says.

He doesn't even focus immediately on how to solve problems.

"I'm here to learn how they have dealt with a problem so far," he says. "Advance information, of  course, is nice. But oftentimes the conversation reveals so much more. It's a process of exploration and gives you an opportunity to think about your problems from a different angle."

So, for instance, when someone asks about picking the right type of regulator, Zealear is more interested in what problem the regulator is meant to solve. Sometimes it turns out that a regulator won't do, and might even make a problem worse.

Our reputation

Swagelok Northern California is not just a component company, we're a systems company. But it's one thing for us to say we are fluid system experts. It's something else for you to believe we are fluid system experts. So we want companies to engage with us and put our reputation to the test.

Zealear is glad to answer the phone when he's around, or chat with you at our Will Call counter. But the best way to make sure you connect with him is to fill out the form on this page. Then get ready for a serious discussion of how your fluid system can become even better.

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