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KVA - About Us

Who are we?

Located in southern California, KVA is a growing R&D venture focused on developing and promoting uses for lightweight, ultra high-strength, low cost, stainless steel alloys.

KVA technical staff, with a combined 60 years experience in thermal processing, metallurgy, automated welding, brazing and mechanical design, have developed numerous proprietary and patent-pending processing and manufacturing methods to enable the use of lightweight, corrosion-resistant, hardened stainless steel components throughout a wide variety of industries.

KVA president, Mr. Ed McCrink, founded Hi-Temp, Inc. in 1953 and grew the company to become one of the largest processors of martensitic stainless steels in North America. Since successfully selling the Hi-Temp, Inc. plants in the 1970's, he has continuously pursued his vision of utilizing commonly available martensitic stainless steels to reduce weight and increase strength in a wide variety of structures.

History

In 1953 Mr. Edward McCrink founded Hi-Temp, Inc. and rapidly grew the company to become one of the largest thermal processors of martensitic stainless steels in North America. While running Hi-Temp, he became interested in structural uses of these materials but found that no manufacturer was implementing this technology. This led to Mr. McCrink’s founding of KVA, whose aim is to promote his vision of new applications utilizing these materials.

As a result, KVA technical staff with a combined 60 years experience in production thermal processing, metallurgy and mechanical design, has developed numerous proprietary and patent-pending processing, joining, and manufacturing methods concerning the use of martensitic stainless steels. These novel developments enable the use of high-strength, lightweight, corrosion-resistant, high-speed seam-welded, hardened stainless steel components throughout industry.

Our initial efforts have been concentrated on reducing weight–typically achieving a 30-45% mass reduction while maintaining or exceeding current strength levels–in automotive structural applications. KVA technology has been very well received by all major auto manufacturers and we have completed several successful component development and testing trials with better-than-expected mechanical, environmental and cost performance.

Team

  • Ed McCrink

    Founder

    The man with a vision (and proven 'golden touch'), Ed began his metallurgical career in the early 1950's. In 1953, Ed founded Hi-Temp, Inc. in Chicago, Il, specializing in copper brazing and bright annealing of stainless steel. Mr. McCrink saw the great potential in production thermal processing and subsequently founded Tru-Temp, Inc., which specialized in conventional heat treating of medium to high carbon steels and alloyed steels using very large controlled atmosphere furnaces. Tru-Temp heat treated for the major US construction earth-moving industry as well as for many foundry and forging companies. Tru-Temp grew to become one of the largest commercial heat treating companies in the Midwest. In the early 1960's, Mr. McCrink went on to found Steel Treating, Inc., which focused on continuous bright annealing. After successfuly selling the thermal processing plants, Ed had various other business successes, including domestic and international high-volume smoke detector manufacturing and real estate investing. The technology behind KVA continues to be the focus of Ed's lifelong ambition.

  • Danny Codd, PhD,PE

    Principal Mechanical Engineer

    Responsible for realizing KVA R&D efforts, Danny oversees technology and new application development. Prior to joining KVA, Danny worked in positions of increasing responsibility designing high-volume consumer products, industrial equipment and medical devices. Danny received his BSME, summa cum laude, from the University of California, San Diego and his MSME from Stanford University, and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He holds his Professional Engineer's License in the state of California.

    Email: dcodd@kvastainless.com
    Phone: 760-489-1500

  • Joe McCrink

    General Manager

    Joe oversees all business operations from production needs, marketing direction, to product development and everything in–between. His strongest asset being a wealth of resources for getting every job done. After 6 years with KVA he’s seen a lot of projects and learned to tackle each one with only the best of resources. He can answer any question you have pertaining to KVA patented technology.

    Email: jmccrink@kvastainless.com
    Phone: 760-489-1500 x 12