SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — 60 years later and Cyclops Industries is still going strong.
The South Charleston-based company that specializes in the designing and manufacturing of sight glasses celebrated its 60th anniversary on Wednesday at its headquarters.
Cyclops was founded in 1959 by Gene LeRoy who passed the business to his son and now Leroy’s granddaughter, Kim Mack, is in charge.
“I am very proud of what my grandfather did and my father,” Mack told the media.
“To give us the opportunity to continue our business in the family is just enormous for me.”
Mack added that she is most proud of keeping the business running in the family and that the male workers have accepted a woman in the leadership position there after two males were president.
Cyclops offers a variety of equipment production including safety sight glasses, viewport assemblies, sight flow indicators, spray rings, sight lights, and sight glass replacements.
The Cyclops sight glass provides maximum safety under high pressure, high temperature, corrosive and volatile operations while observing processes in industrial pressure vessels and pipelines.
Mack said it hasn’t always been easy for the business.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” she said. “When we first started we had the patents and no one else could do what we do. Now sixty years later, our patents are long gone but we still have a marker because our product was the first and we think it is the best.
“We have people who care about it and care what goes out our door and that is important to us.”
As it sits on its 432 3rd Avenue headquarters in South Charleston, Cyclops makes seven businesses in the city that are 60 plus years old. The company also has units registered in Canada.
Frank Mullens, the Mayor of South Charleston and representatives from both U.S. Senator’s Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito office spoke on Wednesday.
“This is where it all started, it was right here,” Mack said of the community outpouring.
“My grandfather had a vision. He started with the vision to keep people safe because they were having a lot of blowouts in the industry we are serving. It’s been going on for 60 years and we are still needed.”