There's an emergency room in New York City unlike any other. It's unique because it doesn't treat people.
This ER performs triage on temperature control and ice protection systems.
Cox and Company considers itself to be an ER, because it has successfully diagnosed
and solved problems people with systems in trouble.
It's not until they actually go out into the real world and discover that they have an icing problem.
The design is often way downstream and they have to come to somebody that can solve the problem quickly for them.
Cox may be the last of the manufacturing firms in Manhattan, but this small,
high tech company believes the location works to its advantage.
It's where we belong all our people come from the surrounding areas. We all commute into work.
It's a wonderful environment to do business.
For more than five decades, Cox has been developing and supporting entire systems from
the ground up: from design, through testing and manufacturing, to after-market support
with spare parts and servicing. Their advanced temperature control and ice protection
technologies and products are now standard in the aerospace and transit industries.
For many years, Cox had been working on icing issues with NASA's Glenn Research Center.
Then, in the mid 90s, they received awards from Glenn through the Small Business Innovation Research,
or SBIR Program, to develop an economical deicing system for general aviation aircraft.
We found out the problems with the industry we found out the problems that NASA was interested in solving,
and the relationship naturally grew out of that.
Working with the Glenn researchers, the company successfully produced an economical
deicing system for general aviation planes. The system has been certified by the Federal
Aviation Administration for use on a Raytheon business jet, and Cox now supplies
Raytheon with products for the planes.
While working on the deicing technology for NASA, Cox built its own icing tunnel to conduct research.
Today, engineers at Cox still work with the Agency, as well as others who use their tunnel.
We've been continuing that research and in some cases, exchanging tunnel time with them for product
development and basic research.
The firm plans to expand the deicing technology and product lines to other aircraft, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
Cox's products are not only in the air. The majority of company employees ride trains in
and out of Manhattan everyday. About seven years ago, they began to see problems on
the railroads with freezing issues and believed their ER could provide solutions.
Moving their work into this arena was a natural for the company.
Cox heaters suddenly, which were recognized for the aerospace industry for over 50
years, are now the main heater, the company that people come to for heating transit products as well.
The research and products originally developed for NASA actually spun into the rail
transit applications, and having that ability to transfer their technology is part of the company's success.
We have diversified not only between military and commercial, but greatly within each
segment of military and commercial, then added on the transit business which really gives us a much better leveling effect.
Acting like an ER does make Cox unique. Being located in Manhattan also makes Cox unique.
But, it's being an employee-owned and operated firm that makes it different for the staff.
The caring that you have towards the company, the concern you have about your name going on every product and the
quality that has to be in every product. It''s a fantastic thing. And the people we're like a family.
We're all in it together. It's our business.