Schlosser & Associates: From Family Roots to Industry Leadership
Key Highlights
- Schlosser & Associates has maintained long-term relationships with clients, employees, and vendors, emphasizing trust and mutual respect
- The firm invests in employee development through programs like the Delaware Apprenticeship and values community service, fostering loyalty and stability
- Leadership succession is well underway, with the next generation taking on key roles, ensuring continuity and growth
It’s no mystery that, in so many facets of business, personal relationships are the foundation for success. For one thriving mechanical contracting firm in Delaware, relationships run deep.
At Newark, DE-based Schlosser & Associates, the importance of relationships is recognized, including long-term bonds with family, employees and customers—favorably, and with little distinction between them.
Recently, Steve Dennis, president of Newark, DE-based Schlosser & Associates, visited with Glenn Slonecker, senior facilities manager for the spacious Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics campus in Glasgow, DE.
The two of them share the bond of friendship, both personal and professional. Their relationship spans a quarter of a century; Glenn has served Siemens for 52 years. During that time, all three of Steve and Garnet Dennis’ sons have spent time working at Siemens under the tutelage and mentorship of Slonecker and others at Siemens.
Steve and Garnet co-own Schlosser & Associates, one of Delaware’s leading, full-service mechanical contracting firms. Last year, their firm celebrated 71 years in business. Today, Steve and Garnet represent the second generation of family ownership; their sons, the third, fulfilling a rich legacy that has adapted, expanded and thrived for more than seven decades.
It’s easy to see that the comfortable, easy relationship between Steve Dennis and Glenn Slonecker is one based on long familiarity, mutual trust and respect for the contributions of the other. Their conversations typically shift between shared recollection and work successes.
The family-oriented culture at Schlosser & Associates is further showcased through the commitment of the company’s owners to their associates—not employees—most of whom have been with the firm for decades. It’s a distinction that, by design, emphasizes tenure, commitment and collaboration. Currently employing 46 associates, the firm is dedicated to creating a supportive workplace – evident in their generous employee benefits, exceeding industry standards.
“We rarely struggle with the challenge of turnover,” said Steve Dennis. “It’s truly a blessing, borne in part of our deep commitment to our staff, associates, customers and vendors. As a result, we often get referrals for candidates to fill positions here. We’ve developed our workforce through the Delaware Apprenticeship program and also have deep roots in the communities we serve.”
It helps that he and other staff members serve in volunteer roles locally and regionally. Steve Dennis was recently named president of the Delaware Contractor Association, a group that serves both union and non-union members.
Schlosser & Associates is a merit shop doing mostly commercial work, providing a broad mix of skills for commercial, industrial, and residential customers across Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Steve Dennis says that, currently, their efforts consists of 60 percent commercial work, 20 percent industrial, and 20 percent light commercial and residential service work. The firm offers a diverse suite of services including HVAC, hydronic, plumbing and process piping, structural steel, concrete work, basic carpentry and painting, and indoor air quality solutions.
Steve and Garnet’s young adult sons are now well on their way to assuming leadership roles within the firm. Their youngest, Justin—who worked at the Siemens site for six years—is now a commercial estimator. Zach, now operations manager at the firm, worked for Glenn Slonecker at Siemens as a quality engineer until February ’24. Chris, who also enjoyed his time at Siemens under the guidance of Slonecker, now serves Schlosser & Associates in the field as an estimator.
Recipe for Successes
Steve Dennis confirmed that other facets of their work add to the company’s stability. They’ve more or less standardized on a recipe including the products and technology they install. Favored technologies include Bryan steam boilers, EVAPCO cooling towers, Trane chillers, Air+ air purifiers, Metalair VAVs, Innovent and VTS, air handlers, Watts backflow assemblies (Steve and several others within the company maintain their backflow certifications); Taco manufactures the pumps, circulators and hydronic components of choice.
“When things work well—or don’t—we shift to other products, improve, learn and sharpen our skills,” added Steve Dennis. “We’ve learned a lot through decades of careful management. When you’re in the business for the long term, as we are, it’s rather amazing how that sharpens our focus on maintaining the success, reliability and predictability of our work.”
There’s no better way to examine a company’s dedication to craft than to look at examples of their work. Clearly, every project is different, though Schlosser & Associates’ managers have found that certain facets of their performance—from how they work as a team, how they integrate with other trade pros on jobsites, and the tools and equipment they reach for routinely—all have an impact.
Siemens Health Care Diagnostics
At the sprawling Siemens campus just south of Wilmington, DE—once one of the main sites for DuPont—there are several buildings, some of which include laboratories and clean rooms requiring very specific air quality requirements. Here, working in concert, Steve Dennis and Siemens’ Glenn Slonecker—among many others—maintain a complex network of advanced mechanical systems.
According to Slonecker, there’s a mile of subterranean 18-inch supply and return fiberglass pipe on campus, connecting chilled water to facilities for space conditioning, and specific process needs, many of which require tightly-controlled dehumidification, allowing the presence of atmospheric moisture at levels of 0 to 10 percent. That’s dry.
“We test a lot of medical products and diagnostic consumables,” explained Slonecker. And because their 1,000-plus employees on campus are working two or three eight-hour shifts each day, there’s little or no downtime. Mechanical systems that provide and distribute chilled water play a key role in maintaining full, operational status, and redundancy is important.
On campus, there’s a 1,500-ton Trane chiller connected to a similarly-sized dual-cell, AT induced draft, counterflow EVAPCO cooling tower. In fact, nearby—serving similar needs—are 550-ton, 450-ton and 350-ton chillers, all working in tandem with EVAPCO cooling towers. A few years ago, Slonecker made a trip to EVAPCO’s headquarters in Taneytown, MD with Chris Delp, sales engineer, and other members of the rep firm that serves them, West Chester, PA-based Energy Transfer Solutions (ETS).
“I learned a lot during my visit to EVAPCO’s manufacturing facility,” said Slonecker. “Seeing first-hand their quality control, and the rigorous nature of their production affirmed our choice in EVAPCO as our standard for large cooling towers. We also have a strong, tenured relationship with ETS.”
At the Siemens site, there’s also a complex network of domestic and process water piping that serves the many facilities there. Surprisingly, most of the water comes from groundwater wells on site. Well water is pumped into a 400,000-gallon holding tank; distribution piping runs from it to all campus facilities.
Slonecker said there are 20 or 30 backflow assemblies installed and routinely maintained and tested to guard against the risk of backflow. “All of them are manufactured by Watts in 2, 3 and 4-inch configurations. Fortunately, Schlosser & Associates shares our preference for these,” added Slonecker.
Kirk Middle School
The Kirk Middle School is a public school located in Newark, DE, serving 740+ middle-school students in grades six to eight in a large, suburban setting.
According to Schlosser & Associates President Steve Dennis, Kirk School now has three 165-ton cooling towers that are used for comfort cooling throughout the school. He added that Schlosser has worked for the school district for four or five decades.
Cory Marshall, Schlosser’s commercial projects manager, has served the firm for more than 40 years. He supervised the work at Kirk Middle School.
“We’ve installed EVAPCO cooling towers for years,” said Marshall. “I’ve visited the factory and have always found the factory, sales representatives and start-up crews to be attentive and very knowledgeable. Assembly of their units always goes smoothly and the need for call-backs is practically non-existent.”
“Backflow assemblies are crucial for preventing contaminated water from entering the public water supply, protecting public health and ensuring compliance with regulations,” said Steve Dennis. “They act as one-way valves, stopping water from flowing backward into the clean water system, which can occur due to pressure changes or other factors.
“We’ve standardized on Watts backflow assemblies,” he added. “We’re always happy when we see that a facility has Watts backflow preventers. We consider them the very best backflow devices on the market and prefer to install, service and test them.
“Which, in a sense, brings us right back around to the importance of relationships,” concluded Steve Dennis. “Our performance on the job, and the trust we establish in building business relationships, depends not only on the quality of our people, but also our expertise and reliability. We’re in the business for the long haul, and that places important dependence on the quality of products and services we provide.
“Our customers trust us because we’ve proven, through these many years, that we’ll consistently meet—or preferably exceed—expectation. Every facet of the professional relationship is strengthened when we set the highest possible standard. That’s our goal.”