September 30, 2025 Creating a More Perfect Union

Maier America, manufactures, services, and repairs rotary joints vital to a range of industry applications.

Maier America manufactures and services what CEO Rob Kuehl (fun fact: his last name is German for “Cool”) terms a “Hidden Champion”—a highly successful enterprise that excels in their niche that is not well-known to the general public but is extremely important to industries. Indeed, Maier America’s rotary unions are essential sealing assemblies for connecting rotating units to stationary parts for the purpose of transferring media such as steam, water, thermal oil, hydraulic oil, coolant, and air, etc. There are countless industrial applications of standard and custom rotary unions across such industries as chemical and pharmaceutical, paper, textiles, plastics, food, energy, machine tools, and many others.

Headquartered in Norcross, Ga., Maier America is a subsidiary of the German company Maier Group, a fourth-generation family- owned enterprise that also operates subsidiaries in Mexico, Italy, China, and Singapore.

While most manufacturing is performed in Germany, Maier America does some manufacturing at its 20,500 square foot Georgia facility, but primarily focuses on design engineering, repair and replacement services as well as on-site service and training for customers throughout North America. The parent company in Germany recently celebrated its 100th anniversary in June, while Maier America will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in the USA on October 23, 2025.

Kuehl notes that there are a handful of primary American headquartered companies that comprise probably 80% market share to dominate the North American market for rotary unions. Maier America holds a small share that Kuehl is working to expand.

“When I came to Maier America ten years ago, “management had many areas of improvement,” he says. “To fix that, we implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), a practical business model outlined in Gino Wickman’s book, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business.”

Basically, for a business to get traction, it needs to define six key components:

1. Vision: Agreement throughout the organization where it wants to go, and how to get there.
2. People: Staff a great team to achieve a great vision.
3. Data: Make decisions based on objective numbers.
4. Issues: Solve problems.
5. Process: Identify core processes and ensure implementation throughout the organization.
6. Traction: Employ discipline and accountability to execute the vision.

Gaining Traction

For Kuehl and Maier America, gaining traction means developing a two-page business plan that outlines the company’s core focus, targets, marketing strategy, 1-, 3- and 10- year picture, quarterly and yearly goals, as well as any issues. “We hold weekly pulse meetings to evaluate Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) where we stand in relationship to our plan, what we need to do to stay on track with our goals and address any issues,” Kuehl says.

As far as getting the right people to implement the company vision, Kuehl depends on networking. “I belong to several peer-to-peer groups such as Vistage, Iron Forums, German American Chamber of Commerce, and others where I look for new talent that fits our culture and values,” he says.

What primarily distinguishes Maier America in its quest to expand market share is what Kuehl describes as, “We do what we say, even when it hurts”. We use the word ‘union’ to form a “Union for Life” or partnership with our customers to turn problems into solutions through our core values to build strong relationships and delivering what they need, whenever they need it.”

Maier America employs a team of direct sales managers assigned to regions to work with local distributors and their respective sales representatives targeting the plant, maintenance, and engineering managers of OEMs, end-users, and distributors. In addition to traditional marketing, Maier America relies heavily on word-of-mouth reputation. “Most big industrial accounts operate multiple lines and plants, sometimes dozens of plants, across the country,” Kuehl explains. “So once we provide a successful application at one of those plants, word gets around to the others.”

Maier America provides both catalog unions as well as build to design machines. “It depends on the customer,” Kuehl says.

Equally key is the ability to service and, if needed, replace existing rotary unions. “If machines are down because of an issue with the union, that’s costing money,” Kuehl says. “Customers appreciate that we can quickly service their rotary unions and repair the unions with a fully stocked inventory of parts. In some situations, we can replace the rotary unions with our existing inventory, or do some modifications so what we have can work with the customer application. In many cases that is preferred over purchasing new rotary unions as a way to save costs.”

Industry 4.0

To that end, temperature and wear sensors coupled with AI capabilities to provide predictive maintenance are becoming all the more important features on rotary unions. “Knowing a union is wearing out or running at too high a temperature or pressure lets the customer fix the issue before it leads to a breakdown, which means downtime and higher operating cost due to productivity loss,” Kuehl explains. Data about current operating condition is particularly important for most industries, as well as any application in a 24/7 continuous operation, as well as evolving Industry 4.0 standards.

Pricing Pressure

As important as holding down costs are, current tariffs are imposing some difficulties. “The price of steel and other metals that go into making rotary unions are increasingly more expensive due to tariffs. How much more expensive depends on where raw materials are sourced,” Kuehl says. “The current 15% tariffs on European imports seems to be generally accepted now given that the EU puts a Value Added Tax on U.S. imports, in Germany that VAT is 19%. However, we’re seeing a wide range of tariffs levied depending on the country, so we’re looking to source wherever possible to get the best quality materials with the least tariffs.”

He adds that, “Our customers understand what’s going on, and the same price hikes affect our competitors as well as us. We’re trying to help our customers with the tariff situation and keep prices stable as best we can.”

While Maier America product prices are not the lowest, Kuehl argues that the company’s core values and people committed to continuous improvement and doing whatever is necessary to provide quality products in solutions that meet customers’ needs is its key competitive differentiator.

One example is its latest product offering, the DS series. This single product replaces two products, the DP and DX series, combining them to provide higher quality and operating parameters. It is intended as a primary catalog product best suited for high- speed applications with low frictional torque.

“We prove ourselves each and every day. Because that’s what we do, customers stay with us. Because our rotary unions are high quality, delivered on time to help minimize operating costs,” Kuehl says. “With people dedicated to provide customers with the best experience possible.” These are the three things customers always want: 1. A defect free product, 2. On time delivery, and 3. A unique experience by treating them with the highest respect and dignity.

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