|
|
Continental Eagle Timeline Click on the Continental Eagle Logo Above for a direct link to the Cotton Ginning Systems Web Site In 1986, through consolidation of Continental Gin Company, Murray division of Murray-Carver, Inc. and the Abbott Industrial Supply, Joseph and Roger Fermon purchase 50 percent of Continental Gin Company stock. Continental Eagle Corporation was formed. 1988 Joseph and Roger Fermon purchase remaining Continental Eagle Corporation stock to become sole shareholders. Continental Eagle was incorporated in the State of Alabama. In 1989 the Golden Eagle gin was introduced at capacities of more than 18 bales per hour. Some Cotton Gin plants were running in the 60 bales per hour range. Several new bale presses were introduced, over 350 of the popular Bespress were sold. The 930 press and the 950 press were introduced and in 2000 the 9300 press and in 2001 the 9500 model cotton presses were introduced. 2003 The LouverMax Lint Cleaner Louver System was introduced. This USDA marketing agreement allowed Continental Eagle to manufacture Lint Cleaner Louver Grid Bar blocks to allow an operator to open or close off any Lint Cleaner Grid bar. This allowed the savings of up to 12 lbs of cotton lint per bale. 2004 The EagleEye Digital Cotton Imaging System was introduced. This digital imaging system will analyze lint cotton on the fly and adjust lint cleaner LouverMax gride bars to maximize lint grade. Today, Continental Eagle is celebrating 172 years of continued service to the cotton industry and 168 years from the Banks of Autauga Creek in Prattville, Alabama.
'Brought Up In Cotton' Story adapted from Cotton International by William Spencer 1996
Click On Photos To Enlarge Joe and Georgette Fermon at a cotton conference in Maui. Roger Fermon on the cover of Business Alabama This article was written in 2001 in the Cotton International publication. He's spent 62 years in the cotton business, speaks seven languages and has been decorated by kings and presidents. And Joseph Fermon's greatest accomplishment - he owns the company that made the equipment for the gin once owned by his father. Joseph Fermon has many memories of his 62 years in the cotton business. One of his fondest is of what happened in 1978, 150 years after Fermon's great grandfather had settled in Egypt and started a cotton business. Settling in Mansourah in 1828, he had bought, sold, and ginned cotton there and many other places in Egypt. Fermon's father was also a cotton man, ginning and trading cotton throughout Egypt, as did Fermon's uncles. So Fermon, whose father died when he was three years old, was "brought up in cotton" and himself entered the cotton business in 1939 in Alexandria as chief grader and director of Bianchi Fenderl and Company, cotton exporters and ginners. So it was in 1978 while vice president of Continental Gin Co. that Fermon sold to the government of Egypt ginning equipment to refurbish 17 ginning plants - including one at Mehalla that had been owned by his father. It's an event he remembers with pride."I was very emotional," says Fermon, now 78 years old and Chairman of the Board of Continental Eagle Corporation, Prattville, Alabama. He remembers that his father's old plant was a Pratt Gin with a capacity of 28 to 30 kilos per hour. It was replaced with a 90 kilo per hour Continental Gin with a new feeder and press. Fermon, who "from the beginning of my life" was taught "how to grade cotton, how to gin cotton, how to make mixtures of cotton to ship to each type customer," had no idea that he one day would own the company that made the equipment for his father's old gin - and that today manufactures about 60% of the gins sold around the world. A WISE PURCHASE Living in Brussels and visiting Continental's facilities in Prattville regularly, Fermon became Chairman of the Board after he and his son, Roger, purchased 50% of the company in 1986. Concurrently, the name was changed to Continental Eagle Corporation to reflect the name of the Eagle Gin, which was a product of Eagle Cotton Gin Company started in 1833 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Eagle Cotton Gin Company was primarily an export company and one of six companies that merged to form Continental in 1899. "I wanted to return to the source of the company," he says. The Fermon family purchased the remaining 50% of Continental Eagle in 1988 and remains the sole shareholders today. A LONG HISTORY Fermon, who speaks seven languages (English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Greek), speaks and writes fluently all seven. In fact, he graduated from St. Marc University in Alexandria with a degree in language, math and philosophy. He credits his knowledge of these languages, and his cotton reputation, for his success in selling gin plants worldwide over the years. With 24 years experience with merchant and government cotton departments before joining Continental, his worldwide reputation had already been established. In 1950, he moved from Bianchi Fenderl to General Superintendence in Geneva, spending two years in Liverpool and two years as manager of the Cotton Department in Sao Paulo. In 1956, he became head of the Cotton Department of Bunge, Inc., in Athens and Salonica. He then moved in 1958 to Mozambique to become the head of the Cotton Department of the Portuguese Government which included both Mozambique and Angola. In 1962 he became managing director of Compagnie Cotonniere Congolaise (COTONCO) in Brussels and then, in 1963, he became a vice president - Europe and Africa, for Continental Gin Company. Even now Fermon travels some 250,000 to 300,000 miles a year, mainly to West Africa, as he calls on customers. Most know him personally. And he remembers well some of the early days in the cotton business, like in Brazil in 1955. There was a sale of 125,000 bales of cotton to China. "I graded each bale and accepted 125,000, but I think I graded 180,000 or 190,000 bales before accepting the required 125,000 bales," he says. This was over a 3 month period when he "sometimes slept on samples in the grading room." And while Fermon is a language expert, learning four languages in school and picking up the rest while working, he was not very fluent in Greek when he went to Greece in 1956. He made himself speak only Greek in Greece, making himself write and read 12 hours a day. He learned Portuguese the two years he was in Brazil. Fermon calls his language skills "kind of a hobby and a necessity, because I found that it is necessary to know a customer's language - people will deal with you better. They are happier to listen to you in their language than make the effort to do it in another."Continental Eagle sold some 17 plants in the world in 1996, mainly to ginners in the United States, Turkey, Greece, East and West Africa. "The most popular gin overseas, as well as in the United States, is the 15 bale-per-hour plus 161 Golden Eagle. Though in the past the U.S. market needed more sophisticated equipment than the overseas market, that is changing. For one thing, more cotton abroad is being machine harvested so they need more of the same kind of equipment as in the United States," explains Roger Fermon, president of Continental Eagle. "With hundreds of the 161 Golden Eagle gins in the field, people feel secure about the ability of our ginning systems to perform well." A BRIGHT FUTURE For the future, the Fermons see good market opportunities for the sale of new gins to Brazil, Argentina, West Africa, Turkey, and Greece. "I put a lot of hope in Turkey and West Africa for the overseas market," says Roger. Greece has been a hot market lately, with Continental Eagle selling SIX new gin plants there in a year's time. One Greek ginner wanted a new Continental gin for the 1995 season so badly that he had it delivered by airplane. In fact, a few orders had to be refused by Continental Eagle in 1995 because of booming business - they couldn't have been delivered on time. "We don't want to fool our customers," says Roger. "We know once we accept they are counting on receiving their equipment and if they don't get their equipment in time for their season it is a disaster for them. That is why we make sure not to take more than what we can handle." Adds Joseph Fermon: "We only take the business that we are sure we can accomplish professionally." It's that type of attitude which led Fermon to be decorated by the King of Morocco in 1964 for services rendered in establishing two gin plants in Morocco, and by the president of the Republic of Central Africa in 1969 for the establishment of two new gin plants there.For the future, Continental Eagle is coming out with two new press, the 9500 down-packing press and the 9300 up-packing press. The 9500 is a down packing press with a capacity ranging around 55 bales per hour - "this is going to be a good press for a two and three stand plant," says Roger. It features a platform alongside so workers can work on the press in stable conditions. With the Model 950 Press, the 9500 and the 60 bales per hour Models 930 and 9300 UD Press, Continental Eagle offers the Jenglo, a semi-automatic feed cotton bale tying system. Continental Eagle, through its IMPCO Division in Phoenix, Arizona, also manufactures a full line of oil mill preparation machinery for the cleaning, delinting and dehulling of not only cottonseed, but also for the decortication and separation of sunflower seed and numerous other oil bearing seeds. Continental Eagle is also involved in high capacity acid delinting systems for planting seeds. Continental's new market includes aerator equipment for the aquaculture industry. |
