Employees save MicroCool from going dry
Catching a misty breeze is priceless in the desert heat. More than likely, you’ve caught a break thanks to the technology at MicroCool.
Vice President Mark Stanley says that four years ago, the company was one transaction away from going dry.
“We would be gone, yes, we would be disappeared,” Stanley says. “Had we let it happen, the company would have closed.”
A Swiss company started MicroCool in 1981, installing its first misting system at Las Casuelas Terrazza in Palm Springs. Twenty-eight years later, the owners decided to shut the business down.
Then employees Justin, Mark, Mike, and Jim stepped in.
“Four of us decided that shouldn’t happen,” explained Stanley, “so we arranged a buyout of the business of the European company.”
Now MicroCool designs, builds, installs, and maintains outdoor cooling systems for sites all over the world — right from Thousand Palms. (Perhaps you’ve sat outside at Pierro’s Aqua Pazza, or LuLu’s? The Palm Desert Dog Park? The lion exhibit at the San Diego Wild Animal Park? Those systems were made at MicroCool, to name a few.)
Using parts from local shops, a Coachella Valley man made the machine that manufactures the misting pipes. The machine will prepare 20 ft. of pipe at a time.
“We employ all local labor, everything we can buy locally, we do,” says Stanley.
Hailing from London, Canada, South Africa, and here in the U.S., the men have made the Coachella Valley their home.
The mentality in the board room is “think global.”
MircoCool put Thousand Palms on the map as an awarded leader in international exports. Riverside County and the House of Representative have awarded the company for their international success.
MicroCool manages projects from Saudi Arabia to Russia, and most recently in South Korea with a theater for fine arts.
“An operatic theater where the singers, the performers, suffer from the low humidity in the air, so we installed a multi-nozzle system throughout two theaters,” describes Stanley.
Locally, it’s latest project is the new Hard Rock Hotel in Palm Springs.
“We’re making a big impact in the Coachella Valley. We have done that for thirty years, and we’re going to continue to make an impact for another 30 years,” says Stanley. “Long after my time.”
MicroCool employs up to 20 people year-round. MicroCool® is located at 30670 Hill Street Thousand Palms, 92276.
