Flexible workers, adaptability keep products churning out at Taco

HANDS-ON ASSEMBLY: Taco Inc. machine operators Latsamy Saysana, foreground, and Boumsavanh Le work at the company’s Cranston facility. Taco manufactures a variety of items, including air and dirt separators, circulatory pumps, thermostats and many heating- and pumping-based products.
PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
HANDS-ON ASSEMBLY: Taco Inc. machine operators Latsamy Saysana, foreground, and Boumsavanh Le work at the company’s Cranston facility. Taco manufactures a variety of items, including air and dirt separators, circulatory pumps, thermostats and many heating- and pumping-based products.
PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

PBN Manufacturing Awards 2022
OVERALL EXCELLENCE AT AN ENTERPRISE MANUFACTURER:
Taco Inc.


The last thing many people think about when they go on vacation is their hot-water tank. But for one Cranston-based organization, it has made it part of its mission to create solutions for everyday home and commercial needs.

Taco Inc., doing business as Taco Comfort Solutions, offers an array of manufacturing products, some of which can help customers avoid their post-vacation worst nightmares.

The company’s LeakBreaker, which can prevent a burst water tank from flooding the basement, and other basement staples such as its SR501 single-zone switching relay used to control circulator pumps can be found in many a home – even if consumers don’t immediately recognize the Taco name. Customers will also find air and dirt separators, circulatory pumps, thermostats, buffer tanks, and many other heating- and pumping-based products from the 100-year-old company.

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“On the commercial side, we make pumps, expansion tanks, plate and frame heat exchangers for places that many residents in our community will go to,” including universities and hospitals, said Jon Giampietro, Taco’s senior vice president of operations.

Taco has a LoadMatch single-pipe system that works to reduce humidity, and the company created a custom-made air-dirt separator for Florida State University. Products such as the Zone Sentry Zone Valve and the VT2218 ECM High-Efficiency Circulator work to reduce electricity usage.

Giampietro views the company’s particular appeal as being “very family-oriented.”

“There’s just a very high level of trust between employees and the management here, that it’s not so much about making products and making money,” Giampietro said. “It’s about creating an environment where employees can prosper and do better for their family from one generation to the next.”

Taco, which has facilities in nine cities, including Fall River, as well as in the Czech Republic and Italy, is a large company with more than 500 employees in the Rhode Island location alone. But Giampietro, who joined the company 18 years ago, was attracted to the organization’s culture.

“The sheer size of an organization makes it more difficult to have that personal, family-owned business feel,” he said. “And that was one of the things that drew me to Taco, was they had a reputation for being that type of family-owned company that was very focused on employees.”

John Forcino, vice president of operations, says the company takes pride in the diversity of its staff.

Over the past few years, the company has had to adapt and innovate to stay successful despite the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues. Forcino says that employees’ flexibility is key to the business’s success amid challenging times.

“Our strength is diversity in our products and our employees’ willingness and ability to be able to go to where the work is,” Forcino said. “Because in this environment, we could be down a week in some areas,” if supply is down for a particular product, he added.

During the early days of the pandemic, Giampietro said “the flexibility and bravery that our workforce showed during that early time was just so significant and allowed us to continue to be successful as a company – they really should just be recognized for that. Because without that flexibility and bravery, it would have been very difficult to continue operations and get those pumps for the people’s homes and to the hospitals that needed our pumps during that time.”

For Giampietro, a sense of connectedness within the organization contributes to his optimism for Taco’s future.

“There’s just such a great growth opportunity,” he said. “If the organization is growing, it [allows you] to provide opportunities for people. And to me, that’s really the most exciting part of the position and working with Taco.”

The company is looking ahead but also within.

Forcino is looking forward to company holiday parties, which Taco is organizing again around two years after the pandemic began.

“It’s just that kind of stuff that we’re ­getting back to,” Forcino said. “That’s ­exciting.”

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