Oliver Steele History

Oliver W. Steele was born April 1, 1892 in Dallas, Texas. Oliver's father, Walter Steele, along with his brother, Edward, and family friend, Henry Sutton, developed the first modern Gravity Separator in 1897. Together, they formed the company Sutton Steele & Steele. The company still exists today as part of a larger conglomerate. Following High School, Oliver attended Colorado School of Mines to study mining engineering. During summer vacations, he worked as an apprentice miner in the Cripple Creek Gold Mining area. Following graduation, the Phelps-Dodge Copper Company in Tyrone, Texas employed Oliver. In 1915, he married Hazel Powers, whom he had known since Sr. High School. The peak of Oliver's mining experience was when he was employed as chief engineer of the Anglo-American Silver mine in Guanjuato, Mexico. During his time there his daughter Hazel Steele Burney was born.

Oliver's father died in 1926 leaving Sutton Steele & Steele without a President. Oliver moved back to Dallas, Texas to fill the position and lead the business for four years. However, Oliver felt the differences of opinion amongst the owners limited the growth of the business. In November 1930, Oliver borrowed $150.00 on his insurance policy, gave $100.00 to his wife and set out for St. Louis to found the Oliver Manufacturing Company.

After World War II, Oliver was disturbed to find St. Louis a restless city, wracked with labor violence. This unsettled Oliver and motivated him to move the company elsewhere. Since the early 30s, Oliver had kept up a friendship with Harvey and Francis Clute of Rocky Ford. In 1947, based on his knowledge of the town, Oliver decided to move the factory to its present site west of Rocky Ford.

Construction began in 1947 and completed in 1948 with most of the work being done by Oliver and his own men.

The first Oliver machine was shipped from Rocky Ford in July of 1948.

In 1951, Oliver made a great leap forward in the design of the Gravity Separators with the introduction and patenting of the "Hi-Cap" multiple fan machines. These machines tripled capacity of the Oliver Gravity Separators with an improvement in quality.

It is this basic Oliver design that separated Oliver from its competitors and to this sets Oliver apart as the most popular manufacturer of separation equipment in the world.

Geoff Burney History

Geoff Burney, grandson of Oliver Steele, can't remember a time when he didn't work for Oliver Manufacturing Company. When Geoff was seven he was being paid for odd jobs when visiting his Grandfather each summer in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Every year he learned more and more about the family business of separation solutions. In the summer of 1965, Geoff started to work a 48-hour week for Oliver, which paid the tremendous rate of $1.25 an hour.

That fall, Geoff returned to his home in Washington D.C. where his father settled. Geoff pursued his education at various schools graduating from the Hawthorne School in 1966 and was accepted in the School of Engineering at Oregon State University. Engineering had always been his goal, but the reality of the task was a different story. Reluctantly, Geoff switched to a History major but then realized that history wasn’t his cup of tea. He began to take business classes where he found his niche. In 1971 he graduated with a degree in History and Business Administration. He then returned to Rocky Ford and Oliver Manufacturing. He never looked back.

July 1, 1971 was Geoff's first full day at Oliver. His early duties included reading and answering the mail and overseeing the work in the shop. Having Geoff in this role helped free up time for Oliver Steele so he could work on developing his amazing machines - which is what he loved to do.

In the beginning, things were primitive at Oliver. What had been okay in 1930, such as using an outhouse and having no air conditioning, was still okay for Oliver Steele throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s. In September 1973, the workers went on strike; they set up a picket line, which lasted a few hours until the sheriff came out and put an end to the strike. But the backlog of the strike stretched to 16 weeks. So Geoff did most of the assembling of the machine orders until things got back to normal. It was tremendous experience for him.

With the passing of Oliver Steele in 1976, Geoff was left with a new set of problems. Geoff realized that getting organized was going to be the name of the game. Geoff increased Oliver wages and with that, the quality and dedication of the Oliver's employees increased. The outhouse was replaced with indoor plumbing, the plant got air conditioning and by the late seventies people would line up to work for Oliver and stayed for life.

In 1977, work on the Model 240 gravity Separator began. Drawing on Oliver’s original design, it was bigger with seven fans. The 240 was a success and is the leading Oliver model in production today.

In 1978, Geoff decided it was time Oliver entered into the computer age. Oliver installed an ADAM computer, which allowed Geoff to program it exactly to Oliver’s specs. By the middle of 1979, it was fully operational, and though the hardware has changed, it is still doing the job today.

In 1984, after several years of development, Oliver introduced the Maxi-Cap line of gravity separators and destoners. The Maxi's were an answer to what the industry felt was needed, more capacity and ease of operation combined with traditional Oliver values of quality and dependability.

In 1991, Geoff's youngest son Brian Burney joined the Oliver team. Brian worked with every aspect of the company for ten years. When Geoff experienced some health problems in 2001, Brian was ready to take the reigns. Today Geoff is relaxing and traveling in the winter months. Geoff is still Chairman of the Board at Oliver and manages the Company's profit sharing fund, a skill he learned from his grandfather Oliver Steele at age 13.

In 2005, Oliver Manufacturing purchased the Size Right line and has done a lot of work improving on the design.

Oliver Manufacturing is still focused on research and development and has the top minds in the industry constantly on the leading edge of the industry standards.

Oliver Manufacturing has been the industry leader for the past 78 years, sending the best quality machines all over the world. It is Oliver's intention to stay that way.