Markku Venalainen, left, President of Esko Pacific Sales, is shown with Mike Butterfield, center, Sales Associate at Esko, and Herman Quon, General Manager of Esko.

When Esko Venalainen was looking to go into business for himself many years ago, he wondered, "What should I name the company?"

A native of Finland, he had moved his family to Canada and was selling flowmeters, flying all over North America and driving up and down the West Coast.

He was well known in many mills, and one of his associates had an epiphany back in the early 1980s.

"Listen," the associate said, "everybody knows you as Esko. And they remember you. What's wrong with Esko as a company name?"

The rest is history. The company was named Esko Industries, and today, it's known as Esko Pacific Sales Ltd., with his son, Markku Venalainen, at the helm.

Markku recalls when the family officially decided to move to a new continent.

"Dad was working at Honeywell" Markku says, "and when they asked him to go to Canada, Esko called a family meeting and asked, 'How about we go to Canada for three years and then come back home?' And we all said, 'Sure, let's do it!'"

Decades later, Esko and his family were entrenched in North America and his business had become a prominent name in industry.

Eventually, his son followed him into the family business in British Columbia.

"I've always been a technical type, and so originally I ran the telex machine because it was so sophisticated for the time that most people had difficulty making it go," Markku recalls. "Sending across overseas orders by voice was expensive and prone to errors, so dad got a telex machine in the office in our basement. And then things became computerized. I've been in computers since high school and I was recruited from college to go to work for Ahlstrom in Finland. When I came back to Canada, I did a more computer work and every once in a while I would shift back and help dad with the technical side of his startup."

When Esko Industries created their own line of products a decade ago, Markku was appointed president of the newly formed Esko Pacific Sales Ltd. Esko remained involved throughout, but passed away in 2011.

Today, Esko Pacific Sales is [described as] a leader in the design, manufacturing and worldwide marketing of flow monitoring and process control equipment for process industries. Esko products are used primarily to minimize waste, energy consumption, and unscheduled downtime. Product categories include liquid and gas flow monitoring, mechanical seal flush monitoring, oil and grease lubrication systems, and optical sheet break and felt guide systems.

With a solid grounding in the pulp and paper industry, Esko Pacific addresses the growing need for innovative monitoring solutions, by utilizing modular design principles to reduce part inventories and improve delivery times. Continuous product development provides end users and OEM customers alike with state-of-the-art turn-key products and solutions. Esko also serves the mining, petrochemical and food processing industries, among others.

Esko Pacific is also a stocking distributor of other brands of flowmeters, oil and grease lubrication equipment, and level and pressure transmitters. Esko has been serving global markets for 30 years, and is able to supply solutions for the most demanding applications.

Markku says the primary goal is to provide technical assistance for selection and speedy deliveries to meet customer requirements.

Markku adds that the quality of Esko's products and services sets it apart.

"Well, obviously we believe we have the best products," he says with a smile. "We try to be very customer centric; customers often have special requests, and if it's even remotely possible, we'll do it. Usually things like a unique center-to-center distance on the connections on a flowmeter for example. Oftentimes, they'll have wishes for a convenient size, and we'll actually make a new item, with a specific center-to-center mounting distance, which can then become part of our repertoire of unique products. The next time somebody wants one; we've already got one ready. We work with customers on other details too, like customer logo name plates."

"We also try to do things in a very modular fashion, so reusing of different valve components, for instance, in different meters reduces the total parts count and allows us to have a lot of parts ready and put together customized meters literally in hours."

Esko Pacific Sales is based in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, BC, where it operates a manufacturing and assembly plant, product warehouse, technology research and development, product development, and corporate operations and administration. Esko has sales representatives throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Far East.

"Let's face it, Esko is an easy, and recognizable name," says Markku. "Esko, did a lot of work over the years and became well known in the industry. We strive every day to continue the tradition he started. Esko has really become somewhat iconic over time; at PaperCon 2016 we had booth visitors stopping by and recounting their own memories of Esko."