When the NBA championship finals opened this spring with the Utah Jazz playing the Chicago Bulls, most sports writers agreed that the series was a toss-up. But the 500 men and women who work for the Hussey Seating Company knew from the start they had a sure thing. Hussey had manufactured the seats for both teams' arenas—Utah's 22,000-seat Delta Center, and Chicago's 20,000 seat United Center. Hussey's "mortal lock" on the seats for the championships was not surprising, because the fast-growing, $90 million/year company, headquartered in North Berwick, Maine, has become one of the nation's leading makers of spectator seating. Company spokesmen say it produces the broadest line of fixed chairs in the industry today, including seats for arenas and stadiums, movie theaters, and lecture halls. Clients range from public school systems to General Cinema. Corp. to some of North America's most famous stadiums, including SkyDome, Denver's Coors Field, and the brand new Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, near Washington. D C. Powder coating has played an important role in the company's recent success, which includes annual growth rates of 10- 15% in the last five years.

Until the late 1980s, Hussey used solvent-borne liquid to coat almost all of the metal parts of the seating it manufactured. Then, says Hussey Process Engineer Dave Lockman, the company won the contract to provide seating at the University of Alabama's new Crimson Tide Stadium. "It was an outdoor job where we had to have an excellent finish that would ensure the cast iron frames could withstand the weather—lots of rain, sun, and high humidity," Lockman says. Hussey decided to contract with Keystone Koating of Lititz, Pa. to powder coat the seats. Very satisfied with the results, it has used powder coating on every outdoor facility it has worked on since, and now does most of the coating in-house.

Hussey made the move to powder after investigating different coating alternatives and discovering powder coating did a better job. "Powder coating definitely gives more bang for the buck:" says Lockman "It's provided our products better durability and weatherability, and it's very environmentally friendly."

For example, since seats in large outdoor stadiums are on display so often to fans and television audiences, Hussey pays special attention to how well the gloss and color of the coatings it uses stand up to the elements. In tests using a photospectrometer to measure gloss and color retention, powder coating outperformed liquid paint alternatives, retaining 80% of its initial gloss and color after 300 hours of exposure to humidity and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. "Just look at one of the stadiums we've supplied. You'll see how brilliant the colors are," says Lockman. Powder coating also meets Hussey's very stringent corrosion requirements, Lockman says, which are "way above" industry standards. In addition, one of the most important environmental benefits of powder for Hussey is that the company doesn't have to worry about hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Hussey also doesn't have to use chemical solvents to clean up overspray, as it does with liquid paint. Moreover, when Hussey powder coats large batches, it can recover and recycle much of the overspray. Hussey now powder coats metal components, which range from cast iron to mild steel as well as a small amount of aluminum, at its own facility at Sanford, Maine. (The company also outsources the powder coating of some of its plastic parts). The Sanford plant's powder coating line uses a 5O0-foot conveyor, with an iron phosphate pre-treatment system, and a radiant combination oven for dry-off and curing. The application booth has two collection modules, which make it easier to change colors. (While the company offers 22 standard colors and uses over 100 colors a year on its products, 80% of the coating it uses is black.) The booth can spray either manually or automatically, depending on the number of parts in a run. The size of the runs vary widely, from 25 to 25,000 components at a time. The Valspar Corporation supplies Hussey's powder.

"We use powder coating as a marketing tool," says Lockman, "because it does such a good job of color and gloss retention, corrosion protection and impact resistance. In a very competitive market, powder coating is an important differentiator for us."