Sponsored by descote, inc.
In 1984, Jean-Pierre Richer packed his descote bellows sealed globe valve in a suitcase and set out from his home in Lyon, France, to find customers wherever the world’s most hazardous chemicals were produced.
Richer’s travels included Baton Rouge, where he found a ready market for his overseas manufacturing company’s signature product, engineered to manage the flow and pressure of lethal, corrosive fluids that other valves can’t handle.
Top Executive: Ross Aguilar, President, USA/CAN
Phone: 225.308.2424
Address: 11529 Sun Belt Ct., Baton Rouge, LA 70809
Website: descote, inc.
After five years of relying on a local distributor to bring its valves to market, descote established its own North American sales, technical and distribution office in Baton Rouge in 1989. Today it serves roughly 150 U.S. and Canadian companies and more than 200 industrial sites along the Mississippi River corridor and beyond, including Olin Chlor Alkali, Bayer, Marathon Petroleum, OxyChem, Formosa Plastics and Westlake.
“A lot of these clients have quality expectations for these valves because they’re going into highly hazardous and corrosive environments,” says Ross Aguilar, president of descote’s U.S. and Canadian operations. “Our entire focus is on reducing the probability of a failure, especially of the fluid leaking out of the valve and exposing humans and their operators to these fluids. We are dedicated to this one product, and that’s it.”
In 2024, descote’s 50th year in business globally, Jean-Pierre’s son, Vincent Richer, became global president of the company and handed the reins of the USA and Canada operation to Aguilar. He succeeds longtime president Mark Fucich, now descote’s chief strategy officer. “Jean-Pierre really wanted to secure descote’s future for the next 50 years in USA and Canada,” Aguilar says.
A six-person Baton Rouge team—including application engineer Beau Dennis, regional sales managers Eric Nicaud and Billy Bahnsen, customer service rep Parker Smith and warehouse manager Carey Darcey—covers the full U.S. and Canadian market.
Underpinning all of it is an exacting quality assurance process. Every valve is built to an inspection and test plan that follows it from raw material to finished product.
“Everything we do is for lethal, toxic, hazardous, radioactive service,” Aguilar says. “That’s our standard manufacturing process.”
It’s a standard built on a simple philosophy that has carried descote through five decades and two generations of leadership.
“We’re going to take the hard right instead of the easy wrong,” Aguilar says. “Our total focus is delivering to the customer what the customer requires and expects.”
