News

Did You Know? HMD Kontro Are The Pioneers Of The Sealless Pump

In 1946, Geoffrey and Charles Howard founded the company, Hydraulic & Mechanical Developments Ltd. and a year later the first sealless magnetic drive pump was pioneered in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

The first electromagnetical sealless pumps were then manufactured for ICI to handle Dowtherm at 300°C. This sealless magnetic drive pump broke new ground in fluid handling technology and today HMD Kontro is globally recognised as the pioneer of sealless pump design, engineering and manufacturing.

Sealless magnetic drive pumps are the first choice for a wide range of applications and particularly for industries involving toxic substances as well as fine, corrosive and aggressive liquids. We hope you like the picture of one of the very first pumps we produced, which is on display in our lobby area at our premises in Eastbourne.

For more information about HMD Kontro and our sealless magnetic drive pumps, please call us on +44 (0)1323 452000 or email us

At HMD Kontro, we know that the success of our company is down to the efforts of the whole team. We are therefore delighted that our employees can benefit from discounted Merlin passes, which can be purchased through the Simply Health membership scheme, a staff benefit provided by HMD Kontro.

Amy Stimpson, who works in the finance team at HMD took advantage of this during the long school holidays and she and her family enjoyed a fun packed summer using the discounted passes. Amy, her partner and two young children went on trips to The London Eye, The Shrek Adventure, The London Aquarium, Chessington World of Adventures, Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Warwick Castle – all of this was for the price of one entry pass per person of £97 instead of the normal £139! Wow!

Amy said that her children enjoyed every second of their visits and were looking forward to more adventures in 2020. Amy is now back at work at HMD Kontro, totally refreshed, following a great time with the family! If you are looking for a career with a great company, check out our Job Vacancies – there might just be something for you. Alternatively, please call +44 (0)1323 452154.

From Hydraulic & Mechanical Developments to HMD Kontro

With over 70 years of history, it is not surprising that we have an array of achievements behind us and of course many more to come. This week we look at how the name of the company has evolved over the years.  We’ve posted a local picture of Beachy Head and the iconic lighthouse, which we hope you enjoy.

• • 1946 – Geoffrey and Charles Howard found Hydraulic & Mechanical Developments Ltd.
  • 1954 – The Kontro Co. Inc. is (separately) founded in Athol, Massachusetts, USA
  • 1970 – HMD Pumps are first introduced into the US market with Kontro Inc.
  • 1982 – The company is renamed HMD Seal/less Pumps Ltd.
  • 1990 – HMD Kontro is recognised worldwide as the home of the sealless pump
  • 1994 – HMD and Kontro are both acquired by the Sundyne Corporation
  • 2017 – HMD Kontro celebrates 70 years of innovation and success

For more information please see the About section of our website or the timeline.

The team at HMD Kontro have been busy fundraising for the BBC’s charity, Children In Need, which raises millions of pounds every year to help change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people throughout the UK. To date this amazing charity has raised over £1 billion!

The BBC programme was on television screens on Friday 15th November, the day that the HMD Kontro team had their fundraising day. There was a lot going on including a raffle with fabulous prizes donated by the staff and the company, and a cake sale with several members of the team bringing in freshly baked cakes in return for donations.

Graham King won the annual ‘Duck Race’ sweepstake. You can see his picture below in front of Pudsey – we won’t mention the photographer! There are also some pictures of the amazing cakes, with Teresa Costa proudly displaying them. The staff also enjoyed a tasty curry lunch, and so you could say, “a pretty good day was had by all”. And the best part, £400.00 was raised for the children.

If you are interested in being part of the HMD Kontro dynamic team, please see the Careers section here or get in touch with the HR department.

We are delighted to congratulate Craig Halbard Jones, one of our Quality Engineers, based in Eastbourne, on his amazing feat of completing the Sahara Trek in aid of St Michael’s Hospice.

A small group of 28 intrepid adventurers were successful in crossing the desert in support of this amazing charity. They left the UK on 7th November, bound for Marrakesh in Morocco with the trek starting the next day. Over the four days, the group covered 52km in temperatures ranging from -2°C to 42°C.  To get to the trek start point, the group journeyed for 11 hours through the Atlas Mountains, reaching an altitude of 2,260 meters above sea level.

St Michael’s Hospice provides much needed high quality, responsive palliative care and bereavement support across Hastings and Rother. The Fundraisers work tirelessly to organise events and challenges to raise the £12,000 per day that is required to continue the services. The total Craig has raised to date is a mind blowing £1,720. Craig is already planning another challenge for 2021, which could be either Machu Picchu in Peru, The Great Wall of China or the Rockies in Canada.

HMD Kontro is delighted to be sponsoring Olga Caitar’s work at the Fine Art Exhibition Gertruda.  Olga works as a Production Planner at HMD Kontro and in her spare time, she loves to paint.

Olga says that her paintings create stories through colour and passion, and she uses different mediums to produce dissociated shapes and realistic images, which invite the viewer to discover, to ask, to find out and to enjoy.

If you would like to discover the stories behind Olga’s paintings expressing her different ideas according to her mood, her paintings will be on show from 22nd February at The Welcome Stranger Restaurant/Bar in Hastings.

HMD Kontro is proud to be active and involved in the local community around our headquarters in Eastbourne, East Sussex. For more information about our innovative and progressive company, please see the dedicated section of our website here or contact our HR department.

The launch event of the Your Town Creative Café was held in Hastings and HMD Kontro’s Jo Whitling, Technical Support Engineer, was delighted to attend. It was a half-day career event where young people meet industry employers and professionals in an informal and yet structured café environment to find out more about the different areas of their work. The project is aimed at getting more young people to think about engineering as a career and to increase diversity.

What Is ‘Your Town’ By Culture Shift & Creative Cafés?

Your Town is ‘Transformations by Young People and Engineers’ and is an exciting project for young people delivered by Culture Shift and funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious fund. Culture Shift puts creativity to work to facilitate positive change. It aims at generating dynamic partnerships where the creative and cultural sector work with community, business and education partners to produce bespoke, action-based solutions.

The website describes Creative Cafés as, high-energy, dynamic networking events where young people can meet and be inspired by employers and industry professionals across all sectors. Naturally engineering as a career is part of this and they are very keen for women engineers to take part.

The cafés are set up to have one professional for every 7-9 students, which makes for easy conversation with the events being structured around a menu of activities. The event that Jo attended explored ideas about engineering with Jo captivating her audience with her knowledge and skills.

The feedback that Jo received was really positive with the organiser complimenting her on the way she kept the students engaged bringing the mechanics of HMD Kontro’s pumps to life with pictures, diagrams and a small-scale demonstration kit.

HMD Kontro Helping the Next Generation of Engineers

 HMD Kontro is always keen to support the local community by sharing skills and experience to the next generation to enhance the professional development of the engineers of the future. Events like this enable students to test products and service ideas in a supported environment. If you are looking for a career in engineering, please contact our HR department for current vacancies and opportunities.

Andrew Mann and Colin Poole recently attended an Engineering Science workshop, hosted by IMechE on 24^th July where the purpose was to help to bring engineering to life in the secondary school curriculum. The experienced engineers from HMD Kontro working alongside the Mastery Science Team (the facilitators) aimed to create new and innovative resources for school children taking GCSE science, whereby materials would be provided that were suitable for years 7 and 8 in the main subjects of Physics, Biology and Chemistry.

Theoretical And Practical Sessions

 Theoretical science was on the morning agenda followed by more practical laboratory / classroom exercises in the afternoon. Each topic had two set scenarios with the teams assigned to explore and propose possible solutions to each, which would be voted on at the end of the session so that this could be developed further by the Mastery Science Team for inclusion into the future GCSE syllabus.

Playground Equipment For Exploring

The HMD Kontro engineers used playground equipment to work on a unit exploring forces, which was widely accepted as a strong contender for future development. Andrew and Colin are very much hoping that their work and ideas will progress to the next stage.

If you are interested in working for a dynamic and progressive company, please see our current vacancies or get in touch with our HR department on + 44 (0) 323 452148.

HMD Kontro is proud to have recently joined the Women in Engineering Society (WES). This is a charity and a professional network of women engineers, scientists and technologists, which offers inspiration, support and professional development. Initially 15 of our female employees have been given individual WES membership for a year. 

What Is WES?

It was founded on 23^rd June 1919 and was there to support women engineers who though they had been welcomed during the war years found themselves under pressure to relinquish their jobs so that the men returning from the war could fill their positions. WES was formed to not only resist this pressure but to promote engineering as a rewarding job for women.

The number of women who are professional engineers in the UK is approximately 11%, which is thought to be one of the lowest in Europe and the number in technical level roles, where actually growth rate is at its greatest is even lower than that figure.

Benefits For Our Members Include: 

• Representation from the WES at up to two of our company women’s events
• Access to best practice and advice support for our diversity programmes
• Two representative places at the Women’s Engineering Society annual conference
• Quarterly communication updates from the Society
• Opportunities for our staff to engage with the Society on their volunteer programme of activities
• Bi-annual best practice knowledge sharing session with other Society partners

Membership of this prestigious society also has many benefits for HMD Kontro including being part of the largest network of women engineers in the UK and as such we are fully committed to supporting WES in its campaign for gender diversity in engineering. Communications from WES include a quarterly journal and monthly e-newsletter.

HMD Kontro is looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship with WES and of course to recruiting more women to our company including in the roles of apprentices and engineers.

For a current list of vacancies at HMD Kontro, please click here or get in touch with our HR department on + 44 (0) 323 452148.

The health and wellbeing of our staff is a vital part of our business strategy, as our future success is reliant on the efforts of our talented team. We want them to be fit to carry out their work, healthy and most importantly happy.

Recently, we set up HMDBe, which is a comprehensive programme of support that is available to all of our staff. Fundamental to the programme is Be Healthy, which encourages our staff to maintain a good standard of health and wellbeing. It includes the support of Simply Health, a corporate health plan that takes a preventative approach to helping maintain both physical and mental wellbeing. A 24-hour helpline is available from Simply Health as well as access to face-to-face counselling.

Another element is the aptly named Be Well, which actively encourages participation in wellbeing activities including giving up smoking, avoiding colds and flu through vaccinations and support of National Awareness days related to health issues such as prostate and breast cancer.

If you are looking for a career with an innovative and progressive company, and one that actively supports the health & wellbeing of its workforce, please check out our current vacancies or contact our HR department.

One of our initiatives is to ‘Be Sustainable’ and as conscientious manufacturers the vast majority of our waste is recycled. The following materials and equipment that come on to the site are 100% recycled:

• Wood
• Paper
• Metal
• Solvents
• Paint waste
• Batteries
• Toner cartridges
• Light bulbs
• Computer equipment
• Electrical equipment
• Waste oil

Currently, we do not produce enough waste plastic onsite to arrange recycling and there is no commercial collection facility for food stuffs and so to help the cause, we ask the team to take home any plastic bottles and cartons and food waste, to recycle them there.

We really do encourage our team at HMD to recycle at our headquarters in Eastbourne, and if they have any ideas or initiatives that would help us to be even more sustainable and to further help our recycling efforts, to contact the HR Department.