Ken Baker, EmTech’s Managing Director, and Mike Osmond, EmTech’s Operations Director, began their journey in the incubation business with Buckeye, based in Lopen, UK, and then later with Chick Master.
Ken joined the incubation business in 1992 and soon played a crucial part in taking incubator control systems into the digital age. Mike goes back further, managing the logistics of incubator shipping and the spare parts business for many years.
John Russell, now looking after EmTech’s Sales and Business Development, was Buckeye’s joint owner and Managing Director in the early 1990’s, and was instrumental in growing the incubation business and forming successful trading relationships around the world.
Sophisticated PLC based control systems, stainless steel hatchers, hatchery monitoring and alarms, and 36 trolley setters were a few of the innovations that John, Ken and Mike helped bring to the industry.
Ken was also influential in the development of reverse paddle fan and variable speed technology and crucially, the design of hatchery heat recovery systems, in particular the innovative stand-alone ventilation systems.
In 2015 Ken Baker and Mike Osmond launched EmTech Hatchery Systems, and by a strange set of circumstances found themselves back where it all started, in the same premises that Buckeye had occupied at the beginning of their careers, albeit now completely modernised. It was fitting that this should be the case as both Ken and Mike had always retained a belief that by combining some of the older concepts with the latest technological advances, it could form an excellent platform from which to create a brand new range of incubators.
The result, after a great deal of hard work and an unyielding belief in their vision and abilities, is a brand new range of incubation and ventilation systems that could only be achieved in the most experienced of hands. These new systems were trialled in hatcheries in the UK and very soon their performance and functionality became the talk of the industry. A leading independent UK company was happy to make known that EmTech’s systems were showing up to a 3% increase in performance alongside similar equipment from other manufacturers. Due to the ‘zero-point-six’ performance, within a very short time EmTech’s business was gathering momentum with sales in USA, Australasia, Europe and Asia for their single and multi-stage incubators, ventilation systems, competitively priced spare parts and smaller incubators.