Make new friends but keep the old,
One is silver and the other gold.
A circle’s round, it has no end,
That’s how long I want to be your friend
— traditional Girl Scout campfire song

Priorclave North America CEO Barbra Wells was recently invited to the West Indies to present on laboratory sustainability. This gave Barbra and other members of Priorclave’s team the opportunity to visit old friends, such as the staff at WASCO in neighboring St. Lucia. But it also offered the opportunity for a surprise reunion at the CARIRI headquarters on the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

CARIRI is the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute, a government agency founded in 1970 with technical and financial assistance from the United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP) and Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Today CARIR provides technical support and laboratory services to local industries in the Caribbean, including agribusiness innovators, biotech startups, and manufacturers. CARIR’s duties regularly include providing laboratory and field testing services, consulting, supporting research and development efforts, and offering worker training.

While visiting CARIRI, Barbra and her colleague Lee Oakley (Sales Director at Priorclave’s home offices in London) were (re)introduced to this old friend:

Here Lee is shown standing next to an early “standard” Priorclave: a 150 L front-loading cylindrical-chambered research-grade autoclave. This model featured an older door style with hand bolts (rather than the current lever-based dual interlock design) and the first version of the Tactrol Control System. This autoclave was designed and built in the company’s first decade—in 1997!—and is still running to this day.

“It was so old and well-used,” Lee remarked, “I didn’t realize it was a Priorclave until I saw the logo on the control panel.”

Ultimate Reliability: Going Strong After 27 Years

Despite its age—this autoclave was built the year J.K. Rowling published her first Harry Potter novel—Lee’s long-lost friend still bears all the hallmarks of a Priorclave: a jacketless round chamber, flexible programmable controls, energy efficiency, low water consumption, low maintenance, and high reliability.

“It’s not like this autoclave has been sitting in the corner for 27 years,” explains Priorclave North America CEO Barbra Wells, who snapped the picture of this reunion. “They use this autoclave every day, and have since it was installed, sterilizing laboratory glassware and waste loads. They love that it’s ridiculously durable, and they love it for its reliability. They’re also loving the service. For the first time since 1997, they had a service need—a solenoid valve—that they contacted us about just before we left for this trip. As it turned out, the display had also grown very dim over time, and so we are sending them a replacement for that, too. But everything else they’ve needed over the years to maintain this autoclave, they’ve been able to easily get at the local hardware in Trinidad.”

This is the essence of what Priorclave hopes to provide every customer in the world: a rugged, efficient, cost-effective autoclave with a long, hassle-free working lifespan, so people doing important work can focus their energy (and budgets) on getting that work done.

Since 1988, Priorclave has been supplying non-jacketed, research-grade autoclaves to often neglected markets anywhere in the world. Looking for an autoclave that will get the job done for years to come? Barbra and her team are here to help.