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This article gives us a short overview of this year’s developments of one of the world’s most important glassmakers – Guardian Industries. We are taken from its founding in the 1930s, through its start up of float glass manufacturing and fiberglass, to acquisitions in the auto glass sector. Now with facilities around the world and its own Science & Technology Center, Guardian continues to do what it does best: growth as a company and development of specific glass products.

CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOPING AND EXPANDING – GLOBALLY

Guardian Industries:

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Guardian Industries began in 1932 as the Guardian Glass

Company, an automotive industry window manufac-turer. Today, Guardian In-dustries Corp. is a diversified global manufacturing com-pany headquartered in Au-burn Hills, Michigan, United States, with leading positions in float glass, fabricated glass products, fiberglass insu-lation and other building materials for commercial, residential and automotive markets.

In 1970, Guardian ope-ned its first glass plant in Carleton, Michigan, and began manufacturing float glass, and was the first company to enter the US primary glass in-dustry in nearly 50 years. Today, Guardian has 28 float glass lines and 13 glass fabrication plants around the world.Beginning in 1980, Guardian opened seve-ral fiberglass insulation plants, acquiring, in 1998, Builder Marts of America (BMA), and in 2000, Cameron Ashley Building Products (now Guardian Building Pro-ducts Distribution). The-se developments gave Guardian a strong and growing presence in the building materials distri-bution business throu-ghout North America.The 1990s also saw the expansion of Guardian’s automotive capabilities with the acquisition of Automotive Moulding Company of Warren,

Michigan, and Lab.Radio of Valencia, Spain, enabling it to become the first and only company to manufac-ture and fabricate both glass and trim products for the automotive industry. The company then went on to add automotive fabrication plants in the US and Euro-pe, expanding our offerings and geographic reach.At the turn of the 21st cen-tury Guardian entered a period of rapid innovation in the realm of value-added

products, and opened its Science & Technology Cen-ter in Carleton, Michigan in 2000. Thanks to inno-vations achieved there, it then expanded and enhan-ced its product offerings in the commercial, residential, interiors, solar, electronics and automotive segments. In 2008, Guardian acquired Siegel-Robert Automotive, which eventually led to the formation of SRG Global, one of the world’s largest suppliers of advanced, high-value coatings for plastics.Today Guardian products and systems add perfor-mance and value to vehi-cles, homes and construc-tion projects all over the world. With hundreds of new patents, scores of fresh products and several new facilities around the world, Guardian is poised to meet the challenges of coming decades.

PRODUCT AND COMPANY DEVELOPMENTS IN 2014

Proprietary coating system

Guardian’s SunGuard Spandrel HT is a new glass product for North America designed for building faça-de spandrel applications that benefits both architects and fabricators. Spandrel glass is located between a building’s flo-ors or vision glass areas to conceal structural and me-chanical components such as columns, floors, HVAC systems, electrical wiring

and plumbing. This dura-ble glass product can create a seamless and aesthetically pleasing look to a façade. It can also serve as a way to conceal interior views from the outside. Guardian Spandrel HT brings improved uniformity and appearance to spandrel glass with a higher opacity and less potential for strea-king; the result is a smooth, matte finish. Architects will now have the ease of spe-cifying a complete vision and spandrel glass package alongside Guardian Sun-Guard high performance, low-E coatings.Guardian uses a proprietary coating system for the Sun-Guard Spandrel HT. During heat-treating, the coating bonds to the glass providing long-lasting beauty. After heat treating, Spandrel HT is permanently fused to the glass surface and has the characteristics of a ceramic frit with increased uniformity from the precision applica-tion process.Spandrel glass can either be used in monolithic ap-plications (#2 surface) or in insulating glazing units. Mockups are recommen-ded to ensure the look me-ets design objectives.The Guardian SunGuard product line for commercial applications offers excellent solar control and a wide variety of colours and per-formance levels. SunGuard products provide innova-tive, leading solutions for appearance, economics and energy efficiency.

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New ShowerGuard website

This year also saw the launch of Guardian’s newly redesigned ShowerGuard website for North America – www.showerguardglass.com – with improved or-ganization, navigation and usability and an enhanced dealer locator to help custo-mers find a ShowerGuard Registered Dealer near them. Visitors to the site are also able to claim a USD 25 reba-te if they recently purchased a ShowerGuard product from a Registered Dealer.Guardian ShowerGuard uses a patented ion beam techno-logy to permanently seal the surface of the glass for lasting beauty and less maintenance.The upgraded site has new menu options organized by five key topic areas – Why ShowerGuard, Products, Photo Gallery, Care & Clea-ning and Where to Buy – hel-ping consumers, dealers and other visitors quickly find the information they need to un-derstand and purchase Sho-werGuard glass.The relaunch of Shower-GuardGlass.com included a comprehensive evaluation of the existing website, in-

cluding interviews with ShowerGuard Registered Dealers and key customers to ensure the new site would be the most comprehensive resource available to indu-stry and glass professionals. The Photo Gallery now in-cludes an increased social aspect, allowing users to share the photos they like on their personal Pinterest pages.ShowerGuardGlass.com is being relaunched in conjun-ction with the introduction of Guardian ShowerGuard Low-Iron, a new product for North America that com-bines Guardian’s popular ShowerGuard coating with a new low-iron float glass. ShowerGuard Low-Iron re-duces the greenish cast of standard float glass for en-hanced clarity, allowing the design and colour of show-ers and bathrooms to shine through. With its more neu-tral edge colour, Shower-Guard Low-Iron is ideal for clear, frameless enclosures. It is available in 10 and 12 mil-limetre thicknesses. All ShowerGuard products are offered with a Lifetime Limited Warranty. Con-

sumers are able to register their warranty, as well as rate their dealer, on the new ShowerGuard website.“The new ShowerGuard site conveys the strength of this industry-leading product,” says Dolan. “We are very excited to reintro-duce consumers to Sho-werGuard and aid in their decision-making process when purchasing shower glass products.”Guardian Industri-es has named Rick Zoulek Vice President of Flat Glass for the Americas, overseeing all aspects of Guar-dian’s North and South American flat glass business and po-sition the company for continued long-term profitable growth. Zoulek was most re-cently vice president of Flat Glass for North America. In addition to Guar-dian’s seven US float glass plants and fabrication operations in the United States and Canada, Zoulek’s expanded territory includes float glass plants in Brazil

(2), Mexico and Venezuela. Guardian also has distribu-tion centres in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru. Zoulek joined Guardian in August 2013 as Vice President of Flat Glass for North America. Since then, he and his team have made significant operatio-nal and commercial im-provements across North America. Before joining

Guardian, Zoulek was a Corporate Officer and Vice President of Industrial Co-atings for PPG Industries, where he spent 24 years in

ShowerGuard Low-Iron Glass ShowerGuardGlass.com Screenshot

Rick Zoulek

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various roles of increasing responsibility.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AWARDFive projects that include Guardian glass are among the 12 winners of the 2014 Innovative Design in En-gineering and Architecture with Structural Steel award (IDEAS2). Conducted by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the IDEAS2 recognize outstanding achievements in engineering and architectu-re on steel-framed building projects. The award recognizes the importance of teamwork, coordination, and collabora-tion in fostering successful US construction projects.

The award-winning buildings:

Battle Creek Area Mathe-matics and Science Center, Battle Creek, Mich., desi-gned by Tower Pinkster, featuring SunGuard SNR 43 and SuperNeutral 68. The glass was fabricated by Guardian Select Fabricators Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope and Thompson I.G., and in-stalled by Guardian Glazier Connection Member Archi-tectural Glass & Metals Inc.Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Mich., designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and In-tegrated Design Solutions, featuring Guardian Europe’s Super Neutral 70/41. Fabri-cated by BGT, installed by Josef Gartner and Calvin & Company, Inc.Krishna P. Singh Cen-ter for Nanotechnology, Philadelphia, designed by

WEISS/MANFREDI, fea-turing SunGuard AG 50. Fa-bricated by Guardian Select Fabricator JE Berkowitz, LP; installed by National Glass.One World Trade Cen-ter, New York, designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, featuring Guardian UltraWhite. Fabricated by Viracon.U.S. Army Corps of Engi-neers Federal Center South Building 1202, Seattle, desi-gned by ZGF Architects LLP, featuring SunGuard Super-Neutral 62. Fabricated by Guardian Select Fabricator Nortwestern Industries Inc., installed by Walters & Wolf.The Guardian SunGuard product line for commercial applications offers excellent solar control and a wide variety of colours and per-formance levels. SunGuard products provide innovative, leading solutions for appea-rance, economics and energy efficiency, and are available through an international net-work of Guardian certified Select Fabricators.According to the ASIC, the

12 winners came from more than 100 entries judged on use of structural steel. They were evaluated on such components as creative solutions to the project’s program-me requirements; aesthetic and visual impact of the project; and use of innovative design and construc-tion methods.

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Guardian Global Headquarters

2300 Harmon Rd.Auburn Hills, MI 48326 USTel: +1 – 248 – 3401800Fax: +1 – 248. – 3409988E-mail: info@guardian.com www.guardian.com

Broad Education Wing Photo by Jason Meyers

Broad Wheeler Photo 1-Paul Warchol

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