Mark S. Slusher
Product Marketing & Management Executive
The Energy Center of the United States - Houston, Texas
Being based in Houston is an advantage of specializing in fluid processing and instrumentation for the Oil & Gas industry.
Recognized as the Energy Center of the United States, Houston is home to 19 Fortune 500 energy companies and over 3,600 energy focused businesses. Further, Houston hosts 13 of the nation’s 20 largest natural gas transmission companies, 600 exploration and production firms and more than 170 pipeline operators.
As of January 2005, 31% of all U.S. jobs in oil and gas extraction and 14% of all U.S. jobs in support activities for mining were based in Houston according to the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas - PMSA reports.
The majority of Mark Slusher's 21 year career has been spent marketing fluid process and control products to the Oil & Gas Industry, where being based in Houston has been an advantage.
With many of these products, cross-industry applications were identified and successfully marketed to the water treatment, chemical processing, agriculture, food & beverage, and pharmaceutical industries.
The rationale to cross-market products is simple, if it can move oil and gas fluids, it may be suited to move other fluids, after considering industry specific applications. For example food and beverage hydraulic actuations must contain mineral or vegitble oil to meet FDA specifications.
Cross-marketing is basic "Outside-the-Box-Thinking" applied to entire industries. It's an important concept to remember when seeking organic sales growth for a product line.