History and People
About Our Innovative Company
Our History
CTS started as a typical “garage business” in late 2003 with thermal system experiments conducted in two closed loop wind tunnels and four environmental chambers housed in a steel Quonset garage building. Aside from the experiments, all other activities at the time were confined to the “blue house,” a converted two-bedroom ranch style house which served as a conference room, office space, workshop, calibration facility and storage facility. In spite of the limited space many projects were successfully completed, sometimes competing with each other for the available physical and even electrical resources.
Expansions in 2006 and 2008 created new laboratory buildings filled with additional facilities needed for novel projects and the continuation of ongoing work. The main laboratory building housed eleven environmental chambers, a metal shop, an electrical shop, a calibration facility, engineering office space, additional smaller meeting and conference rooms, and a large dual-purpose classroom/conference room. CTS covered 20,000 square feet in 2009, a factor of ten increase in the first five years!
In 2014 CTS achieved accreditation in ISO 17025, the industry standard for testing and calibration laboratories.
CTS has continued its expansion and currently has five separate 20,000 square foot buildings housing laboratory and fabrication space with state-of-the-art instruments and equipment, as well as prototyping lines for heat exchanger manufacturing. CTS' latest expansion features very large environmental chambers capable of many 100s of kW capacity for testing of industrial units used for data centers, cold storage facilities, and high-rise buildings.
Learn About Our Knowledgeable Team
CTS Staff
Our team is a young, enthusiastic, and dynamic group of 38 full-time employees who are experts in thermal and fluid sciences. The specialists in our company come from different backgrounds and from all over the world. They have vast knowledge and experience, which they put to work for you. Over half of our team members hold advanced degrees in science and engineering. CTS has a close working relationship with the University of Illinois Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center in Urbana- Champaign, IL. Four staff members hold positions as adjunct and associate professors in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Engineering teams work with a strong technical support staff with experience in Instrument Maker-rated machining abilities, food-grade and G6 welding abilities, as well as HVAC and Mobile HVAC Technician certifications.
Our team includes
- Electricians
- Engineers and physicists
- Brazing experts and metallurgists
- Mechatronic engineers
- Refrigeration technicians
- Mechanical and electrical technicians
- Instrument makers and machinists
CTS Mission and Values
- Client services:
- Professional consulting services to serve the needs of clients, research potential solutions, and successfully complete objectives.
- Provision of additional insights beyond direct requests for further improvements of the product concept
- Innovation and Creativity:
- Research to answer questions about emerging technologies
- Technical excellence with team problem solving
- Agility and speed:
- Anticipation, adaption to, and decisive reaction to opportunities
- Greater customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and innovation
- Quality:
- Continuous improvement in all aspects of our operations
- Maintenance of recognized professional, technical, and quality standards
- Confidentiality:
- Strict confidentiality for all consulting activities in accordance with client requests
