In October 2025, GTH’s Senior Project Engineer, Ron Heintskill, represented GTH at the 2025 Distributor Meeting hosted by Fireye in Chicago. As long-standing distributor partners with Fireye, we view this meeting as a critical touchpoint: confirming alignment with our supplier’s strategy, gaining early visibility into product and manufacturing investment, and reinforcing our commitment to staying ahead in industrial combustion and burner-management solutions.
A Brief Historical Perspective
Fireye’s legacy in flame-safeguard controls and combustion management stretches back nearly a century with roots back to the 1930s when it introduced the first commercial/industrial electronic flame-safeguard control: a photo-electric device to detect oil flame presence in less than a second. Over time Fireye pioneered infrared scanners for gas and oil flames, discrimination between adjacent burner signals, and micro-processor-based controls with multilingual diagnostics. Today, Fireye remains a global leader in burner & flame-monitoring solutions across commercial and industrial applications.
GTH is a part of their trusted network of service, support, and sales outreach, bringing these technologies to the field and aligning with our collective growth goals. Fireye and GTH, both rooted in 1930s innovation, joined forces more than 60 years ago—and over the decades, our evolution has become deeply interconnected. Our shared values, technical alignment, and mutual commitment to customer success have strengthened this partnership across generations. Together, we continue to reinforce and elevate our collaboration through engineering excellence, proven reliability, and a unified dedication to keeping our customers’ operations safe, efficient, and future-ready.
Recent Strategic Investment & Ownership Update
A major strategic milestone for Fireye is its inclusion in the new platform at Spectrum Safety Solutions. In March 2024, Carrier Global Corporation announced the sale of its Industrial Fire business (which includes Fireye) to Sentinel Capital Partners. Under Sentinel’s ownership, the industrial-fire business was carved-out and branded as Spectrum Safety Solutions, a standalone platform serving high-hazard applications via several legacy brands (Autronica, Det-Tronics, Marioff and Fireye).
In the meeting, Fireye leadership emphasized the positive impact of this ownership change: a “huge influx of capital” has been directed into product development, factory investment, increased personnel, and global manufacturing footprint expansion — all of which we in the distribution channel should view as strong tailwinds for market opportunity.
Highlights from the 2025 Fireye Distributor Meeting
At this year’s meeting, Fireye’s leadership emphasized the company’s strong growth trajectory and renewed investment following its integration into Spectrum Safety Solutions under Sentinel Capital Partners. Fireye continues to strengthen its global manufacturing network — expanding capacity to meet growing demand and shorten lead times. The company is also modernizing its internal systems to enhance order efficiency and communication with distributors and end-users alike.
Several new product initiatives are underway, including updates to existing control platforms and the development of a new ignition controller designed for broader commercial and industrial applications. These innovations, paired with ongoing investment in factory technology and personnel, position Fireye for sustained growth and reliability well into the future.
While other companies such as Siemens and Honeywell are reducing their product offerings, Fireye’s continued growth and investment signal positive momentum for our shared customers. As the company expands its manufacturing capacity and modernizes its operations, GTH customers can expect even greater reliability, shorter lead times, and access to a broader range of advanced combustion control solutions. The development of new products, including next-generation ignition and combustion control systems, reflects Fireye’s ongoing commitment to innovation and performance. These advancements strengthen our ability to provide solutions that enhance safety, efficiency, and control across industrial and commercial applications. Backed by Fireye’s global reach and long-standing reputation for quality, our partnership continues to ensure that customers receive best-in-class technologies supported by the expertise and service, they’ve come to expect from George T. Hall.
The 2025 Fireye Distributor Meeting in Chicago re-affirmed our strong, strategic partnership with Fireye at a pivotal moment in their growth journey. A standout moment for GTH Senior Project Engineer Ron Heintskill came when Chris Martin, Director of Strategic Marketing and Customer Service, announced that Fireye will be reinvesting in and reviving a unique technology originally introduced in 1995 called “Focus.” Far ahead of its time, the Focus scanner carried a worldwide patent and was the first flame scanner to use dual optical sensors to monitor the ratio of key flame components—providing both flame presence feedback and real-time fuel/air ratio control. Although the product was discontinued in the early 2000s due to declining natural gas prices, its return aligns with today’s global emphasis on emissions reduction.
For Ron, who served as the product manager for Focus during his time at Fireye, hearing about its re-emergence—now in early development with no official name—was a genuine aha moment. It not only reconnected him to an important part of his own professional history but also reinforced the strength of the Fireye–GTH partnership and our shared commitment to advancing reliable, forward-thinking combustion solutions.
With robust capital backing from Sentinel/Spectrum, strong sales growth, expanded global manufacturing, and an active product roadmap, our alliance is well-positioned to deliver enhanced value to customers. GTH is committed to leveraging these developments, aligning our training, inventory strategy, and marketing communications—to ensure we remain a preferred distributor partner for Fireye, and our customers trusted supplier for advanced combustion control solutions.
As Fireye accelerates its investment in technology, manufacturing, and product development, GTH remains focused on delivering these advancements directly to our customers. Our shared commitment ensures that end users receive the most reliable, efficient, and future-ready combustion control solutions available.
