Company Profile

Christine and Matthew Kane founded Black Rock Controls in November of 2017 to fill a need in the Western New York area for reliable controls systems integrators. The existing market was served by Systems Integrators who were either well out of the area, or who required specific details on the scope of work before proceeding. Without a drive towards improvement there was a stagnation in SCADA controls engineering requirements. In this “paralysis” the details and lack of improvement path overwhelmed basic improvements that drive safety, quality, productivity, reduce our waste, improve our climate variables, and decrease our energy usage.

In the field of automation and controls, more and more key personnel of water/wastewater and industrial plants are retiring or removed from staff as they seek a reduction in responsibilities or more lucrative opportunities. Existing companies and municipalities have a serious problem retaining talent and experience, and since control integration overlaps with IT functions, more and more IT security rules and increases in complexity with modern software and equipment translate into less flexibility with old critical equipment and essential processes. Controls Integration firms often must work from a set of verbal or out of date written information with needs not fully defined, work as a team with key players utilizing the knowledge of existing staff, and focus the goals and desired results, working towards a set of drawings and specifications. The need for a firm to assist with design and implementation in this way has become essential to the functions of water/wastewater plants and in industrial plants where small positive modifications can create large reductions in cost, reductions in waste and energy, and increases in quality. Systems that have been modified in a negative way can cause large increases in cost, more downtime recovery and delivery time, less reliability, and less flexibility to handle out of process exceptions.

Black Rock Controls’ mission is to fill this gap between engineering/design and successful implementation by applying known methods of modularization, simulating systems before startup occurs, implementing a detailed review with project stakeholders before operators must learn the new system on the fly, and in general being willing to identify the critical path (even if the critical path is not controls) to optimize the project final implementation. The old adage that the first 90% of the functionality for a project is easy to implement, but the last 10% of the project is much more critical, still applies in the modern world. Black Rock Controls aims to fill this gap and has proven these methods with success after success in the market.

The firm now resides on Delaware Ave on the second floor of the building at the corner of Mang and Delaware (the old State Bank of Kenmore built back in the 1910’s). We opened a panel shop in 2022 with UL 508 and 698A approvals while providing our drawings and building the panel parts to create control cabinets and SCADA/HMI operator controls.