Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

ZEECO, INC.
Zeeco is trusted worldwide for the design
and manufacture of combustion and environmental
solutions for the petroleum refining,
petrochemical, production, LNG, biogas,
power, and pharmaceutical industries. When
founded by John “Jack” Smith Zink on
March 22, 1979, as a machine shop, Zeeco
focused on the ideals of expertise, innovation,
and reliability, which remain the company’s
foundation of success.
After his departure from the John Zink
Company (which was originally founded by
Jack’s father, John Steele Zink, in 1929 and
eventually sold by the family in 1972), Jack
purchased a small manufacturing company,
known then as Product Manufacturing, which
made replacement aircraft parts and component
parts for oilfield equipment. When
his non-compete clause ran out in the
early 1980s, the company, renamed “Zeeco,”
entered the combustion equipment market,
continuing the Zink family tradition that has
now lasted for over eighty-five years.
Over thirty-five years and more than twenty
global locations later, Zeeco employs over 500
people in its Broken Arrow corporate headquarters
alone. The site covers 250 plus acres
near Tulsa in a modern facility that includes
73,000 square feet of manufacturing space and
the industry’s largest research, development
and test facilities. Such historic growth has
also resulted in a staff of over 1,000 worldwide,
with combustion systems and products
installed in more than seventy-five countries.
International manufacturing capabilities, an
engineering brain trust, and next-generation
technologies make Zeeco a name trusted by
industrial customers worldwide.
Through the years, many of Jack’s business
and technical acquaintances followed him to
Zeeco. Jack hired a broadly talented man
named David Surbey who ran the company
for many years until his untimely death in
2000, after which Jack named his youngest
son, Darton J. Zink, president. The company
has grown at an extraordinarily rapid pace
under Darton’s leadership and direction.
Privately owned, the company remains
focused on combustion and environmental
systems, by engineering reliable, world-class
equipment to meet the strictest emission
requirements and survive the harshest operating
environments. With its “better by design”
philosophy, Zeeco’s product development
continues to lead the combustion industry.
ZEECO ® product lines include ultra-low
emission burners, gas and liquid flaring
systems, hazardous and non-hazardous waste
incinerators, and vapor control solutions.
Zeeco has supplied some of the world’s most
significant combustion systems, including the
world’s largest multi-point ground flare, largest
enclosed flare system, largest elevated flare,
and largest acid gas thermal oxidizer. Zeeco
has also developed the industry’s best performing
low and ultra-low NOx burners,
installations of which now reduce global pollutants
by more than 500,000 tons each year.
Moreover, Zeeco designs vapor recovery and
control systems that help industrial customers
conserve fuel, operate more cleanly and more
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