Founded in 1970 by Walter J Yahn, Erie Advanced Products was started with a used pizza oven and a used electrostatic spray gun. 44 years later, now Advanced Finishing USA, it is now run by Walt's son, Greg Yahn. Greg has fielded calls to do some very interesting projects over the years. Some locally, and some half way around the world. Here is what he does.

Advanced Finishing USA is a production finishing company. AFUSA specializes in sustainable, environmentally friendly, non-hazardous and non-toxic powder coating. It services industrial, architectural, local, and anti-microbial markets. Afusa also offers solvent wet painting, CARC military painting, pad printing, value added and assembly operations. This 80,000-square-foot facility in Fairview can take on both small and large projects. The American flag pole at PNC Park in Pittsburgh is an example of one such large project. (Pictured above)

In 2005, Yahn and his wife Heather started Archi-Texture Finishing LLC. A-Tex is a Decoral licensee, and sister company to AFUSA. A-Tex takes architectural products powder coated by AFUSA and applies an image or pattern into it by a process called dye-sublimation. Yahn uses an analogy to explain it simply: “Think of your arm,” he says. “If metal part is like the bone and muscle, the powder coating is just like the skin. If you want a pattern or image on your powder-coated product, that's just like getting a tattoo.” Most images are wood grain, but there are over 150 stock patterns, and they do custom graphics as well.

One interesting project for A-Tex was decorating the trim and furniture for a secure mobile meeting unit prototype for the US military. No combustible material could be used in the unit, but it needed to look like a luxurious office full of rich, exotic hardwoods. The Air Force provided the metal parts and A-Tex did the finishing. The result was the office used by General David Petraeus during the US campaign in Afghanistan.

Always searching for new markets and new technologies, Yahn is a leader in the finishing industry. Whether it is anti-microbial coatings for hospitals, or local projects like the Presque Isle State Park picnic tables, Advanced Finishing is ahead of the pack.