Allied Valve Specialists: Putting people at the heart of South Africa’s water crisis
By Adrian Ephraim
WHEN Tina Angelos and her female colleagues walk into a room full of engineers, there is sometimes a moment of visible recalibration. “They’re like, okay, now who are these women?” she says, laughing. The moment never lasts long. When she begins speaking about containment integrity, Euro Chlor certification for zero-leakage and emissions, and the water ecosystem that sustains 62 million South Africans, the room adjusts.
Angelos – known to her team as “Kaptein” – leads Allied Valve Specialists (AVS), a company she describes as being at the heart of South Africa’s industrial infrastructure. It is a metaphor she uses deliberately.
“I compare what we do to the hearts in our bodies,” she says. “There are four main valves that pump the heart and give life. Each valve brings a plant to life.”
AVS is a specialist steam and chlorine valve business, the product of Angelos consolidating two established valve companies – Steam and Valve Specialists and Entrade – into a single focused entity five years ago. The journey to that point was anything but linear. Trained originally as a pharmacist, she spent 15 years in corporate before crossing into the family industrial business her father founded decades ago. “He’s 83 and still fully in the companies,” she says. “He is my walking MBA – constantly sharing his wisdom and support.”
That background shapes how she thinks about the sector. Chlorine, she explains, is the hidden gem behind our daily lives. It is used in the plastic of your toothbrush, your life medication, and the gold-refining process at Rand Refinery. “It’s all an ecosystem,” she says. “My technical specialist says chlorine is a very smart gas – unpredictable, responsive to pressure, temperature, and environment.”
Safety And Containment Systems Support South Africa Water Crisis Response
Containing that gas – rather than merely controlling its flow – is where AVS has staked its ground. Their flagship product, the Hunt & Mitton valve range, is Euro Chlor certified for zero-leakage and emissions, which Angelos says is non-negotiable. “Every single one of our valves is 100% radiographed. No valve leaves our premises without complete confidence that it is the right valve going to the right place.” In a pilot project with NCP Chlor Chem, South Africa’s largest chlorine manufacturer, AVS-supplied valves outlasted their predecessors by a factor of six. The plant has since been running entirely on Hunt & Mitton.
Municipal Partnerships Are Key To Addressing The South African Water Crisis
AVS is now working with Johannesburg Water – the first time, Angelos acknowledges, that the company has gone direct to a municipality. “The crisis isn’t really about rainfall. It’s at the end of the ecosystem, where infrastructure hasn’t been upgraded, and wastewater treatment plants are failing.”
Personal Experience Reinforces Leadership During The South Africa Water Crisis
When Angelos’s son was diagnosed with a rare heart condition three days after birth, it brought to life the profound importance of her work. At eight months, he underwent open heart surgery – the cone procedure – that had never been performed before by his surgeon, Dr Susan Vosloo, trained by Christiaan Barnard. “She looked at me and said, I can do this,” Angelos recalls. “And she did.”
Watching those 10 days in ICU – the physios, the nutritionists, the nurses, the meticulous monitoring – transformed how she thought about systems. “Success wasn’t the surgery. It was the entire process afterwards. That is where I was so attracted to the valve part of the business.”
Today, her son is fit and full of life. And his mother runs a company where every engineer deserves a good night’s rest.
