About Us

About Us

Sterling Manufacturing is owned and operated by Lon Lehman and Chip Tippmann.
Lon and Chip both started in the commercial steamer business with Accutemp Products in 1992

Lon performed Manufacturing/Design Engineering while creating and managing the  Service Department, and Chip was the first Outside Sales Representative for Accutemp. Lon finished his tenure with Accutemp as the head of Engineering, and Chip became  sole-owner of an outside sales rep company selling Accutemp products exclusively through much of the United States.

In the spring of 2003, Lon and Chip ventured out together and started Intek Manufacturing. Intek manufactured the Xtreme Steam Connectionless Steamer and in 2004, Intek was presented with the Appliance Design of the Year Award. Intek was later acquired by Unified Brands in 2010.

In September of 2014, Lon and Chip formed Sterling Manufacturing. In the course of designing and selling steamers they discovered that half of the customers won’t buy connectionless/boilerless steamers because they recover too slowly and the other half of the steamer customers won’t purchase steam generator/boiler based steamers because of the expense to maintain and repair the steam generators. Sterling has designed a fast connectionless steamer that recovers much faster than existing connectionless steamers. We have also designed a steam generator/boilerbased steamer that is very cost effective to maintain and repair. The Sterling Steamers are the culmination of 35 years of experience in designing, manufacturing, servicing, and marketing Steam Cooking Equipment.