- Sales & Parts Inquiries
SINCE 1973
SINCE 1973
Screen USA has been sizing and distributing portable recycling equipment for contractors since 1985. We are the largest and oldest new and used portable recycling equipment business in the industry. We are not order takers. We ask what you are trying to do, what you need to produce, and what your budget is. Then we tell you straight.
“My grandfather started in Clarksburg, WV in the 1940s. My father brought it to Georgia in 1973. I started Screen USA in 1985. This business is in our blood.”
Rick Cohen’s father was a structural engineer. He moved the family to Smyrna, Georgia in 1973 to open a steel fabrication shop — Construction Steel Inc. — as part of the family business that Rick’s grandfather had started in West Virginia decades before.
Rick had no interest in steel fabrication. What he wanted to build was a screening plant — an American-made one, at a time when almost every screening plant on the market came from Ireland. In 1985, with his father’s backing, Rick founded Screen USA. His brother-in-law Neal Kaisermann joined as a partner, and the two have run the business together ever since.
Rick’s uncle had been building screening equipment in WV since the late 1970s. The first machine Rick ever sold was a wash plant his uncle built. The first customers were Thomas and James Treat at Ace Sand Co. That picture is still hanging on the wall.
1940s
Grandfather founds steel fabrication in Clarksburg, WV
Father opens Construction Steel Inc. in Smyrna, GA
Screen USA founded. First American-made portable screening plant.
GrinderCrusherScreen Inc. formed to sell used recycling equipment
Went direct sales after 9/11. Closed steel fabrication. Focused entirely on screening.
Expanded into trommel screens, star screeners. Grew the owner-operator niche.
Today
53 years of combined family history in this industry. Still based in Smyrna.
We are not locked into one manufacturer. If a machine is not the right fit for your application, we will tell you — and we will tell you what is. Most dealers can only sell what they have on the yard.
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We built Screen USA because the small owner-operator contractor needs a reliable company to assist them in buying the right machine for their specific application.
— Screen USA, Smyrna, Georgia
When a contractor calls us, what they’re really getting is more experience than they can find anywhere else — and a reputable resource they can trust.
Having input in the design means everything. Otherwise you are selling a flawed machine that you know can be made better.
The question customers always ask is ‘How much?’ That is the wrong question. The right question is ‘What will this machine actually do for my operation?’
“We walked away from five years of work because they cheapened the machine. We will do it again.”
We spent five years working with one manufacturer on a shredder. Multiple trips overseas. Thousands of hours. The prototype ran well.
The Owner-Operator Market
For decades, the heavy equipment industry focused on building larger and larger machines. We went the other direction.
We have always believed the owner-operator contractor — the person running their own operation, buying their own equipment, making their own decisions — is the most important customer in this market. Not the largest. The most important.
Only in recent years has the industry started to agree. We have been serving this market since 1985.
Con Expo | US Compost Council Show | AEM | Waste Expo
Featured in Construction Equipment Guide with multiple editorials over the years.
Screened compost at the Cleveland Zoo. Pre-processed materials for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Dead hogs. If there is a material, we have probably seen it.
“Knowledge is king. We are going to keep earning our business the old-fashioned way.”
The industry is moving toward order takers and search results. Customers Googling answers that are half true, buying from companies that are websites without walls.
Rick founded Screen USA in 1985 after growing up in the family steel fabrication business. He has spent 40-plus years sizing equipment for contractors, pushing manufacturers to build machines that actually hold up in the North American market, and building a business around the owner-operator customer the industry largely ignored. He has operated the equipment he sells, watched it run in the field, and walked away from manufacturer relationships that did not meet his standard.
Neal joined Rick as a partner and brother-in-law, and has been part of building Screen USA and GrinderCrusherScreen into the largest and oldest new and used portable recycling equipment business in the industry. Rick and Neal have run the business through recessions, 9/11, and COVID without missing a beat — keeping every dollar in the company and never compromising on what they would put their name behind.