102 Key to that growth was a renewed effort to diversify the markets served by Western States. PEADCO, a W.R. Grace subsidiary, wanted to develop a more durable device for removing the short, spongy pith fibers from the bagasse resulting from sugar cane processing. In 1973, Western States redesigned PEADCO’s depither and entered into a license to manufacture and market the device. CHAPTER 8 left: Western States attends a chemical trade show with IHI Tubular, a Japanese sales agent, in the 1970s. IHI presented four horizontal decanters. Ed Dunsmuir and Keith Isaacs represented Western States' Vertical Filtering Centrifuges used in chemical and pharmaceutical applications.