Former Northern Safety Owner Opens New Business; Northern Safety a Client | Local Business | wktv.com

Jul 01, 2025

UTICA, N.Y. -- Sal Longo sold the business he built in Frankfort, Northern Safety, and retired...for about 10 minutes.

"I just understand I need to do things that are going to be constructive in my life, and I enjoy the community part of the business. That's why I brought distribution and manufacturing back here," says Longo.

In November, he acquired a similar business—Zing Green Safety Products out of Illinois—and started running it out of a Frankfort location earlier this year.

He started with around 10 employees and that number has since grown to around 50.

And that's not the end of it.

"We're in this to make a substantial business in this particular area. Headquarters will be located here," says Longo. "We are getting into manufacturing eyewear, protective clothing, hand protection, eyewash stations, first aid products...supplying to all the distribution throughout the United States, so we're building that here, being brought here, locally."

Northern Safety, which he sold and is now Wurth Industry Northern Safety, is now his client.

"We do all the customization products for them, and we ship directly to their customers or back to their warehouses around the United States," says Longo.

Sal Longo sold the business he built in Frankfort, Northern Safety, and retired...for about 10 minutes.

Zing, right now, is on Industrial Park Drive, in Frankfort, and Longo will soon also operate in space at the former Chicago Pneumatic; a reversal of the unpleasant trend of upstate New York losing manufacturing to other states—even bringing it back to a building where it used to be booming.