In this new episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast, Donovan talks to Corbett Hefner from Formation Ag. Formation Ag specializes in making equipment for processing hemp. They talk about the budding industry of hemp and everything hemp can be used for. They also talk about the importance of being nimble and being able to adapt for new ways to process hemp. To learn more about harvesting and processing hemp visit Formation Ag at their website: https://formation-ag.com/
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
DONOVAN: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast. We’re glad to have you guys with us today. Today, we have a really interesting guest: Corbett Hefner of Formation Ag. How are you doing today, Corbett?
CORBETT: Excellent. How are you guys?
DONOVAN: Doing good, doing good. So, Corbett’s going to be here talking to us about the hemp industry, right?
CORBETT: Correct.
DONOVAN: Now you guys are based out of Colorado, is that right?
CORBETT: Right. Monte Vista, Colorado, up in the mountains.
DONOVAN: There you go, there you go. So, Corbett how did you get started in this whole interesting world of agricultural products? And where did you get started and how did you end up here?
CORBETT: Well, I’ve been in agriculture my entire life. My family was in the fertilizer, and we had some farming, little bit of farming on the side, and I’ve always farmed. My degree was in Plant pathology so, I’ve always had an interest in agriculture in one shape or another, but I was in the flexible packaging industry, plastic mesh and fresh produce bags for 25 some odd years. It was in Texas and Wisconsin, for the bulk of it, Wisconsin.
And we decided to move back to our home area to be by our family in in 2016, 2015, I don’t remember now, but anyway, about that time I started with Power Zone Equipment/Power Zone agriculture in mid 2016 as Engineering Manager/Hemp Person because Power Zone Equipment made petroleum fluid moving products, you know, large industrial pumps, the watering for mine saltwater kind of things, huge pumps.
And in 2015, when oil went kind of south, they were looking for other things to keep their staff busy and one of the salesmen said, “Hey, you know this hemp thing is just starting to take off where we live in Monte Vista’s, in the San Luis valley of Colorado, which is a very large agricultural area. I think there’s 150,000 – no, it’s more than that 150-170,000 square acres of, might be square miles, of farm ground here it’s all irrigated farm ground. This is a very large potato area, second or third largest potato area in the country. And hemp, because of its water consumption, is a really good rotation crop to go into. Potatoes, Coors barley is grown here a lot of other vegetables like spinach, or lettuce, some carrots, etc., quinoa, a little canola. Hemp fits into the rotation strategy because of it’s very easy on water. It does not need a lot of water. It’ll do whatever you want to eat it, but it doesn’t need it. And that’s a major issue in our area.
So, in 2016, they hired me on as that managing position and I was supposed to do a little double duty. There for a while was about 80% engineering and 20% hemp and that made it about 6 weeks when CBD and the hemp industry just exploded.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
CORBETT: We had out of the engineering manager thing and then started the just only focused on hemp equipment
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: We built the cortication first because we thought that was a bottleneck in the industry because we fully, and from since the onset of the industry, thought the grain fiber herd aspect of the hemp business is where the bigger uses are. And definitely from and acreage standpoint and a viability for helping farmers be a little more autonomous that this was the approach.
We got into CBD harvesting because we found there just wasn’t a very good CBD harvesting solution, so we built the clean-cut harvesters for whole plant, horticultural style farming. We have the clean strip machine for bud type harvesting when you’re on narrow spacing for growing CBD, it also works for hemp grain. We’ve got the…
DONOVAN: Corbett, I’m going to have to pause here because you’re telling me so much information, I’m not catching it all. Hold on. So, this so the first thing you guys developed was what because I’d love to know. So, the first thing you guys built was the cord machine.
CORBETT: The cortication equipment – separating the fiber from the herd.
DONOVAN: Gotcha, okay.
CORBETT: Right. That’s where you get your opportunity for textiles, cordage, or cellulose, or insulation.
DONOVAN: Okay.
CORBETT: Fiber herd is your animal bedding, hemp tree, you know for the two big ones that people are probably most familiar with it which is why I’m talking to you guys…
DONOVAN: Yeah, yes.
CORBETT: …because when you decorticate, you create an enormous amount of dust.
DONOVAN: Gotcha, gotcha. So you have a big dust plume when you do that process, right? So that is the first machine you guys worked on. So, what was the next thing? I heard you say it, but I’m still trying to learn about this.
CORBETT: CBD harvest.
DONOVAN: CBD Harvest.
CORBETT: So we went from the cortication, we were probably five years early on the cortication. We’ve never stopped working on the cortication.
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: Yet long line fiber, which is the goal of our equipment and very good cooling herd, we’ve never stopped working on it the whole time. But we got into CBD harvesting because we have a custom machine shop and people asked us to build it and we did. It works well.
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: We’ve developed, basically now, we have four different harvesters.
DONOVAN: Okay.
CORBETT: Four, two that are more focused on CBD. One for grain/CBD and now we’ve got a dual head one that we’re building in conjunction with Bish Enterprises that mount on any combine that allows farms to basically dual crop grain and fiber and do the harvest at one pass without having a dedicated very expensive monster of a machine. We can implement this machine on pretty much any piece of equipment, take it off of that combine, and let it go back to any other harvest crop that it wants to do without modifying the machine.
DONOVAN: So, it’s just a new combine head that’ll go into any combine, but it’s good for harvesting. Now is that just for the fibers or is it harvesting the CBDs? Or will it do both?
CORBETT: Grain. It’s more geared towards grain which is your…
DONOVAN: Gotcha.
CORBETT: …hemp parts and cold press oil seeds, etc., but underneath that grain head is the fiber head, so we’ve got this patent on this thing because it’s unique. The only approach in dual head harvesting at the moment are European and they’re not autonomous. You can’t take this head off and you can’t take the existing head off a machinery and put them back to use in other crops easily.
This one is literally an attachment for a combine, then we can collect the chaff out of the back with our grasshopper collection cards and we’ve got 20 some odd different types of machines that we’ve either adapted or engineered from scratch for the hemp industry. Whether it’s harvesting, processing, or decortication of the fiber and herd grain cleaning equipment for CBD, we can separate the flower from the stock without destroying the trichomes and we’ve got a lot of different machines. We’ve had engineer and innovate from scratch to help support the industry.
DONOVAN: Wow, that it sounds like you guys…
CORBETT: It’s a lot of stuff.
DONOVAN: Yeah, like you’ve kind of taken the process from the beginning, almost the whole way through here for someone. So, if someone is looking at getting into this, if there’s a farmer out there who is looking to get into this, they would, I mean, it sounds like you guys might just be able to walk him right through the whole thing.
CORBETT: Well, we started a consultant group and a processing group so we’ve got everything from phonetics all the way to off take finished good products out of fiber and herd that we can help collaborate with these farms and make it a viable crop for them.
We had places to take the crops so, we had to – we saw that as a necessity we had to get basically vertically integrated from seed to sale, if you will, to make the industry move forward. It just wasn’t moving at the rate that we thought it should because we want to make a lot of machinery for people because our overall goal here is to help support these farms. They needed another crop that they can get some revenue off and get a little more control over their debt and hemp was a perfect crop to do that with.
DONOVAN: Yeah, yeah, and like you said it’s definitely been a growing industry and it’s taken off. So, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that you guys have seen that you’ve innovated to overcome? I mean, we talk about dust, we do a lot with dust here and yeah I know with you guys, you guys also help manage that process on your plant so that it’s a safe environment for the farmers and for the workers, but what are some other things that might be a challenge that you guys have just innovated and overcome?
CORBETT: Definitely having off take for these different crops. Because of this, there’s so many uses for this plant finished use, finished good uses for it. It’s kind of hard to put your finger on something to say, “This is what I’m going to go after”. So, trying to build equipment that is easily adaptable and flexible to help the customers put out the most flexible finished good they can was definitely a challenge because different genetics, different farming locations, different farming conditions, agronomy wise, you know, latitude, longitude, fertility, moisture, all can affect how the hemp grows and definitely can affect how you process the hemp stock. I’m talking stocks for dust collection. It definitely affects that so to engineer these machines to be flexible and adaptable, we’re building our systems modular. So, if you don’t need really high-end clean fiber, you don’t have purchase those machines. If you want really good controlled and milled herd down to small sizes, then we have, you know, your dust collection systems integrated with the dual vacuum hammer mills because we can grind the herd down to 20 microns, 50 microns, but the smaller you go with particle size, the harder it is to handle it. We struggle with the dust collection. I mean, it is tough. It is so small it’s tough create a draw to get everything out of the machinery.
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: Every lock can be different, every set of bales can be different so, that’s a real challenge is how do you engineer for every single eventuality. And you just camp at some point in time. We learn constantly so, we pivot constantly. The big major scenery manufacturers hate that. They want to draw something and just make it over and over again, and we haven’t had that luxury yet. We’re getting to where the main machinery design hasn’t been changing, but some of these ancillary pieces of equipment to finish it, we keep modifying changing because we learn all the time the different technique
DONOVAN: It sounds like you guys are like able to be nimble and reactive to what your customer needs are and that’s sounds like a big thing in this industry. That you know, depending on what direction someone is going to take that product you guys are able to help them come up with a solution for it if I’m hearing this right.
CORBETT: Right, we have to be flexible. That’s the biggest challenge is how do you engineer to provide a flexible platform with flexible piece of machinery to break the products down into what people are asking for. If you don’t have a home for the product, if you don’t have a sale for your goods, then it’s kind of hard to stay in business so…
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: That’s been one of our biggest challenges, really, is how do you tackle everything and do a good job at it so…
DONOVAN: Yeah, well, it sounds like you guys are working hard at it, and you keep figuring it out as it goes along here and continuing to innovate. You kind of touched on this a little bit, where do you think the future of the industry is going? What do you think is going to be the realm where…is it going to be genetics? Where you know it helps make things more universal, or more common or what do you see being in the industry? Where is it going to go?
CORBETT: I still think the fiber and herd market is probably the bigger sector of this business. Just because there’s so many uses from plastics to textiles, I mean, and everything in between. That’s the bigger acreage consumption of this crop because, you got to recognize the more acres we plan to hamper, the more acres we pull out of nutritional grain crops, you know, corn, wheat, barley, whatever it is. That’s going to help those commodity prices stabilize too and provide a little bit better of the financial future for these farms.
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: That’s probably the bigger one. I mean, everybody wants to do textiles, but that’s probably one of the harder endeavors in this this industry. We’ve successfully made fibers to do that, but we’ve lost the infrastructure in the U.S. to finish the fibers and get it into that state so we’re having to do quite a bit of work now on reinvigorating that and getting that equipment either back, or innovating because, you know, when we lost that equipment 40, 50, 60 years ago, 80 years ago, the way that machinery ran with the number of people that it took to run it, I don’t think we can duplicate today today’s market. It would be too costly. You just can’t find that amount of people anymore. Labor is becoming a very scarce resource so, to just say, “Okay, I’ll just bring all that infrastructure back”. I don’t know if that’s going to work, we just don’t have the number of people to run it
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: So, we’re going to have to do a lot of innovation in there to close this gap. Once they’ve got the fiber into a thread, then I can do a lot of different work in it. You know, from textiles, cordage, whatever the case may be, but from clean fiber to a thread. Filaments, that’s what I call him. That’s the plastic name for an individual piece, but there’s still a lot to be learned there and that’s what we’re working on right now, or I am personally. I still do a lot of the development and R&D for the company.
DONOVAN: Well, that’s great. I didn’t even know that the hemp product could be used as a plastic supplement. Is that what it would be used in, in that realm, to help eliminate the plastic? It would be more of a hemp plastic?
CORBETT: At some point in time, when people have done, on lab scale, a little isolation work and they believe they can make a resin pellet in essence and make a truly degradable plastic out of it. At the moment, when we use the the micronized product, you know, 50 microns or less, you can actually blend it into plastic now as an additive. It’s not a true biodegradable, but it’s a source reduction technique bring that lets you be a little better. I mean, you don’t have to, it be awesome if we could have 100% biodegradable in plastic today, but I’m also pretty realistic and know that it’s going to have to be a slow roll approach. Adaptation and acceptance of those products is going to take them a little bit. Performance is everything in plastic. So, if you make a mesh for filter media spun blown filter media stuff, it’s got to perform.
DONOVAN: Right.
CORBETT: So, you know, to get people to switch from what they’re doing today that’s known and established, you can produce to a standard is one thing and putting in a substitution, that’s completely different. It takes a little while to accept that so, you’ve got to be realistic about it but it’s going to happen. I mean, there’s some sharp people out there working on that. Really excited to see what they come up with it because I used a lot of plastic, and I would love to see that happen.
DONOVAN: Yeah, I think that would just be great for everybody. Great for agriculture, great for the environment, great for everybody if we can start to find clean renewable resources that help eliminate some of these other areas that we’re struggling in a little bit right now so…
CORBETT: You bet. Paper pulp might be an easier one but it’s large scale, but I have seen 100% machine made hemp paper done in the U.S. It’s a little narrow webbed, 24 or 28 inches wide, but what the heck of a start. It’s a really beautiful style.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
CORBETT: I’m excited to see what they do in the paper industry.
DONOVAN: Right, yes instead of having to harvest a tree that takes, you know, 20 to 30 years to mature, if you could have a crop that is every year, that would be another great area that we could use it in. This is all exciting stuff. We’re glad that you guys are working on it and helping innovate, not just for you know the health and safety of the people working on, but, man you’re helpful with sounds like the health and safety of everybody in the general population to with the innovation in this this world.
CORBETT: It’s all tied together.
DONOVAN: It is.
CORBETT: You can’t have one without the other. We’ve got to keep taking those steps
DONOVAN: Yeah, yeah
CORBETT: Yeah, it takes a while.
DONOVAN: Yeah, well, nothing simple is done overnight right
CORBETT: No, never is, but we’ve lost some of our patience in the country so innovation and true paradigm shifting technology takes a little bit.
DONOVAN: It does, it does, but we’re glad to have people like you guys working on it and you know that’s kind of what we do here too at Imperial is try to continue to innovate and help people like you whenever you guys are trying to make a cleaner environment for the workers. That’s what we’re doing here and it’s glad it’s great to see other people working on innovating for the health and safety of not just those that are working, but you know the overall environment and providing resources for people to be able to do that.
Well, Corbett, I don’t know if you have anything else that you want to say or touch on about you guys, but I mean I really appreciate the time you’ve given us here. Is there anything else you want to say?
CORBETT: No, you know if they wanted, if your audience was to look at what we’ve got we could go to ourformation.com website and look at some of the machines that we’ve got, you know, LinkedIn stuff. I post different stuff that that we do in the industry and you know right, wrong, or different it’s all out there. And take a look at it and if you learn something from it, great if you got questions, let us know. We’re always happy to talk about agriculture farming and farming of hemp and equipment for that and solutions for people’s problems. That’s why we’re here is to help them solve their problems.
DONOVAN: Yep, and what was your website one more time?
CORBETT: formation-ag.com
DONOVAN: Formation-ag.com, that’s great. You guys are on LinkedIn and probably all the social media platforms, correct?
CORBETT: Everything.
DONOVAN: There you go.
CORBETT: A bunch of engineering kind of guys so we’re probably not as good at it as we should be, but we got it out there
DONOVAN: You guys aren’t working worried about as much the Instagram, as trying to actually come up with the solutions for the problems, right?
CORBETT: Yeah, I mean during harvest I didn’t put anything out there for probably 6 or 8 weeks. We got busy with, a couple of us got Coronavirus, and that really screwed up our harvest plan and season, so we didn’t do very good at it. Yeah, but we worry about other stuff before that, well then. Now we’re worried about supply chain issues.
DONOVAN: I think that’s everywhere, but if we are able to start figuring out some of these things with hemp, and then we can bring that all back to the states, and be able to produce those products here locally, that’ll help us as a country, as an economy too so…
CORBETT: Absolutely. There’s no reason we can’t do filter media for these your collector kind of machine. It’s going to take it
DONOVAN: There you go
CORBETT: Very viable solution.
DONOVAN: Yeah, yeah so, well, hey I just want to say thanks again for coming on today. We appreciate it.
If anybody out there is interested in finding out more about Imperial Systems you can find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Spotify, you can look us up on all of those things. Corbett, once again thanks for coming.
We appreciate all the information you’ve given us; it’s just a wealth of knowledge. We’re excited to see where you guys are going. And everyone out there, thanks for listening. Stay healthy and stay safe and we’ll catch up with you next time. Thanks so much, appreciate the time.
ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
Differential pressure is an integral part of understanding how a dust collector is operating. System operators and maintenance technicians can use this information to create efficient maintenance plans for equipment and the proper operation of the system. This can save you from expensive repairs, dangerous working conditions, and lost production time.
What is Differential Pressure?
Differential Pressure, also known as DP, measures the difference in pressure between the clean (clean air plenum) and dirty (filter side or dirty air plenum) sides of your dust collector. It is a measurement of the resistance to airflow between the chambers of the collector. As dust builds on the filters, it creates more resistance for the air trying to pass through.
How Does Differential Pressure Relate to Dust Collection?
Differential pressure is important when it comes to dust collection because it indicates the physical changes in the filters of your dust collector. As dust builds up on the filter, it creates resistance for the air trying to pass through. The more dust and dirtier the filter, the more unequal pressure is created, which will result in a higher DP reading.
One way to think about this concept is when you are drinking from a straw. If you drink water through a regular straw, you will be able to drink the water without much effort. However, if you were to pinch the straw, it will take much more effort to drink the same amount of water as before. This is because there is much less volume flowing through the straw compared to when it is unobstructed.
This is the same thing that is happening in your dust collector. As the filter in your system becomes dirty, the differential pressure rises because the holes for airflow become smaller. As DP rises, adjustments must be made to compensate for the loss of suction. If the unit features a VFD (variable frequency drive), it will automatically adjust. If not, manual adjustments must be made with a slide gate or fan damper to adjust airflow.
Why Is It Important For Dust Collection?
Now that you understand how differential pressure relates to dust collection, let’s discuss why it is important:
The differential pressure is important for dust collection because it indicates what is happening physically to the filters of your operating system. The main use of the readings is to determine what the health of the filters are inside the unit. Differential pressure begins to rise when the filters in the unit are creating resistance. A DP staying above 5” of water gauge means that it is time for the filters to be replaced. This also means a DP around 4.5” W.G. is a good time to order replacement dust collector filters.
These readings will also help you troubleshoot and prepare a maintenance plan to ensure the safest working conditions and environment within your operations. By tracking the small performance changes within your dust collecting system, you can diagnose and respond to any issues swiftly. This will also require little to no downtime in your operation.
Do Not Neglect The Readings
The readings of differential pressure are often used to determine whether the dust collector is running at the required efficiency. There may be specific parameters for air quality permits in your area that are set by local, state, or federal agencies. The differential pressure readings may be requested to ensure compliance with the local ordinances for permits. Operations that are not within compliance are subject to heavy fines.
In one instance, a company was fined for operating one of its dust collectors with a broken pressure gauge and without accurately reporting their differential pressure readings. This specific company was fined $325,000. The fine also does not account for lost production time or repair costs. The key takeaway is to take your readings and the health of your dust collector very seriously.
How Can You Use Differential Pressure to Control Filter Cleaning?
Using the differential pressure readings to control automated filter cleaning has many benefits including: compressed air savings opportunities, lower total emissions, longer life on solenoids and diaphragms valves, and potentially longer filter life.
The CMAXX Dust and Fume Collection System offers maximum cleaning performance with 10% more filter media than competitors’ models. The CMAXX features powerful pulse cleaning technology to increase filter life and efficiency. Its heavy-duty design makes the CMAXX the most durable dust and fume collector in the industry, it offers the patented weather-resistant CrownTech roof and no external bolt holes. In addition, the modular design of the CMAXX means it can be customized for each application.
Conclusion
Differential pressure can make or break the health of your dust collector. Without monitoring the differential pressure and health of your filters within your dust collector, your operations are subject to fines, costly maintenance, and dangerous working environments. But when you track and observe your differential pressure levels, you can quickly respond to fluctuations in your system. This will allow you to create thoughtful maintenance schedules, understand the inside health of your collector more than ever, and make more sound operational decisions within your business.
In this Episode Donovan talks to Steve Bunyard who started ReIgnite Hope in Southern California. Steve tells us about their amazing and free welding program, open to those in need, to help them make a better life for themselves. Steve talks about how the program continues to grow and continues to change lives with welding. To learn more about ReIgnite Hope and how you can help, visit there website at: https://www.reignitehope.com
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
DONOVAN: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Dusty Jobs podcast. We’re so glad you could be with us today. I’m Donovan Karki and joining me today is Steve Bunyard from ReIgnite Hope. How are you doing, Steve?
STEVE: Hey. I’m doing great. Looking forward to our time together here.
DONOVAN: Yeah. Now, you’re joining us via Zoom here. You guys are located out in California?
STEVE: Yeah, we’re in the city of Gardena. We’re about 15 miles South of Downtown Los Angeles.
DONOVAN: There you go, there you go. So, we’re a little bit on different time frame but we’ve been able to make it work to meet up.
STEVE: Yeah.
DONOVAN: So, we’re very interested. We’ve learned about ReIgnite Hope here at Imperial little while back and we are really interested in what you guys are doing, but before we get into what ReIgnite is doing, tell me a little bit about Steve. What’s Steve’s background? Where did you come from? And let us hear a little bit about yourself.
STEVE: Yeah. Thanks, Don. Well, I spent most of my adult life as a pastor at a church here in Southern California, Rolling Hills Covenant Church. A fairly large church and when I was about 10 years into that, our church was doing a lot of work up on Skid Row in Los Angeles. We have a really high homeless population here in L.A. county.
They estimate maybe 40 to 50,000 people a night are sleeping outdoors here in L.A. county. And we were up there doing food, blankets, and hygiene kits. Kind of the normal stuff you do and working with one of the homeless missions up there.
And one day, the matriarch of the Fred Jordan Mission, a famous mission up there, Willie Jordan, came up to me and said, “Pastor Steve, what can we do so that we don’t keep feeding the same people all the time?” and I say, “Gosh, Willie, I don’t know. I think they need a job. I don’t think they can get out of Skid Row without a job, but I don’t know what to tell you on that
DONOVAN: Yeah.
STEVE: Our church doesn’t do job training, but I did say, “Hey, I’ll pray about it though” So I did. I started praying about it.
And welding kept weighing on my heart. I learned to weld as a young man. So, that was the only thing I could think of that maybe we could teach people that they could actually go get a job at, but it seemed like a crazy idea to me. I kept praying and that kept weighing on me.
I thought “Alright, I’m just going to go back to Willie and say, “Hey, what about if we start teaching people how to weld?”. She’ll probably hate the idea. She’s like 80 years old, it’ll scare her to death and then I can let this go and get my life back.
And I went back to Willie, and I said, “Hey, what do you think about this idea? Teaching people?”. Well, she loved it. She said, “I’ll even give you a room inside the mission where you can start. And I thought “Oh boy, here we go
And so she did. She vetted 5 homeless men for us, gave us a room. I went and bought a couple welding machines. We jumped in and it changed their lives. The thing took off.
Everybody wanted in. I was still on staff full time as a pastor, and for the next 10 years would stay on staff as a pastor after that. But as ReIgnite Hope grew, and grew, and grew, it became harder, and harder, and harder for me to do both. And so, about a year and a half ago, I asked the church’s blessing if I could step off staff and devote my full attention to ReIgnite Hope because I just felt like neither one was getting enough energy from me, and I didn’t feel good about that.
So, that’s a year and a half ago, and so now, I’m full focus ReIgnite Hope and it is just continuing to expand and grow like crazy. That’s kind of how ReIgnite Hope got started. Our name comes from the fact that we’re coming alongside a lot of people who’ve lost hope. They don’t see a bright future. The American Dream means nothing to them.
Many cases, they’ve had kind of a hard life. Maybe been incarcerated, involved in gangs, dropped out of high school, got in trouble, and the hope is just gone. So, that’s where we come in and come alongside them, and see their lives change.
DONOVAN: Wow, man, so you really caught us up on a lot there real quick. That’s great.
So, Steve, when I’m thinking about this for you, like you said, when you first got into this, you weren’t 100% sure about it. Like, what it was going to turn out to. So, what was that journey like for you as you saw and met these people and what happened along that way? What caused you to go “You know what, this is an important thing, and we need to kind of keep growing it”? Did it grow on its own? What did it take to make it grow?
STEVE: Yeah, I’ll tell you what. It’s God that made it grow because I don’t know how to grow this, and I still don’t know how to grow it. we’re over 10 years now and ReIgnite Hope and but we saw the need, of course on Skid Row, that’s where we started. We’re not on Skid Row any longer, but the need was there.
And then when I saw with this did in their lives: the hope that it brought, the optimism about the future that this brought, the excitement in their lives, and then getting jobs. I mean, real jobs, with a real skill and good pay. And it just spread like wildfire.
We’ve never advertised the program at all. We’ve had as many as 500 people on our waiting list, wanting to get in, but it’s word of mouth. When your life gets changed, you tell everybody you know about it. You tell your friends, your mom tells all the other moms, and it just spreads, like a virus, given that we’re in COVID country right and all that.
And so, we see that all the time. We just graduated 44 students here on Friday. They’ve already told all their friends about it and their moms are telling the other moms. We get calls all the time wanting in, wanting in, wanting in.
Yeah, so that’s how it grows is just by life change. And again, when your life changes, you tell people.
DONOVAN: So, if there’s somebody out there, and they’re in your area, and they hear this podcast, and they say, “That’s something I might want to be involved with”. What makes someone qualified to be part of the program? How do you become part of the program? What’s a qualifying factor?
STEVE: Yeah, good question, Donovan. So, step one is go to our website: reignitehope.com, and just click on the apply button. There’s an application you can fill out there.
And we kind of ask ourselves three questions with each applicant. As for trying to filter through them: Does this person really need our help? Can we help them? And do they really want our help?
We want to see motivation in their life. Our program is free. We’ve never charged for the training. We just believe in that they’re going to pay us back by their hard work. They’re going to show up and really put the effort in.
We’re looking for folks that really need the help, really want to turn their life around, and really serious about it. And then we just do our best to sort through the applications and take as many as we can. Ones we can’t take we’ll put on a waiting list for the next class and try to touch as many lives as we can.
And we can’t say yes to everybody, but we try to say yes to as many people as possible and we’re continuing to grow some of our capacity here that I’ll talk about a little bit later, which is allowing us to touch more and more lives. We expect we’re going to be able to train well over 200 students in 2022, maybe up around 300.
DONOVAN: Oh, wow. So, what’s the program look like? Is it a one week program? Is it a one-year program? What does it look like if someone gets involved? What are the requirements?
STEVE: So, hey we love trade schools, so don’t take this as a negative, but a typical trade school is going to be maybe a one- or two-year program. We’re dealing with folks that they need a job now and they can’t go for a one-year or two-year training.
We do a one month, five days a week. They’ll get 120 hours of training and in one month, they’re ready for employment and then we help them find their first job. So, we got a full-time person on staff, that all they do is job placement.
We have the American Welding Society comes in here at the ends of the month and tests them. And upon passing their tests, they are then a certified welder. Real deal certification, certified welder and ready for employment.
And so, it’s just been great the way that that we’ve been able to really microwave this and prepare them for an entry level welding job. And a lot of jobs out there. Real shortage of welders, all over the country, but literally in one month, we can get them ready. Now we do also offer mobile training beyond our fixed brick and mortar here and in the mobile training…go ahead
DONOVAN: Oh, I was going to say, so it sounds like the in-house program is a very, it sounds like it’s an intense program so, if you’re going to sign up, you have to be committed.
STEVE: Yeah, you do, you do. You have to be able to give it five days a week and really apply yourself because that 120 hours is going to be intense. Just think about it, one month you go from maybe being unskilled to having a really valuable skill in your life.
DONOVAN: Right, right. That just sounds like really great. That sounds great. So that’s kind of what you guys do, who you do it for, now you started talking about maybe a little bit of some other opportunities you have here for not just at your facility, but outside of your facility.
STEVE: Yeah. So, our demographic is a little bit of everything. We certainly have some homeless in our classes. Some folks coming out of jail, out of prison, out of gangs, little bit of everything. Or just the working poor, they haven’t been in trouble maybe, but minimum wage job is all they have. It’s all they’re going to get unless they get some kind of job skill
And we’re in our third facility so, we outgrew the first one on route, on Skid Row. Los Angeles Police Department helped us get a second facility, we outgrew that one. And then we moved here to Gardena our third facility, but then we maxed out this one. We could do a little over 200 students a year here so, we came up with the thought of “Well, maybe we could instead of getting buildings everywhere because people want us to come in different cities, and even different states, could we take it mobile?”
So we decided to jump in and try that. So, we built out an 18-wheeler that we can train 24 students at a time in the 18-wheeler. We’ve been doing that now and we can travel around Southern California here.
All we need is a place to park and we can go where the need is. We can go where the folks are that need help. And so, we partner with different churches around Southern California to park in their parking lot, help them reach their community, help them bless their community.
And now we’re at a high school about 40-44 miles from here where we’re training kids that they’ve identified as vulnerable. These are kids that they know aren’t going to go to college, and if they get out of high school without a job skill, they’re probably going to get in trouble.
So, they were saying, “Please, please, please, would you guys come out here?”. So, we’re out there training them now as well, in the mobile center.
Then the demand’s so great, we’re building a second one. We’ve got a second now.
DONOVAN: Is the is the mobile center program the same as the in-house program? Do you have anything different about that?
STEVE: It is different. So, in the mobile one, we’re going to go two days a week, for 10 weeks. So, that has a little bit of an advantage in that if maybe somebody’s got maybe a part time job, or some job that they can get a couple days off and do the training, they don’t have to give up their job if they have one currently. That helps with that.
But doing the two days a week helps keep us from having the trailer there five straight days because we need to move it around and meet as many needs as we can.
So, we can go to one location on Monday and Tuesday, go to another location on Wednesday and Thursday, go to another location Friday and Saturday, that kind of a thing. And then, when the second trailer is done that’s going to give us more flexibility, but it’s two days a week for 10 weeks. Same amount of training.
DONOVAN: Yeah, but you can reach more since it’s less students in the trailer, you can actually get almost the same amount of students per week because you’re able to move to different locations.
STEVE: Yeah, it’s really been a tremendous addition to our program. And of course, now everybody hears about it so I’ve had calls from Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and all over the place saying, “Hey, can the mobile come here?” Not to mention cities around us, so we’re just going to see as God continues to grow this, how many we can touch with it. And I don’t know how many trailers it’ll be, but it’s one for the moment, and two on the way.
DONOVAN: There you go. And speaking of that, it is sometimes a challenge for someone if they don’t have their own vehicle, or public transportation to get to where the training is, to be able to go to them. Boy, isn’t that just a great thing that you can do that, and head on in there and help them out where they’re at
STEVE: Yeah, this high school 44 miles from us, you know those kids aren’t going to be able to drive 44 miles to get to our building here, but we can go there and just park right in the high school parking lot. Train him right there. And those kids are so excited. The principal told us I’ve never seen these kids this excited about anything. And you can just see it on their faces.
DONOVAN: Yeah, that’s great. So, we talked a little bit about how you guys got started in this and what you’re doing, but Steve, why do you do this? Why are you taking this time to help these people? I mean, this could be a very profitable thing. Running this trailer around and charging people to do it. Why do you do it the way you do it?
STEVE: Well, we’re a Christian ministry, Donovan and it’s our faith that drives us to do this. The Bible repeatedly encourages us to remember the poor, and to be a blessing to those in need. So, when Jesus was asked out of all the rules, out of all the regulations, out of all the laws, what’s the most important one of all?
And he says it’s to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, but he says the second one is this: love your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. So, this is how we show our love to our neighbors, everyone. Everyone that needs our help and so that’s why we do it. That’s what drives us to do it.
And our mission is very simple here at ReIgnite Hope. We do two things: we try to lead people vocationally toward a career, and spiritually toward Christ. That’s our mission. We know they need both in their lives. Their lives aren’t really going to change if all they do is get a paycheck. And they’re still thinking the same way, living the same way, making the same choices. But with Christ in their life, everything changes.
DONOVAN: Well, that sounds great. I was just thinking more about this and there might be some people out there that are listening, and they really like what you have going on up there and they might be interested in trying to help you guys out too. So, is there a way if someone is interested, is there a way to reach out to you? What’s the best way to learn more about what you’re doing and maybe get involved?
STEVE: Yeah, so on our website again reignitehope.com, we’ve got a volunteer button there you can click on so, that’s one way. We’ve got really five ways people can help. One, is people of course can donate to us. Again, we’re nonprofit. We’ve never charged for the training.
But, we exist by the generosity of people that believe in what we’re doing and give to it. So, you can be a financial donor and every dollar helps change a life.
We’ve got four areas of volunteerism. We will literally take people who know nothing about welding, we’ll train you how to weld so you can be a welding coach. That’s part of what really makes our program I think really successful, again in a trade school environment.
And because of budget considerations for them, you might have one instructor and 30 students. We’ve got one instructor and three students so it’s really fantastic. We’ve got such a great ratio there, instructor to students that we can really come alongside them and get their skills up much quicker. So, if you want to be a welding coach, we’ll definitely jump at the chance to train you for that.
We’ve got the need for math tutors here. A lot of our kids just aren’t strong in math, and you need a little bit of math to be a welder. Fractions, decimals, angles, things like that, how to read a tape measure.
We’ve also got resume tutors that help our students get their resumes together and coach them a little bit on interview skills.
And then, we got a lunch program here where it’s mostly small groups from different churches in the area that will come and serve lunch to our students every single day. That way they don’t have to bring lunch, they don’t have to worry about if they don’t have money for lunch, or anything like that. Right here on the premises, and at the trailer, a lunch gets served every single day. So those are all areas people can help and be part of the team and join our mission. Whichever one of those five areas resonates with you, come and join our mission.
DONOVAN: Now the way they would do that is through your website?
STEVE: Yep.
DONOVAN: What’s your website address?
STEVE: Yeah, it’s reignitehope.com and if you just click on ‘Volunteer’, there’s little space to type in there and say, “Hey I’d love to do the lunch program” or “Hey, I want to learn to be a welding coach”, or whatever, just type it in.
If you say, “Hey I can’t do any of that, but I can give”. There’s a ‘Donate’ button on the website. All of that helps change lives
DONOVAN: So, you can find that at reignitehope.com?
STEVE: Reignitehope.com
DONOVAN: Great.
STEVE: And you can see on there some of our students’ stories. And you can see, get a real first-hand feel for what our program looks like, what it’s all about, and how life changing it is. We’ve got a bunch of student stories on there that you can watch on video.
And I think you’ll be really blessed to hear our own students, in their own words, tell what this meant in their lives.
DONOVAN: Well, that just sounds great, Steve. We here at Imperial really appreciate what you’re doing. We like the work you’re doing and we’re glad to be trying to help you out as we can here. And if anybody out there is listening is interested, please reach out to Steve and he’ll get you involved.
Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. We’re going to share a link to your website in this podcast, or on the YouTube page so people can get there that way. But just we’re looking forward to seeing how you guys grow and what you do, but I just want to say thanks again for coming on.
STEVE: Yeah.
DONOVAN: That’s it. Did you have anything else you wanted to say?
STEVE: Oh, just thanks Donovan. And again, if folks listening to this happen to be folks that pray, just keep us in your prayers. We’ve got opportunities coming up faster than we know what to do with them. We’re already in Philadelphia, The Philippines, and Brazil. Possibility we’ll be heading to Cambodia with ReIgnite Hope. Maybe Mexico with ReIgnite Hope. On top of that, we’ll probably start Dallas this year, maybe Las Vegas this year. Not to mention, having a second 18-wheeler all over Southern California.
So, we believe in prayer. We know it works. So, pray for us, if you would. We’d love to have that.
DONOVAN: Well, we appreciate that, Steve. So, everyone, thanks for listening. Thanks for coming on, Steve. If you guys are out there listening to this and you could find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere else you can listen.
So once again, thanks for listening to Dusty Jobs Podcast. Stay healthy and stay safe.
ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
For this episode of Dusty Jobs Podcast we meet on a video call with Dr. Chris Cloney. Chris is the owner of DustEx Research Ltd and also the host of Dust Safety Science Podcast. Chris is an expert in the research and safety of combustible dust. Today we meet up to talk to Chris about how he got into his field of combustible dust. Also we discuss the history of industry and how people view and handle combustible dust. We talk about the importance of taking care of any concern and the dangers of ignoring the warning signs. We hope to get together again with Dr. Chris Cloney to do a deeper dive on the different aspects of combustible dust and combustible dust safety. To learn more about Chris and the Dust Safety Science Podcast visit: https://dustsafetyscience.com/
Intro: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems, industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Hello, welcome to another episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Glad you guys could all be with us today. We have very special guest, Chris Cloney. He’s joined us remote. How you doing today?
Chris: I’m doing great. How are you guys doing?
Donovan: Oh, we’re doing great. We’re doing great. We’re so we typically have people in the studio, but Chris you’re actually located up in Canada. Correct?
Chris: Yeah, you got it. I was in Nova Scotia up until two weeks ago. And now we’re in Ontario. We just moved the whole family here, which is why I have a completely blank office with no furniture in it and sound echo-y. But we’re up here and
Donovan: That’s how it goes. Or you still have probably have boxes laying all over the place, huh?
Chris: Yes. Just not on camera.
Donovan: There you go. There you go. Now, the reason we have Chris on today is Chris also has his own podcast. The name of your podcast is
Chris: Dust Safety Science podcast,
Donovan: Dust Safety Science podcast. Yeah, it’s a phenomenal resource. We’ve been listening to it for a while here over at Imperial Systems. You’ve even had Jeremiah, Jeremiah, one of the owners of our company on your guys’ podcast. And we’re just glad to be able to talk to you today and learn a little more about what your podcast is about and how that might be a resource for some of our listeners to learn more and be educated and have a, a safer workspace. So, but Chris, before we get into all that, tell me a little bit more about how you even got started on this thing. What got you… because I know when I was in high school, my guidance counselor, didn’t come up to me and say, hey, you know, one of the job options in the future is going to be a podcast about dust. You know, that wasn’t something that was on the board. So, what journey took you to where you’re at right now? What got you involved in all of this and got you interested in trying to teach people more about how to have a safer work environment?
Chris: Yeah, for sure. And if they did tell you that they probably didn’t say there were two podcasts on dusts. So, if you think there’s one and twos even more, I mean, I guess the best place to start is sort of where, who I am and where I’m at today. I’ll let you do the same sort of thing with the Dusty Jobs Podcast, because I think we’re going to play this as a crossover on the Dust Safety Science podcasts, and then people will know where to go. So, my official title, I guess, Dr. Chris Cloney I’m the owner of DustEx research limited, and we’re a company with a global focus on education, connection, change, and awareness for combustible dust safety. I’m the lead researcher there, I wear a number of hats and we have a number of platforms related to combustible dust.
So Dust Safety Science, which is where the podcast is hosted. We have the Dust Safety Academy for Education, Dust Safety professionals for connection, people can make requests there. Purell systems is a member company at Dust Safety professionals along with about 35 or 40 other companies globally. We help place those companies with and users that need them at the end of the day. So that’s sort of where I am today. It wasn’t quite in high school when I started, but it wasn’t really that far off either. So maybe we’ll get into that in a second, but I’ll let you explain what is the Dusty Jobs Podcast for somebody that’s listening to this on the Dust Safety Science podcast who wants to come over and check it out.
Donovan: Sure. Yeah. So, the Dusty Jobs Podcasts, something, we started new here at Imperial Systems. Our heart is to really just help get people educated on not just how to have a safer and cleaner and healthier work environment, but also just to give informational knowledge about you know, products that are out there, maybe services that can be done more of the holistic idea of having a dust collector in your facility and what that can do for you. And we started as an educational resource so that people can know more about what we have available here at Imperial Systems, but also just for anybody out there who might be trying to figure it out a little more about their own collector. We handle everything from filter information all the way up to service information. So, we’re still growing and figuring out our identity a little bit. We’re a little bit newer into this. You guys have about what 200 podcasts under your belt is that right?
Chris: We’re getting there, this when it comes out, we’ll be about 160 for our podcast going into our fourth year,
Donovan: Right? So, we’re in our second year, we have a little bit of a history, but not quite as much as you guys, so, but that’s us. So, you can see more on our website we’ll share at the end, www.imperialsystemsinc.com is where you can go to really learn more about our company. And we have our own YouTube page where there’s other videos that aren’t just our podcast, but lots of other information on there about more of us. So,
Chris: And just to kind of, to clarify, if someone’s listening to some Dust Safety Science and their trust and the Dusty Jobs Podcast, YouTube would be the best place to go to watch that, right. Cause you, you play the videos and you have the whole thing right now. You’re recording Everything on our YouTube channel.
Donovan: Yup. Yeah. Yup. Yup. So yeah. Great place to look us up. So
Chris: Cool. So, let’s, I mean, so this’ll be interesting hopefully for the Dusty Jobs audience and listeners that are listening when this comes out or listening, if you’re listening to this, you know, a few years in the future and I think will be interesting for the Dust Safety Science podcast audience, to hear me be interviewed, to hear some of the background and some of the insights into what we’re seeing with the different platforms that we’re running. So, Dom, when you asked about, you know, how did I get where I, where I am today, that we’re hard even doing this interview. It’s a really great question. So, I did my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. We have a thing called Cooperative Education and university here in Canada, where you can opt to work every eight months in industry make some money, which is really nice while you’re, while you’re a poor student and get some experience.
So my first co-op position was with a consulting company that was local in Halifax. I was looking at explosion and combustion science. So I was doing computer modeling, computational fluid dynamics developing software to analyze fires and explosions .in particularly looking at defense applications, so you know, high explosives, improvised, explosive devices effects on troops and structures and ships really trying to protect from things that go bang you know, quickly release a lot of energy, doing things like, you know, designing troop helmets to avoid traumatic brain injury or Xining tank armor to avoid improvised devices from being able to puncture the, the kind of whole the tank and things like that. So very high–
Donovan: So it’s a bit more in the defense realm is where you started learning about explosions and what causes them and how they react and interact with things. Right. Do I sum this up pretty good?
Chris: Yeah. You got to blast detonation, shockwave when you see the MythBusters blow something ups really large and you see that nice kind of shockwave go through the air and when they blow up a garbage truck or something like that that’s the sort of stuff we were doing, but on our, on our computers and the computer and simulating it. So
Donovan: That was like a kind of an internship is a way to put it right.
Chris: It was. So, I did three of those over the period of a couple of years in university we started up with that company afterwards worked there for better part of six or seven years. But while I was doing that, I started my graduate research. And my graduate research was in dust explosions. So combustible dust having it dispersed in the air when ignites a death integration can happen, which is the reaction front, moving through the cloud, that’s in the air. If that’s confined, you can have an explosion. And these are things that you see happen occasionally in dust collectors will say happened in processing vessels happen in industries that are handling combustible solids. I thought it’d be the exact same. I thought it’d be the same as high explosive or C4 things I realized before it turns out the combustible dust is completely different in terms of physics and chemistry and a lot more challenging as well, not less understood.
So that was my foray into combustible dust, but the other half of that equation is I really looked at this as being something that was industry relevant. So, you know, I’m doing this military application research was really great, but I felt like I could impact, you know, the lumber mill next door or the food processing facility down the street, or the rubber manufacturing facility through my industrial application combustible dust. And that’s when I sort of started making the switch from, okay, defense industry’s military applications. Let’s, let’s try to take that knowledge that’s there and translate it into understanding these combustible dust explosions and what they mean.
Donovan: So was it a, was there something that happened in your personal life that you were like, I’m just interested in this more or was it a was it an actual professional application that you were like, ah, I’m gonna want to see what this is like, not just from this military defense side, but you want to look into it or is it just kind of trying to expand your horizons? I don’t want to put any words in your mouth here. I’d love to know what made you go. I think I’d like to look into this more now.
Chris: Yeah, sure. I mean, there, there’s a couple things that sort of came together. One was just, again, looking and working in defense and trees for the better part of half a decade. I was looking for something that was, that was new and more well, not that I could talk to people at dinner parties about dust explosions, really, but if you think you can’t do that, you know, talk about designing helmets for traumatic brain injury and stuff it’s even harder. Trust me. So that was one part. I had a fantastic supervisor in Nova Scotia, Dr. Paul is a very well-known and respected in the field of the combustible dust and process safety. inherently safer design and hierarchy controls are sort of four of his main areas. So, he was just starting a nice sized research project with a number of masters students and PhD students that was also brought on by industry.
So we had four or five industry partners. So, sort of like this little collective of combustible dust in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The third piece is that we actually had quite a large coal mine explosion in 1992. So, I won’t exactly date myself, but I was, you know, less than 10 years old when that explosion happened. It was only about half an hour from my house. It, it took the live lives of all 26 minors at the time. So, something like that it wasn’t in my community, but the community was in, no, they’re still reeling from it today. No more Jobs, larger employer gone 26 families with 26 missing sons or fathers, depending on the age. And, and there was that whole range. So, when I started thinking about that, it’s like, wow, this is something that can actually impact what we’re doing. Day-To-Day more than the military defense applications. So those three things kind of came together to really start me down the path of, okay, well, let’s talk about combustible dust and industry relevant applications with that.
Donovan: Yeah. That’s, that’s really interesting. Some personal, personal exposure, some professional exposure, and then just kind of the right place at the right time with that fellowship that was happening with those people. That’s, that’s very interesting. Yeah. There you go. So, so then what got you started in your podcast? I mean, this is, because this is really where we’re both at right now. We’re talking about this. So, you went from doing this research to what made you say, man, I want to get this out there so other people can be hearing about it and learning about it. What, what caused you to do that?
Chris: Yeah, so I was, I had about two years left in my PhD when I was when I sort of got started with this. And I had traveled around the world to multiple countries. Talk about combustible dust in my research. You know, countries like Poland and Norway and here in the United States. And I kind of inter I realized a couple of things at once. So, I think there’s sort of two scenarios at once. I was doing this really, what I thought was awesome. Research will say really interesting research in the physics and chemistry of dust explosions. But if I talked to an industry person, like it just, it didn’t, it didn’t really throw with it didn’t really resonate. It was like, I was looking at different questions than they wanted answered. So, the different stakeholders in combustible dust, and you have a few, you have researchers, you have end-users, you have equipment suppliers and manufacturers, insurance, government inspectors research institutions like say the chemical safety board or others. I kind of saw that there’s all these groups, but nobody hung out together. No one spoke the same language, no one was asking the same questions, even worse. No one was really answering the questions that the other stakeholders had. We are all sobered up in our own Spears sphere, their own sphere,
Donovan: Their own silos, everybody’s in their own silos of information and interests and nobody was putting them together.
Chris: Exactly. So that was, that was sort of scenario one. And then scenario two was just, when I looked at loss history, it was always either you weren’t aware of the hazard, you didn’t have the right knowledge and education to defend against the hazard, if you were aware of it. And if you had those two, you didn’t know who to talk to get your solution solved. So, it was awareness, education, and connection, which oddly enough, now I look back five years and we create all these platforms. It’s one, one communication platform for awareness. That’s the podcast one education platform, that’s the dust safety academy and one connection platform that does safety professionals. So, it was like these three gaps were the things that were needed to progress safety moving forward.
Donovan: Yeah. Cause some, some people out there might not even know they’re in a situation where they, they need protection. Some people might be in a situation where they need protection, but they’re not sure how to get it or exactly what that looks like. And some people might be, you know, just trying to figure out how to, if they are in a situation where they’re just trying to get an education on, you know, is, is what I’m doing daily in my workshop gonna cost me or someone else harm. And
Chris: We say four pillars, awareness, knowledge, connection, and change. So gotta be aware of the hazard. You gotta know what is, so it’s not downplayed. You need to know who you can go to, to solve your problem. And at the end of the day, the tools to be able to, to elicit change, whether that’s cultural change, whether that’s change about money spent in your organization, whether that’s changing government organizations and their interpretation or approaches they all sort of drive to that point. You to spirit actually making facilities safer. I should’ve, I should’ve said this at the outset, but Dust Safety Science and DustEx research, our, our mission, our vision for the, what we’re doing in the world is to see a year with zero fatalities worldwide by 2038. So, within 20 years of creating the company not sort of the underlying thing that I that’s, the lens, we look at, everything we do with would this project task platform discussion thing we’re doing next contribute to, to potentially reducing a life lost from combustible dust explosions. And this discussion will cause it’s a new audience, it’s a new group to, to show what kind of things we’re creating to educate folks and connect folks.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that’s kind of where the podcast came from and where it is currently and all the different platforms in which you can get educated and get connected. So, when we’re talking about that and we’re thinking about that, what do you think that the future of like, let’s talk about where the industry used to be when you started this to where we are now? Because I think every year, we’re getting safer, we’re putting things in place. There is more education, there is more resources, there’s more knowledge on what helps industry, individuals, people. What, what would you say is the biggest thing you’ve seen over the time you’ve been doing this that’s really changed the most in the industry?
Chris: It’s, it’s interesting. And we sort of had a conversation about this before. There, there is a lot of activity right now in combustion, less, and it’s really important to see it’s really you know, great to see. When I think back the most recent cult, the, the most recent Renaissance in combustible dust dates back to 2006, with the release of the, of a report by the chemical safety board it’s something like combustible dust report. I can’t remember exactly what the title is. They released a report that looked at three incidents in 2003 west pharmaceuticals, haze Lemmers and CTA acoustics that were all major multi vitality incidents. They released that report in 2007. So, a year later OSHA came up with they’re out with their new national emphasis program for combustible dust. Literally while that was sitting on the desks and been distributed at companies throughout the United States, including bureau sugar. So that was released in October, 2007, bureau sugar happened in February, 2008. And they, they found memos internal and bureau of sugar talking about national emphasis program and not connecting the dots that could apply to them. And that, that explosion killed 14 workers and injured 36.
Donovan: And that could have potentially been even bigger. But during the timeframe, when that happened, you know what I mean? Luckily there wasn’t as many people working.
Chris: Yeah. And so that’s, and then, then we have a whole bunch of things have happened since then that are really important to discuss important, to talk about and important to push forward. But the kind of the, the, to look back a little bit, it’s kind of interesting to see the history. And I’ve often thought that we should write it that maybe I should write a history book and combustible dust, but the first regulation for sugar dust came out in 19 24, 19 24 regulations of the national board of fire underwriters for the pulverizing systems for cocoa and sugar. And like the introductory paragraph is these regulations are issued to eliminate or reduce hazards inherent in the manufacturer, pulverized sugar, particularly hazardous ignition is essential that there should be no escape of dust into the atmosphere of the room, a condition of favorable to a dust explosion, to rapid propagation of fire 24,
Donovan: The 1924, they knew they should be collecting this stuff. And it was, as I said that.
Chris: And so I’ll read you some, like I’m not going to go through, well, I’ve already went through a bit of a diatribe, but I’m not gonna go too much, but there’s a section housekeeping, good housekeeping is one of the most important factors apparatus, which will not leak and permit the escape of dust or sifting out of cocoa because it covered cocoa and sugar is essential. All dust here. Another section, all dust collectors shall be constructed through non-combustible materials, all dust collectors. If you use connection with the polarizing system, if not located outside the building, Shelby located within the pulverizing department shall be properly vented to a safe point outside the building. I mean, it was a hundred years ago. So, the, the reason I bring this up is there’s actually been at least three, maybe four Renaissance of combustible dust just in the United States. There’s this most recent one, 2008 ish, 1970 to 1980.
There was the grain handling standard that was a created after a number of grain silo explosions in particular, they had, I think, five in a three month period that killed 70 or 80 workers in 1977. That was the, that was the second, most recent one. The one before that is the 1920s that was actually driven by insurers. They were seeing all their insured facilities blow up and they were, and that’s why they came home with this standard. Like, well, we got to stop this. And then there’s probably at least one more with coal mining in the United States and late 18 hundred. So, we see these peaks and valleys and peaks and troughs, but the most interesting part is that every country in every industry goes through these peaks and troughs at different times. So just in the last three years, there’s there was a large explosion, poor Akwaaba port of Akwaaba and Jordan.
We covered that on our podcast on episode 13. So, 130 episodes go with Allie outlast gallery was the incident investigator that caused them to audit all of their silos in the country of Jordan and try to come up with a, a grain handling standard. Same thing happened in Zimbabwe that same year. This year we had an explosion in Singapore that within, so the explosion happened in vault potato starch. It happened in February by March. They had inspected 500 companies in Singapore on combustible dust. And by may, they come up with SS 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 2020 code of practice for handling storage and processing of combustible dust. So, every country in every industry is going through these waves at different times. And the real big challenge at the end of the day. And the reason I go through the big diatribe is we tend to rewrite the whole thing from scratch every time and not realizing that that the stuff was created before or the stuff is created by in another country. So, translating knowledge, translating information, we’re, we’re sort of net writing new. And that’s why I love the podcast is why I love the Dusty DAS podcast, too. It’s all about how do you take these experiences and translate them from one to another, which is much more effective in facilitating change than writing another are doing. I say, writing another standard proposal lessons. This is probably a ton of them going on right now, but then writing something that’s net new translation, that’s better than, than doing that.
Donovan: And it’s it, you’re right. There’s so much knowledge, so much information out there that we can share now and with the internet and with all the different resources we have, we can take that information that we have already figured out in some situations and transfer another one. And I think that’s what we’re trying to do here is, you know, give people we don’t want a tragedy to happen, which caused people to go look for an answer we’re trying to help provide answers before that happens so that we can avoid more tragedies in the future. I think that’s the harder what you guys are doing in the heart of what we’re doing here. But so, what do you think the future of the industry is? I mean, do you think there’s going to be more of this, hopefully cross-cultural information that’s getting shared and that, or what do you see? What do you see the future of dust collection and safety industry? Where do you think it’s?
Chris: Yeah, I mean, let’s, let’s, let’s talk about the future a bit. And while we do that, I’ll pull up some, some other notes about some, maybe words of caution in the current global system that we’re in. So, the, the future-looking sort of notes are that just like you said, the biggest thing is to avoid the trough. So, we know that we go through peaks and valleys. There’s a couple of ways we can, we can solve that. One is to work collaborative with other industries in other countries. So that the whole global community doesn’t go through a trough at the same time. You know, when some, when Singapore is creating new standards, like they are this year, literally right now they’re training their country on these new standards. Well then maybe we should be listening and maybe we should be working with them here in north America and Canada or Argentina or wherever it is.
So just allowing that global communication to happen from one group to another soar, eliminates or smooths out all these peaks and valleys, everyone’s going through it. And just talking about sharing the stories also gets rid of those peaks. So, we can, we can make the most recent Renaissance. The last one that goes, it goes down again, and everybody forgets about it until something bad happens. I mean, that’s really the solution. There’s lots of technological things going on. You know, we, I call it the, the dust safety hexagon, if we need, need, need another geometric shape in our world, which some people would say, maybe we don’t, but it’s, it’s two sides with three on each side. So, it contained collect clean. That’s how you prevent explosions outside devices, contain it inside the processing vessel collected at the point sources where you can’t and clean up any dust that remains and then prevent protect, isolate. Those are your technological solutions, how to refrain explosion inside and outside equipment. There’s whole bunch of there hours and hours of discussion we had on all those topics.
Donovan: Oh yeah. And there’s tons of products to help with all of that, to products and procedures that can for the guy who’s out there listening to this and scaling, wow, there’s, I’m getting flooded with information, you know, there’s a lot of squats you can start with just, you know, even if you’re just looking at a pile and go, man, there’s a lot of sod us underneath this. I should probably sweep it up. Or there’s, you know, there’s, this, this shouldn’t be sitting around the collector. The collector should be collecting the material. If you have a leak in your collector, that’s a good secondary ignition source that, you know, you should be collecting. So, for just the guy who’s out there listening maybe he doesn’t have everything figured out, but there’s definitely places you can start. And I think that’s what we’re thinking about in the future.
Helping people find a starting point that they can start moving forward through and, you know, listen to some of your information and some of the stuff we’ve had gone in the past here, that could be a really good place to start. If you’re listening to the first time you’re going, man, I haven’t even thought about some of this stuff that would be a great place to start is maybe going back into some of the topics that you guys have covered, we’ve covered getting connected with your group socially with the connections that you guys have and some education that you guys can provide on just how to handle some of that stuff. But I couldn’t agree. I think you’re right. Yeah. I think you’re right. We’re just going to see some waves keep going, but hopefully our future is getting that information out there so everybody can use it together and we can try to help other people prevent making some mistakes that have already happened in other areas.
Chris: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more in the, the, the key, if you want to change someone’s behavior is to have the right message at the right time using the right language that they use in their own head. So, if it’s not the right language, they won’t care. If it’s not the right message at the right time, they also won’t care. So, there’s someone that looks, there’s someone that works at saw mill right now. And, and they have dust throughout the entire facility, which actually is pretty common. I’m willing to bet if there’s field, if there’s 10 people that are working sawmills and, and, and listening to podcasts, seven of them have this, this currently at their facility go dust safety, science.com/two. Our second podcast episode is lessons learned from Tucson, us fires at New Brunswick lumber mill. You can go to in 2012, we had two lumber mill explosions in British Columbia that were both multiple fatality explosions back-to-back at different sites like hours apart.
So after the first one, people were saying, all this never happens, right? Like it’s, it was completely discounted. And then another one happened and that’s really influenced work safe, BC WorkSafe, British Columbia’s approach, combustible dust. They really take it a proactive approach over the years. Just a few years ago, there’s a very large lumber mill explosion in the UK. And the, the owner of the mill is up for manslaughter charges right now. I think the trial just finished. But so, you know, so those seven to 10 people, there’s a couple of resources to think about when you start you know, trying to, when that creeps in your head, the oldest won’t happen here, or this can’t happen here. It’s just, you know, they’re infrequent events and that’s the biggest challenge is to keep that level of what do they call it?
Donovan: Complacency.
Chris: Yeah. Well, the opposite of complacency. Yeah. Try to keep that level of susceptibility high. Like they, you still feel that, okay, this is a possibility here. Cause I guarantee everyone that’s ever been injured and we’ve talked to a lot of them on the Dust Safety Science podcast in an explosion fortunate. We don’t get to talk to the people that don’t make it. But we do get talk to their families and we’ve had several interviews with like that on the podcast. But nobody that was in a dust explosion went to work that day thinking, hey, this is the day. Or they just wouldn’t have went. So, nobody thinks that this stuff’s going to happen. They’ll think, you know, it’s not going to happen to me or, or they don’t have the awareness and knowledge, the connection, or the ability to make change at their facility. If they thought they would stay home.
Donovan: Yeah. That’s what you’re here for. That’s what we’re here for to try to help people prevent that from happening. We don’t want, we don’t want anybody’s they at work to be their last day at work unless they’re retiring, you know, that’s it. So, but Chris, I just want to say, thanks for coming on. Is there anything else you want to share about where people can find you guys or where they can learn more about what you got on? I know this isn’t gonna be the last time we’re going to have you on here. We’ll probably have you on for a couple of deep dives into some topics that we can really talk about. Maybe get into more wood dust or something like that. I know we’re, we’re hoping to have you on again, to talk about more specifics, but it was great getting to know you and introduce you to our audience. And hopefully your audience is going to feel the same about what we’re doing over here, but what’s some places, some people could find you or reach out to you or look for you on online or whatever.
Chris: I mean the best thing, cause I, I know this audience is tuning into a podcast already, Cisco, that Dust Safety Science podcast. You can you start at one it’s we got a boat, 300 200 hours, probably a material on there. So, he started at one to start working your way through. If you have a lot of driving in your job, it’s probably more effective to start searching through topics and find one that’s relevant to you. So, whether or not it’s a, you know, a story from a worker who has been involved in your health and safety manager, and you want to understand that scenario, if it’s a technological issue, we are, our podcast goes into the details. So, we’ll cover things like what do you do if there’s too many concrete silos too close together? How do you, how do you protect that system?
How do you, you know, and then everything, we have stuff from, you know, education and the history. And we talk about after, after 150 episodes, you really got too diverse what you’re talking about. So that’d be the best place to go through that save science podcasts. If you need help and support at your facility, if needed a dust hazard analysis done, which we even talk about, it’s hard to imagine. We did a whole podcast on combustible dust in north American. Didn’t say DHA at least once, but we’ll talk more about that next. So, I’m sure you know, if you need DHA, you need testing. Anything like that does say professionals, you go there, we’ll get you set up one of our member companies just in a matter of hours or days for getting your project movement. So those are the best place to catch me.
Donovan: Great. Great. Yeah. And if you’re more interested in a dust hazard analysis, I’m sure you guys have some podcasts on those. We have a podcast in the past about deserts and analysis, so you can go back and look that up. And if you’re like, what does that even mean? I can go back and, and see what that’s all about, but that’s a really important thing. I just want to say thanks for coming on. Thanks for everything that you guys are doing over there. We appreciate it. And we’re looking forward to having some more conversations with you. If you’re interested in learning more about us, you can follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We’re on all of those. So, thanks for tuning into the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Everyone out there just stay healthy and stay safe and we’ll look forward to talking to you next time.
Chris: Awesome. Thanks Donovan. And appreciate the work that Imperial Systems are doing and appreciate this podcast. Keep it up.
Donovan: You too Chris.
Outro: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
A company that uses specialized lens grinding machines for prescription lens fabrication had a dust problem. These machines require dust collection to keep the lenses clear of debris while they grind and further polish the prescription into the lenses. For this specific customer, the problem was the production facility in which they are located. They had very little space to fit a dust collector capable of filtering the air properly. The location was in an old building in New York City. It had low ceilings and small entrance doors to bring in a machine.
This lens grinding dust collector had to meet three physical requirements. First, it had to be less than 12’ in total height. Second, it had to be able to be unloaded and installed without the use of overhead cranes. Finally, it had to fit in a small footprint in the corner of a room. The dust collector also had minimum requirements for airflow and a low air-to-cloth ratio. This would ensure that the filters would clean properly and release the dust being collected.
The Dust Collection Solution
Imperial Systems Inc. has a wide selection of dust collector sizes and styles to meet customers’ needs. This application was tricky because the space available didn’t fit a standard-style dust collector. Territory Manager Justin Ferrainola worked closely with in-house engineering and the customer. They devised a plan to combine some features of the CMAXX Dust & Fume Collector with those of the Shadow Compact Fume Extractor to create a solution. Imperial makes standard dust collector styles and has a full engineering staff to develop custom dust collectors for tricky applications.
The CMAXX provided was a two-filter cartridge model with premium DeltaMAXX Prime filters. It has a custom abrasion-resistant side inlet. A special “Shadow Style” discharge bucket was included to accept disposable bags for waste. Imperial also provided removable fork pockets. These allowed the customer to squeeze the unit into the location with a small forklift. All of this was done to meet the customer’s tricky size and height restrictions.
The Results
The customer was able to mount the unit exactly how they intended it. They also have more filter media area in less space than offered by all the competition. This provides longer filter life and superior performance. They were also very impressed with the build quality of this unit given its overall size and design. Custom design work flexibility is just one of the many features that set Imperial Systems apart from the competition.
How Does Differential Pressure Relate to Dust Collection?
The Dust Collection Solution