Your dust collector is a crucial investment, and the control panel is one of the key elements that helps it deliver consistent performance. Imperial Systems’ Keystone Controller, standard on our CMAXX and Shadow dust collectors, give you the power to maximize efficiency, minimize downtime, and take full command of your air filtration equipment.
At the heart of every Keystone system is an Allen-Bradley® Micro820 PLC paired with a PanelView® 800 HMI touchscreen. Together, they form the intelligent brain of your dust collection system—delivering precision control, automation, and insight you can rely on.
The VFD Advantage: Smart Efficiency in Action
Upgrading to a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) transforms how your dust collector performs. Instead of running full-speed all the time, the VFD adjusts the fan speed automatically to match demand—saving energy, extending equipment life, and improving consistency.
Here’s how Keystone’s VFD-enabled controls deliver measurable value:
Consistent Suction, Automatically – As filters load with dust, static pressure rises and airflow can drop. The Keystone Controller monitors this in real time and automatically speeds up the fan to maintain constant suction throughout the filter’s life.
Significant Energy Savings – Running the fan at only the speed required—rather than 100% all the time—can drastically cut power usage. In many cases, the energy savings alone allow the VFD upgrade to pay for itself.
Cleaner Downtime Cleaning – Instead of shutting off completely, the Keystone Controller’s downtime cleaning slows the fan to create a light backpressure. This gentle airflow keeps fine dust from backtracking through ductwork and creating messy dust clouds.
Weekend Mode for Cold Climates – For facilities in freezing conditions, the Keystone Controller offers a low-speed “weekend mode.” It runs the fan just enough to prevent condensation and freezing in ducts—protecting your equipment even while idle.
Smarter Control Comes Standard
Every Keystone panel comes preloaded with intelligent automation that adapts to your workflow.
Flexible Operation Modes
Local Control: Start and stop manually at the touchscreen.
Remote Control: Automatically runs when connected machines power up, and shuts down after the final cleaning cycle.
Scheduled Operation: Set start/stop times by day to match your plant’s production schedule.
Automatic Downtime Cleaning – Whenever the fan stops, Keystone Controller runs a deep-clean pulse cycle—extending filter life and maintaining airflow efficiency.
Password-Protected Settings – A secure maintenance screen allows authorized users to adjust pulse limits, alarm thresholds, cleaning durations, and VFD parameters—keeping untrained personnel from accidentally altering key functions.
Proactive Intelligence to Prevent Downtime
Keystone Controller doesn’t just control your dust collector—it helps prevent costly interruptions.
Predictive Maintenance Alerts – The system counts every pulse valve cycle and notifies you when components approach their expected lifespan, helping you schedule maintenance before failures occur.
Smart Self-Diagnostics – If a sensor or connection fails, the HMI immediately displays a detailed trouble code to guide technicians directly to the issue.
Comprehensive Data Logging – All alarms and key system metrics are automatically recorded for quick reference and trend analysis, including alarm history, differential pressure trending, and data export.
Track Filter Life Accurately – A resettable hour meter records how long each set of filters has been in use, allowing you to predict replacement cycles and budget with precision.
Optional Remote Monitoring – With an Ethernet-based PLC, the Keystone Controller supports VPN-enabled remote access. View live data, monitor system pressures, and even allow Imperial Systems technicians to assist remotely—reducing downtime and service costs.
Future-Ready Design
Your operation evolves, and your controls should evolve with it. The Keystone Controller system is designed for seamless expansion and advanced integration.
Safety Ready – Preprogrammed logic allows simple integration of smoke detection or fire suppression sensors.
Combustible Dust Ready – Built-in logic supports explosion vents and isolation valves on CMAXX collectors, ensuring compliance and safety without complex programming.
Monitoring & IIoT Integration – Keystone supports IO-Link communication, enabling real-time digital data exchange between sensors, actuators, and the control system over standard wiring. This opens the door to advanced diagnostics, smart sensor monitoring, and full IIoT connectivity.
Smarter Control Means Cleaner Air
Imperial Systems’ Keystone Controller transform your dust collector from a simple machine into a truly intelligent clean-air system. With energy-saving automation, predictive maintenance, and future-ready expandability, Keystone helps you get the most from your investment—day after day. Discover the Keystone Controller from Imperial
In this episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast, we sit down with welding student Jackson Morgan from Gateway Community and Technical College in Kentucky at FABTECH 2025. Jackson shares his experience attending the show and his passion for building a career in welding.
Narrator: 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 at Fabtech 2025, having a lot of people stop by our booth, and who we have a lot stop by are students. We grabbed one of those guys and had them come in to be on the podcast. We got Jackson Morgan, right?
Jackson: Yep.
Donovan: Jackson Morgan, you’re out of Kentucky.
Jackson: Yep. I’m from Kentucky.
Donovan: You guys came the whole way up from Kentucky to see the show, which is awesome. We love that we have students all over. We had some students that are very close to us in Erie, PA, stop in just a couple minutes ago too. So Jackson, first of all, let me ask you this — what do you think of Fabtech so far? Is this the first time you’ve been to one of these?
Jackson: First time I’ve been to Fabtech. First time up in Chicago. Any big event like this, and it’s a lot, but I love it.
Donovan: So, you’re saying if there’s another student out there somewhere and they have the opportunity to come do this, you’re like, jump on it.
Jackson: Absolutely. If you’re given the opportunity, it’s great experience. You’ll learn a lot. You meet a lot of cool people. And it kind of just gets you really involved in the whole industry. It’s great.
Donovan: So, so far, other than hanging out with me, what’s the highlight of the show for you?
Jackson: So far, I’d say I got to get a hands-on with laser welding, which was really cool. Definitely something I never thought I’d ever do. But it was really neat, and it’s definitely the big future of welding for sure.
Donovan: Yeah, without a doubt. Without a doubt. So right now you are a student at?
Jackson: Gateway. Gateway Community and Technical College.
Donovan: Okay, and you’re learning welding, right? But this isn’t your first go at welding, right? You’ve had a little dabble at welding before.
Jackson: Yeah, so I had a little bit in high school, but this is my first like definitely official, kind of professional environment.
Donovan: Nice, nice. So, we were talking about this a little bit before — what’s your hope? You’re getting into welding. What do you want to do? What’s your end goal here?
Jackson: So, I want to inevitably become an engineer. Draw blueprints, design stuff. I’ve always been a little bit creative and kind of think out of the box, but I want to use my hands-on welding experience and knowledge that I’m getting in school and in jobs that I work, and apply that to drawing those blueprints because I think it’s really important to have that.
Donovan: Yeah, without a doubt. That’s great. And I know for us, a lot of the guys in our own shop have had some chances to come out in the shop and do welding. They’ve all said it’s been a great experience to actually have that hands-on experience, and it helps inform them more of what needs done on the drawing side. So, I think that’s incredible, man. That’s just great.
Jackson: Yeah, yeah.
Donovan: So, do you have a specific realm that you want to start getting into, or are you looking for — like if there’s some potential employers out there, what would you want to get into?
Jackson: I know a lot of my schoolmates, they go Mazak. A lot of them go Mazak. But I’m definitely interested in more structural stuff. I’ve always just liked the big, heavy materials, working with them.
Donovan: Yeah. And you know what? Right now in the industry, we need a lot of people that can do that — that can go and work and get into this larger structural steel. Having hands-on experience building that to then go back and design it, I think that’ll be incredible for you, man.
Jackson: Because I mean, designing when you have the experience — you know what works, you know what the efficient ways of getting things done are, and you can kind of work the drawings around that.
Donovan: So how long are you in school for?
Jackson: So, I had my one year of high school at Gateway. It’s an associate’s, so I got my first year done. I’m in my third semester — two years for that. And then when I transfer to the local college, NKU, Northern Kentucky University, it could be anywhere from two to three years. I’d be coming out with an engineering degree and the welding associate’s.
Donovan: Well, that’s great. Are you planning on welding while you go to school? Are you going to try to work while you’re there? What are you thinking?
Jackson: Whatever kind of comes my way. You know, I might do welding jobs. I might see if I could get like an internship somewhere. Really, I just think it’s good to have a wider view, so kind of just whatever comes at me.
Donovan: Well man, it’s exciting to get to talk to a student and get their impression of Fabtech. How do you like our booth?
Jackson: Oh, it’s really nice. I love motorcycles.
Donovan: Oh yeah, it turned out great. Really clean.
Jackson: Yeah.
Donovan: Well, hey man, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it, and hopefully maybe in a couple of years you’ll stop back in, and we’ll do this again when you’re an engineer.
Jackson: Yeah, that would be amazing. That’d be great.
Donovan: We’ll be excited to see that. So, everybody out there, thanks for listening, and until next time, stay healthy and stay safe.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
In this episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast from FABTECH 2025, we talk with Beau Wigington from WELD.com. Beau shares how WELD.com is making welding easier to learn with simple, accessible content and dives into their plans for machine comparisons, video podcasts, and more. We also discuss how automation and clean air solutions are changing the future of welding and making it safer for the next generation.
Narrator: 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. Fabtech 2025.
Beau: 2025.
Donovan: And guess who I found at Fabtech 2025? Beau from WELD.com. Surprise, surprise.
Beau: Surprise, surprise. I didn’t know I was going to be here.
Donovan: Every year it’s a surprise.
Beau: Well, you guys were across the street from us that first year.
Donovan: That’s true.
Beau: Because that was like my break into, like, podcasting, because I came down here on a whim. Well, it was Atlanta.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: And I interviewed, like, 27 people. You guys were just like, “You’re working hard over there. You want to come on our podcast?”
Donovan: That’s right.
Beau: I was like, that’d be a good change of pace, I think.
Donovan: So that year you guys had that really cool table that you guys had set up. Now you guys are here doing it again this year.
Beau: We’re here doing it again.
Donovan: And you guys are partnering with…
Beau: So, we are here. We have a booth with the American Welding Program—
Donovan: Yep.
Beau: —who is our education partner. So, we show a lot of, like, the kind of textbook stuff that they do. We translate it into video and try to make it digestible for normal people. Maybe if you’re not a welder and you don’t understand fancy terms, we try to make it simple.
Donovan: People who are just getting started, just trying to figure out what they’re doing. Maybe they bought their first welder from Harbor Freight.
Beau: Yes, that is actually a big thing we’re going to try to focus on next year, is, like, all of those machines. There’s a lot of really cheap machines out there, but how good are they? You know, how long will they last? What kind of welding can you actually do with them? Those are the kind of questions we want to answer with the channel over the next year.
Donovan: Well, that’s cool. So that’s some new stuff you got coming up over the next year. Product review, it sounds like. Is that…
Beau: It’s going to be more like a… have you ever watched, like, a guitar pedal shootouts or amps? Like, they’ll have… They’ll put them side by side.
Donovan: Oh, yeah.
Beau: And just, just put them up to each other and see what happens. And then maybe blow them up, you know? I, I want to see how far we can push some machines and see if we can get some to blow up.
Donovan: That’s awesome.
Beau: We got really into blowing things up this year.
Donovan: Well, and you guys, you guys did a lot of traveling this year, too, right? You guys kind of took it on the road.
Beau: I think this is my 13th trip of the year.
Donovan: Oh, man. Put some miles on.
Beau: Yeah. Lots of miles.
Donovan: So, up to… for maybe some people that haven’t been following you, which they should. They should go out there.
Beau: Come on. I’ve been on this podcast every year! Got to be following by now.
Donovan: Well, we encourage everybody from our group to go see your group. So, hit us with some of the highlights, where you guys ended up this year.
Beau: Okay, so some of the highlights: we did Florida. Florida’s always fun. We got to go out to Utah, and we saw a, like, a gigantic, like, beam manufacturer called BZI.
Donovan: Okay.
Beau: They make a bunch of structural steel. So, we got to see how that’s done. And then they trained us on some seismic welding, and we got to do some fly fishing on our day off.
Donovan: Nice.
Beau: Been to multiple welding competitions. Went to the Yeti welding competition out in Utah.
Donovan: Okay.
Beau: SkillsUSA, the national competition. Got to go to that.
Donovan: Oh, that’s great.
Beau: I hosted Clash of the Grinders here. I did 3 hours of commentating straight.
Donovan: That’s great.
Beau: It was a lot, but it was fun. And then we, we’re going to be going up to New York again. We do this event called Maker Camp where we teach makers, which is like a hardcore DIY person.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: People that are like, “I want to learn a bunch of different skills.” We go up and teach them welding. This year we’re going to be doing a welding competition up there. I guess we’re just in the competition mode this year.
Donovan: There you go. Now, there was, there’s a scrap festival? Do you guys go to that, too?
Beau: So, I went to that two years ago, but actually tomorrow I’m doing a panel with some of the artists at our booth.
Donovan: There you go.
Beau: But, yeah, I’m hoping we’re going to go next year. I really want to build something for ScrapFest.
Donovan: Nice. You?
Beau: Yeah.
Donovan: Yeah, you should do it!
Beau: Yeah. Have you heard of the event before?
Donovan: Yes, I’ve heard of it before, and I, I’ve seen your guys’ other episodes on it.
Beau: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s very cool. Like, it’s close to here, so hopefully some Chicago people, if you’re watching, you can go and be part of it.
Donovan: Yeah, anybody local should go to it. Even, even travel. It looks like it’s a great time. Looks like a lot of fun. A lot of cool stuff gets made.
Beau: So, like, the city of East Lansing, as it grew throughout the years, it grew around a scrapyard, right? Like a metal recycling yard. So, every year that, that plant, they give all these artists 500 lb of free metal to go make a sculpture. They have one month to do it, and then they have to bring it back up, and then they close down the entire, like, downtown street and put the sculptures all the way down the street and have a big street festival. It’s amazing.
Donovan: Yeah, it, it just, it looks cool. If you’re in the area, or just willing to, you got a couple extra vacation days to burn, you should go check it out.
Beau: Burn them up. Burn them up.
Donovan: So, you guys talked about, you’re going to be doing some upcoming, kind of product review. We talked about that. Anything else new coming out on WELD.com this year that…
Beau: We’re switching to video podcasts.
Donovan: Okay.
Beau: Like, we’ve been mainly audio podcasts.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: But we’ve been traveling. So, I never really like doing the video podcasts over the Internet because it just felt like recording a Zoom call. I don’t think it’s that cool, you know? But I’ve been traveling to people’s shops or different businesses, and, like, I did a, I did a podcast in the middle of a $6,000 laser cell, like, with it just spinning on a five axis earlier this year. Like, just trying to show people the cool stuff, but then talk about it in the middle of it, you know, because I feel like that’s the hardest part with the industry and all. Like, it’s hard getting the younger generations to see the cool things.
Donovan: Yep.
Beau: Like, you can tell, but you have to show, right? And so that’s a big part of, like, our podcast. We’re trying to show really cool things you can do and then teach you how to do it on the channel, you know?
Donovan: Right. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think we’re still at a shortage.
Beau: Yes.
Donovan: That’s it. As a nation, we’re still at a shortage of people who are welding. I mean, if you stay, if you come around the show, there are a ton of people here in the metal working industry, but we still need more.
Beau: Yeah.
Donovan: And if someone’s at home listening to this, or someone’s at home thinking about it, or maybe they’re thinking about “What could my children be successful at in America?” Welding is an area you can still do a lot and have a good living at it.
Beau: And it’s fun. A lot of people are afraid of welding because of, like, the reputation it has. You know, people think it’s dangerous, dirty, and, like, you’re going to just be in the nastiest conditions ever, right? A lot of that’s changed with technology, you know, and, like, a lot of welders don’t like the word automation, but automation is making our trade a lot safer. So, you know, the parents out there that might be kind of scared of their kid getting into the welding industry, sometimes they’ll be doing it with a robot. You know, they’ll have a robot that’s doing that, like, nasty, if they’re welding something super corrosive that’s throwing off, like, hexavalent chromium, you know, it’s like you, you don’t want to be breathing it in. So have a robot do it, right?
Donovan: And then we can take that air here in Imperial Systems and clean it so that you’re still not even standing in an environment that that robot’s producing that weld fume.
Beau: Yeah, that’s very important part of the equation.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: Because that’s something, like, I talk to a lot of people overseas. So, in Europe, the standards over there for welders, you have to wear a PAPR, and it’s, like, very hardcore on safety, and they call us cowboys over here because the one kind of welding mask, if you’ve ever seen a pancake hood, right, like, it’s just, like, a big, big circle, and they, they can’t wrap their heads around what those are all about. They’re just like, “What is this even about?” But the reason people wear pancake hoods is you can talk to your helper, you know, and they can understand you.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: But it’s not really that great for breathing in those.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. So, here that’s what we’re trying to do is help people to go home healthier and safer to their families every day. And you guys are doing the same thing over there, trying to educate people on what the, the benefits and the, the ways to, weld, but also you guys are helping people learn how to stay safe, too.
Beau: Oh, yeah. Safety is a big part of our business. Like, we are making it our business to keep people safe.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: More people out there doing it, better everybody’s going to be out.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just going to be better for our economy, better for our industry, better for our country
Beau: And people can work in the industry longer.
Donovan: Yeah.
Beau: If they’re not having to retire for medical reasons, you know.
Donovan: Exactly. Yeah. Well, once again, it’s always great talking to you.
Beau: Four times in a row.
Donovan: We’ll see. We’ll see what next year brings.
Beau: We’ll see.
Donovan: Maybe we’ll have to come your way. We’ll come be on your podcast next year, maybe.
Beau: I’ll just come and bring it here.
Donovan: That’s true.
Beau: That’s my thing. I bring it to you.
Donovan: That’s, yes. Very fair. Very fair. My booth is not quite as full as this booth. You guys go out every year.
Donovan: Yeah. Our team here does a great job. I’m sure whatever we have next year will be phenomenal, too. They come up with a great idea every year.
Beau: The best carpet in the gang, people. The best carpet in the game.
Donovan: When you got to stand on it for four days, it’s nice to have.
Beau: I know. That’s why I love coming here. It’s like my, like, rest time. I can lay down and take a nap if I want to.
Donovan: Yeah. If somebody’s having a hard time at the show, come on. We can get you, get you a nap.
Beau: Yeah. Get you a good nap.
Donovan: But, all right. Well, once again, appreciate you coming by, of course, having a good time with us. And, you know, go over to WELD.com, follow you guys on Instagram, Facebook, you guys are on everything, right?
Beau: Yeah. Anywhere you want to be, we’re probably there.
Donovan: There you go. Same with Imperial. Look us up on our social media. We appreciate it, and like and subscribe. I think that’s what I’m supposed to say on these.
Beau: Like, subscribe, and hit that bell if you want to get those notifications.
Donovan: There you go. So, but until next time, stay healthy and stay safe. Um, thanks.
Beau: Thank you.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
In this episode of the Dusty Jobs Podcast, we sit down with metal artist Jackson Williams at FABTECH 2025 in Chicago. Jackson is known for his large-scale metal sculptures of North America’s most iconic animals, including the impressive bear sculpture featured at our booth during the show. Jackson shares how he got started in metal art, the inspiration behind his work, and the creative process that goes into shaping raw metal into lifelike masterpieces. From learning the craft to building massive sculptures, his story is as unique as the art he creates.
Narrator: 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. We are back at FABTECH 2025 with Jackson Williams joining us here. How you doing?
Jackson: I’m doing great. How about you?
Donovan: Good. This is an exciting show for you, right?
Jackson: Very exciting. Yeah, I’m glad to be here.
Donovan: Now Jackson, tell us why you’re at our booth at FABTECH.
Jackson: Erin from your marketing department actually reached out to me a while back on Instagram and said, “Hey, we’d love to shoot a video of you at your space and bring it to Chicago for this.”
Donovan: Now when you say “your space,” not everybody here might be familiar with you. You’re talking about your art studio, right?
Jackson: My art studio, yeah.
Donovan: Okay. So what do you do — are you a painter?
Jackson: I’m a metal artist.
Donovan: A metal artist. That makes a lot more sense why we’re here at FABTECH.
Jackson: Yes.
Donovan: So this year for FABTECH, you made something for our booth. What did you make?
Jackson: I made a grizzly bear sculpture — a life-size metal grizzly bear sculpture.
Donovan: When you say life-size, how big are we talking?
Jackson: About 8 feet tall.
Donovan: Wow. That’s definitely creeping into life-size range. I guess those grizzlies get around 8 to 10 feet.
Jackson: Yeah. I would not want to encounter that in the wild.
Donovan: No, definitely not. But you can come to our booth at FABTECH and experience a virtual one. So let’s talk about how you built this, because the process is really interesting. We’ll have to paint a picture for people who aren’t able to come see it.
Jackson: It all starts with finding pictures online. I look for front, side, and back views of the animal I want to create. Once I find good reference images, I print them out and draw a grid on top. Then I use that grid to enlarge the image onto the floor. From there, I build my wire framing using thinner material — I work in ½-inch steel rods. That’s my medium.
I use thinner rods on the inside for the frame, building it all on the ground following my drawing. Then I stand it up, and the rest is basically “skinning” it with ½-inch rods.
Donovan: Got it. So first, you make a model on the floor. Then you take thinner material for the framing and rough it out.
Jackson: Right. I follow the image I’ve created on the ground, replicate it in material, weld it all together as one piece, and then stand it up. Once the front profile and side profile are in place, I start filling in the rest.
Donovan: So you’re almost weaving it together, right? Because the metal you’re using isn’t straight lines — it’s got curves.
Jackson: I try to avoid straight lines. I aim for subtle, flowing curves that follow the muscle structures of the animal. In this case, with the grizzly, the rods are all over the place to make it look shaggy — like the real thing.
Donovan: Absolutely. I’d encourage everyone to go online and look at the finished sculpture. It turned out phenomenal. I don’t even know — how many pictures do you think people took with it today?
Jackson: Several. Too many to count.
Donovan: I think at least 100 people stopped by to get their picture taken with it. It’s incredible.
Jackson: Thank you.
Donovan: Now, you haven’t been working in this style very long, have you?
Jackson: No, I’ve only been working in this style for about a year. I’m new to it, but I’ve been welding since I was six.
Donovan: Since you were six? Not a lot of people hand a welder to a six-year-old. There’s got to be a story there.
Jackson: My father is actually a metal sculptor as well. He taught me everything I know and got me welding at a very young age. Having access to a creative space meant I could create whatever I wanted. It started with go-karts and dirt bikes, and as I got older, it transitioned into art. I worked for my dad for about four years, soaked it all in, and then decided to try my own thing — and here I am now.
Donovan: We were talking earlier — your dad got started with custom motorcycles, right?
Jackson: He did. He was dabbling in art but also loved vintage motorcycles, so he was always fixing and riding them. He grew up in a machine shop with my grandfather, where everything was about rules and measurements. He wanted to go more in the direction of art, where there was more freedom.
Donovan: So you’re actually a third-generation metal worker.
Jackson: Yeah — possibly fourth. I’m not entirely sure, but maybe fourth.
Donovan: That’s an awesome legacy to continue. Now, when we look at your style compared to your dad’s, are they similar or very different?
Jackson: We really don’t have similar styles. But one thing he did teach me was how to frame out sculptures accurately. His method of drawing them on the floor and using a grid to enlarge the image is what I still use today. It’s a great way to make sure the sculptures look just how they should. But he works with bronze and has a much more realistic approach to his artwork.
Donovan: Does your dad work specifically with wildlife too, or is that more your thing?
Jackson: For the most part, he’s done a lot of animals — primarily horses, other animals, lots of dragons. I fell in love with that too. Capturing motion in these animals is challenging, but it’s also really rewarding.
Donovan: So we’ve got the bear here, and I saw in one of your videos that you did something like a deer mount too. Is that right?
Jackson: Yeah.
Donovan: Do you have any other projects out there we should know about or anything coming up you’re excited about?
Jackson: I just finished a Texas Longhorn — a little bigger than the bear.
Donovan: Full size?
Jackson: Full size. About 6 feet at the shoulders. The head was turned to the side, and one horn went way out. From the back leg to the end of the horn, it was about 14 or 15 feet. Next, I have a project of a hand holding a globe, representing a company called Ansell — a big glove manufacturer. It’s going to be their glove saving the planet.
Donovan: Nice. So you do commission work too — if someone comes to you with an idea?
Jackson: Yes.
Donovan: Was the Longhorn a commission or something you wanted to do?
Jackson: That was a commission I got off TikTok.
Donovan: That’s great. And the bear?
Jackson: The bear was me brainstorming ideas for what we could pull off in the space I was given for this event. I thought a standing grizzly would be so cool.
Donovan: And it does look phenomenal. Now, your dad’s shop is in Massachusetts, right?
Jackson: Yes — Essex, Massachusetts.
Donovan: But you moved your shop recently, didn’t you?
Jackson: Yes. I just moved to Asheville, North Carolina. I’ve been setting up a studio there, and it’s finally done. I’m super excited to get started.
Donovan: So if people are in Asheville and want custom artwork done, they should look you up. Actually, people from anywhere can, right?
Jackson: Yeah. Thanks to TikTok, people are reaching out from everywhere. Especially in North Carolina — it’s a big art community down there, and that’s part of why I moved.
Donovan: Well, it’s exciting to see what you’ve done here and what you have coming up. If there’s a young person out there watching this — maybe they don’t have the same family legacy you do, but they’re inspired by what you’re doing — what advice would you give them?
Jackson: Just start. Just do it. Try to find your style. I was first commissioned by someone in Michigan for a sculpture made out of parallel rods. I tried to improve on that style by bending the rods and giving them motion — and I fell in love with it. I kept doing it over and over, getting better and better at the one thing I loved. So find your style, work hard at it, and it will come.
Donovan: So it doesn’t happen overnight — you’ve got to put in the time. How much time did you put into the grizzly?
Jackson: A lot. About 300 hours.
Donovan: 300 hours! Wow. Now, if anyone wants to see more of your work or follow what you’re doing, where’s the best place to go?
Jackson: I’m on TikTok and Instagram. My handle is Williams Sculpture on both.
Donovan: Perfect. We’ll make sure to link that. And we have a video featuring you on our website too — it turned out great. If you want to check that out, you can head over there.
I’m just excited you’re here. You did a great job, and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next for you.
Jackson: Me too.
Donovan: Thanks for coming on.
Jackson: Of course. Thank you.
Donovan: For everyone out there, like and subscribe, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, all of our social channels — and until next time, stay healthy and stay safe.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better. Work safer.
In this episode, Donovan chats with Eric Peterson of Fagus-GreCon live from the International Powder & Bulk Solids Show 2025. They discuss spark detection, fire prevention, and keeping industrial facilities safe. Learn more about Fagus-GreCon: https://www.fagus-grecon.com/en-us/
Narrator: 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 still here at Powder & Bulk. Today we got Eric Peterson.
Eric: Yes.
Donovan: From Fagus-GreCon. I always, I always, I just call you guys GreCon.
Eric: Yeah, it’s much easier to say GreCon. It’s much easier. That’s what we tell people to say, too.
Donovan: But Fagus-GreCon. And you guys, we’ve worked with you a lot of times with protection devices/
Eric: Correct.
Donovan: And you’ve been with the company now for six years.
Eric: Six years.
Donovan: But you have been in this industry for a while, right?
Eric: Yeah, I’ve been in the wood industry for about 15 years. I’ve been with Huber Engineered Woods for a while and also on the powder side of things. I’ve been with General Mills, Pillsbury as well. So, I have a lot of experience in the industry, probably about 20 years now.
Donovan: Now I know for us we use a lot of your product on the wood dust side.
Eric: Correct.
Donovan: Because we build a product called a Spark Trap which helps in metalworking, and we get a lot of calls from people that say, “Hey, I’m having fires in my wood dust baghouse.”
Eric: Correct.
Donovan: And they want to put that spark trap on there. And we’re like, “You cannot do that.”
Eric: Correct.
Donovan: And that’s a lot of times when we’ll call a company like you guys.
Eric: Exactly.
Donovan: And for everyone out there who’s unfamiliar, maybe they are having this issue, they’re having continual events in their wood collector — what can you guys do to help with that?
Eric: Well, I think the one thing that we do is we try to detect sparks, embers, hot particles before they become a fire or an explosion.
Donovan: I gotcha.
Eric: That’s always a good thing. So, you know, for a baghouse or anything for a dust collector, we try to detect the sparks before they go in there so there is no combustion, no issues. And we do it all seamlessly while the operation is running. Never need to shut down. It notices a spark, sprays a little bit of mist, kind of smothers that spark, extinguishes it, and everyone just goes around and doesn’t know anything different outside of our console. We’ll say, “Hey, you had a little spark there,” just so you know — and more from the standpoint that they can keep the history to know do they have a problem in their previous process. Is there an issue they should pay attention to, or is it just kind of a random incident?
Donovan: So, like if every time it happens when you’re cutting this type of board — I don’t even know what it would be — this grinding application, then the sparks happen, like you can kind of correlate that together. Is that what you’re saying?
Eric: Absolutely. Or things you might not think about initially. Sometimes with wood, there’ll be metal pieces that get into the wood. So, if you get a run where there’s a lot of metal pieces, you might get a lot more sparks as they’re cutting or shaving or things like that. Or even in a dust collection system, you have a fan running.
Donovan: Right.
Eric: Fans sometimes can turn, bend, adjust, or a piece gets in there and all of a sudden it starts creating sparks. And if you have a big dust flow and you have those sparks blowing, it’s only a matter of time before something bad will happen.
Donovan: Especially if you don’t have a material handling fan. Sparks being directly introduced into the dust stream is not good.
Eric: Let’s just say that’s what we try to prevent.
Donovan: Right. So, not only do you guys do that, but you guys have a ton of good information on your website, too.
Eric: Right. Correct.
Donovan: So, I know you were showing me this earlier. It’s a little bit of a breakdown of what a spark is.
Eric: I think sometimes people don’t know. And I’ll turn it around — it’s not perfect for everybody to see — but there’s a lot of different types of sparks. So, you have your standard spark that’s just what you would think, like when you see metal hitting flint or something like that — seeing the spark — or a fan hitting metal. You have kind of burning particles that can happen in the process. And then there’s a couple of odd ones that are kind of hot particles, or we call them like glowing or burning nests.
Donovan: Yes.
Eric: And those are when materials get stuck in your ductwork.
Donovan: Oh, okay.
Eric: And they kind of start warming up, but they kind of have that charcoal over the top. So, it doesn’t look hot, but all of a sudden when enough breeze starts blowing, sometimes that’ll release into your process.
Donovan: Like when you’re blowing on a campfire and it just looks like charcoal and then it gets red.
Eric: That is a perfect example of what it is.
Donovan: Right. Gotcha.
Eric: So, there’s a number of different types here and we have different detectors that sense these things because they each have a different kind of temperature. We have infrared detectors that notice it at different levels. So, there is a lead sulfite detector that’s good for one application and there’s a different detector that’s good for another. Now, and I know when Todd was on a few years ago, we had talked about a new detector that we had, which is our DLD 19. It’s the yellow — the easier way to say it, it’s the yellow little detector.
Donovan: The yellow little detector.
Eric: It’s much easier to remember. But this detector actually sees on the whole spectrum of things. So, you no longer need a specialty detector. This one will work in the dark, in the light, or even if you have dark to light because it — we’ll just say it doesn’t look like an intelligent detector, but it’s an intelligent detector that adjusts the sensitivity with kind of an AI kind of thinking. It will see things differently as the light changes.
Donovan: So, there’s a lot of abilities in that little yellow box.
Eric: Exactly.
Donovan: So, if someone’s having incidents, probably an important thing for them to be able to tell you guys is what kind of sparks they’re generating, right?
Eric: I mean, a lot of times they don’t know what type of sparks. Most of them would say, “I don’t think we have any sparks,” right? And ours is just to look at their process. What are they doing? What are the potential points where they could have issues? What is the type of material? What type of handling system do they have? And then we’ll go in and help kind of dissect where our detection and extinguishing will make the most sense for them.
Donovan: So, what you’re saying is you don’t have to have it all figured out before you call you guys. You guys will help whoever’s having these issues figure out why they’re having them.
Eric: Absolutely. Our system is extremely customized. Unless you have the same process — like if you had multiple facilities — unless you have the same process, then it would be the same application. But everybody’s got a little different turns, a little longer runs, all these different things, and that changes how we might protect the area to make sure you don’t have those nasty fires and explosions.
Donovan: Yeah, because with your system — detect and then extinguish — there’s definitely some minimum distances you need between where it sees the spark and have enough time to put it out.
Eric: Correct. And that is affected by the type of material, the speed of the material — all those things change how far it needs to be from detection to extinguishment. And I think one thing, you know, when we say extinguishment, people are like, they think a fire hose. And we’re not doing a fire hose. When we do an extinguishment, it’s just a 3- to 4-second little mist. And because of the fan, the particles spray very evenly in a nice cone, and when the fan is blowing, those particles just spread across, fill the ductwork, and extinguish it all without really changing the moisture content of the material that you’re running.
Donovan: It’s not like the water parks where the big bucket dumps.
Eric: No, there’s no bucket dump. It’s just like a misty spray.
Donovan: And you guys know how long to let that spray and how much to spray in there so that it absolutely puts the spark out but doesn’t create a waterfall.
Eric: Yeah. Just basically a slight little bit of moisture — just a pop of water. And again, just so it spreads evenly throughout the area that it’s covering.
Donovan: Okay, let’s say I’m there. I notice I have these issues. I’m inside my building. Does it have to be inside? Can it be outside? Can I tie it into my sprinkler system or does it need to have its own direct water? What are our limitations?
Eric: Yeah, there’s one thing — you don’t want to tie it into your regular sprinkler system. One is a regular sprinkler system, when it’s activated, it’s going to let the fire department know that something’s going on. We don’t want to let the fire department know that a spark’s going off because we’re just going to put it out. There’s no incident. They don’t have to worry about anything. And we want the water charged to the nozzle so that when we detect, it’s instantly putting the water in. You don’t want a system where the water takes a few seconds to get to the nozzle. These nozzles are charged and ready to go, so they can immediately go off. Now, you can do it both inside and outside, but you do obviously have issues with freeze–thaw that could happen. We have blankets that you can put over our extinguishment devices and there’s also things like heat tape you can use to keep them safe. And we actually have a new extinguishment that also has a heat monitor in it. So it will sense the temperature and when it gets to a certain temperature, it will activate that heat chamber to warm up the device so it doesn’t freeze.
Donovan: Nice. So, we have this hooked up, we have it so it’s not freezing. How much pressure do I need to put a device like this in?
Eric: You know, again, it will depend on how many nozzles you have and what you’re trying to do. So, it will vary a little bit, but 60 PSI is what we’re kind of talking about.
Donovan: Okay. But if I don’t have that, you guys can help me with that?
Eric: Yeah, we have pumps that we can add to the system to make sure that’s happening. Most people, if they have a good water source, they’re going to have pretty close. Most of the time if you have good city water — not everyone has that good high pressure — but if you have good enough pressure that can be done. But it’s always easy to add a pump into the system. That way you don’t have to worry about when the pressure drops for any reason, like it’s 7:30 in the morning, everyone’s taking their shower in the city and the pressure goes down. This allows you to know that you have good, consistent pressure.
Donovan: Okay. So, now you mentioned how many actual sprinkler — or not sprinkler — heads. What do you guys call them?
Eric: We just call them simple extinguishment nozzles.
Donovan: Extinguishment nozzles. So, is it the larger the ductwork gets the more I need, or how do you determine that?
Eric: Really for general ductwork it’s about how big it is. So, the bigger the ductwork, we might add more. That makes sense. In most applications it’s two — one on either side. That way you get a good cone of distribution on either side. Because if you just have one on the top, it’s got a little blind spot right around that top. We don’t want any blind spots. We want good coverage from both sides.
Donovan: Gotcha. Okay, so now you brought some show and tell, too.
Eric: Yeah, I brought some show and tell. I’ve got more toys here than I probably need.
Donovan: If you’re listening, get on YouTube and check this out. What are we looking at here?
Eric: This looks like — yeah, it’s called our IEM. It’s an intelligent extinguishing module. I’m going to pick it up just for a second. So, it’s normally sitting like this. These are the nozzles down here. But it’s kind of awkward just to hold and I don’t have good bracing here, and I haven’t been lifting as much as I should have.
Donovan: Yeah, looks like you get a workout. It’s definitely a sturdy-built piece of equipment for sure.
Eric: But it’s a new module that helps us with a number of different things. It has some of the intelligent type of thinking that we had with the detector. First, it will help on the maintenance side of things. One of the most critical things in any spark extinguishment system is we detect sparks — we’re fantastic at doing it, we don’t miss them. It goes in there, we do a great job. The biggest challenge is our extinguishments work really well — as you were talking about low pressure — all of a sudden, “Oh, I was doing something, I turned the water off.” Oh. So now we detect, but the extinguisher isn’t working.
We want to make sure it’s always working. So, we have an extinguishment that does a couple of different things. One, it’ll tell you if your water’s on or off. Obviously, you can do that with a flow switch, which is easy to do. But it will also make sure that you don’t have leaky nozzles, or a nozzle that doesn’t have good flow — like a good cone shape. Because obviously if you have a nozzle and it’s only flowing out of half of it, that’s going to be a problem. Now we have a unit here with intelligence that’s up here that sees how that flow is coming out.
Donovan: Okay.
Eric: It can tell somebody on our console and it will say, “Hey, your cone isn’t quite right. You should probably change that nozzle.” Or it’ll say your nozzle isn’t quite closing, so there’s a little bit of water leaking. You might want to see if it’s broken or if maybe some material got stuck and you need to clean that nozzle. So, It does some intelligent things. And as I mentioned before when we were talking about heat, it also has a heat chamber in here that will sense the temperature and if it’s getting colder, it will activate that heat chamber to keep it from freezing.
Donovan: Keep it from fogging up.
Eric: Yeah. And again, it’ll give that message to the operator back at our console. It’ll tell you if it’s leaking, if your cone isn’t right, if you need maintenance. And obviously when you have all that information, you should be able to quickly adjust it. That way when we detect, your extinguishment is going to work perfectly.
Donovan: That sounds great because if you don’t have this on there, then you probably have to do manual annual PMs and get up there — and boy, that’s sometimes tough to check in.
Eric: Yeah. But we like to have everybody do an annual one anyway just to make sure everything’s working the way it should. But when you have a system that has a lot of dirt — we know not every one of these places has won the Good Housekeeping seal of approval as far as cleaning — sometimes they can’t get to places monthly to do the cleanings. This type of device is a huge maintenance and operational savings.
The other thing nice about it is it’ll give them that warning before there’s an issue. You don’t want to find out you have an issue when you have a ton of sparks that could cause a fire. You want to find out before —
Donovan: The smoke’s coming out of the baghouse, that’s the bad time to find out.
Eric: That’s definitely a bad sign. So that’s nice. And the other thing is you were saying about — and I didn’t mention it, and sometimes I forget about it with this device — is most of the time with most nozzles you’ve got to get your wrench and you’ve got to undo it. And when you’re up high or in an awkward spot, it’s hard to do. This has got just the simple quick release.
Donovan: Oh, that is slick.
Eric: You just need to unscrew it here.
Donovan: Oh, yeah. You unscrew it, unclamp it.
Eric: And you pop it off. Even guys like me can do it.
Donovan: When you make it easy for people to do, they’re way more likely to do maintenance on things when it’s easy — and not ignore an issue when a nozzle is not performing correctly. If you make it easy for them to fix it, that’s what you want. That’s what we want — we want people to be able to go home safe to their families and not be worried about coming to work. Doing things like this is definitely preventing a lot of hazards or potential things down the line.
Eric: Absolutely. I mean, that’s what I tell our team every day — we get the opportunity, the privilege, and the responsibility to make sure everybody goes home every day and sees their families. And it’s a big responsibility, but we have equipment that we know will deliver that. As long as we make sure it’s lined out appropriately and do the occasional maintenance on it to make sure everything’s operating well, we get to live behind that promise.
Donovan: And the other thing is, whenever a baghouse goes down, sometimes that stops production and people are losing money. They’re off their job for a while, they’re not able to…
Eric: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s one of the best parts about a spark system — we’re getting the spark out before it combusts.
Donovan: Right.
Eric: And by doing that, it all happens in line. There is no stoppage. Everything just happens like it normally would. Everyone can keep working. They acknowledge the spark just to know that it’s happening, as we talked about, in case there are issues. But you’re not worried about shutting down or anything like that — you just keep on running.
Donovan: Just keep going. Yeah. Well, that’s exciting. That’s really great stuff. So right now, what if I already have a spark detection and extinguishing system on it — can I retrofit to this or is this a whole new system?
Eric: Absolutely. No, it’s very simple to do. You just need to replace the old unit and put this one on. A replacement for an old extinguishment can happen just with basically this piece and one tiny little extension because this one is a little bit smaller — which is a good thing because nobody wants huge pieces of equipment. But the other thing is, if you have one existing, all you’ve got to have is a little small extension that’ll make it fit, and it’s a quick, easy change. You can put it in the exact same position.
Donovan: That’s great. So if everything’s already plumbed, everything’s already done, you can just —
Eric: Absolutely.
Donovan: Man, that makes it even easier.
Eric: It makes it easy and it’s a good part of an upgrade. And when folks are looking around, depending on the corrosive nature of the environment they’re in, you need to update your extinguishment periodically anyway. And in particular, I’m just saying if it was a fertilizer facility — this isn’t all stainless steel — but we have stainless steel options for this as well for applications that might be a little more corrosive.
Donovan: And that’s what’s great — you guys have already thought through all this. Somebody doesn’t have to figure this out. They can just come to you guys and you’re going to help them with the right solution.
Eric: Absolutely. I mean, we started in the wood industry. As a company, we’ve been around for 115 years. We’ve been doing sparks for 50. And the reason we got into sparks was we were in the woodworking business —
Donovan: Oh, there’s sparks there.
Eric: And like a good German company, we were creating our own sparks and we had to put these out. We had to figure it out. So we figured out how to do that and then the rest is history. We don’t do woodworking anymore and now we do the spark business, and we’ve been able to apply it to a lot of different industries. We started in woodworking. We’re in grain, flour, sugar, tobacco. You get into recycling — because if wires or bales get in there — chemicals, power plants, tissue, nonwovens, diapers, wipes, you name it. Anything that could potentially combust, we’re probably involved with.
Donovan: We always say if it’s a light and it’s a fluffy dust, that’s where you want to start going to active detect and extinguish.
Eric: Absolutely. And obviously anybody who’s on your side of things that are looking for any dust collection and they’re doing any of that work, having a system like ours tied into that just makes a ton of sense.
Donovan: So, what’s the best way for anybody out there who’s listening and thinking, “Man, I need to do something like this” — what’s the best way to get a hold of you guys?
Eric: I mean, always the simplest way for most people today is hitting the website. And I have to say the word for you: Fagus-GreCon.com.
Donovan: If you just type in — if you Google GreCon, it’ll probably still get you close.
Eric: The other option is they can always call our phone number, which is 704-912-0000. That’s easy too.
Donovan: Oh, there you go. And we’ll put some links, we can put all that stuff in there.
Eric: Oh yeah, which is great. We really appreciate it. And we’ve been doing business, I know, for a lot of years.
Donovan: You guys have helped us out with a lot of trickier dusts that are challenges, and you guys help us figure out how to handle those properly. It gives our customers a lot of confidence and comfort because you guys have this history and this knowledge base, and it’s not just throwing a product at them — you guys come in and help with a solution to what we have going on.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. And we buy a few things from you guys — Abort Gates and things like that. That’s always a good thing and it allows for a good partnership. And as you said before, the goal is to make sure everybody goes home safely every day.
Donovan: Yeah, that’s it. Well, hey, I really thank you so much for coming on, giving us some time. This is an exciting product. So if anybody out there is having these issues, feel free to reach out to us. We’ll get you in touch with those guys. And until next time, stay healthy and stay safe, and we’ll talk to you later.
Eric: All right. Excellent. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
[Music]
Narrator:Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
In Season 6 Episode 2 of the Dusty Jobs Podcast, Donovan sits down with Chris Cloney, founder of Dust Safety Science, at the International Powder and Bulk Solids Show. Chris Cloney discusses the new initiatives, including the Combustible Dust Training Institute (CDTI), which will offer training and certification programs in dust explosion safety. CDTI’s mission is to advance effective, efficient, and compliant combustible dust safety by creating comprehensive training and certification programs that empower individuals working in industries that handle combustible dust around the world.
Narrator: 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. We got Chris back with us. How’s it going, Chris?
Chris: Doing awesome. I’m very excited.
Donovan: Yeah, so Chris, you’ve been, this is not your first time on our podcast. You’ve been here before. This is your, I think it’s your third episode with us.
Chris: Sounds right.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: Second time live at the Powder Show.
Donovan: At the Powder Show. Which is like, it’s great. I mean, with a lot of people this year, it seems like a really good show.
Chris: Yep.
Donovan: A lot of good stuff is going on. And you guys, you’re not just here talking this year. You actually have a booth this year, don’t you?
Chris: We do, yes. Our first time on this side of the table, I guess.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: We’ve presented a ton and presented this year, but we have an exhibition booth as well.
Donovan: Yeah, yeah. So you’re here with Dust Safety Science.
Chris: Yep.
Donovan: And you guys, so anybody who’s not familiar with what Dust Safety Science is, could you fill us in on a little bit more of what you guys do?
Chris: DustSafetyScience.com. We’re a connection platform for generating awareness for combustible dust safety, as well as connecting folks with experienced companies like yourselves. So, looking for dust collection systems, looking for vacuum systems, looking for people that provide dust hazard analysis services, explosion protection items. They got a problem with combustible dust. Dust Safety Science has a resource for them to come and actually learn about the problem, but then find folks like yourselves to work with.
Donovan: Yeah, and I know I’ve reached out to you in the past, even when I have some questions on things.
Chris: Sure have.
Donovan: And you find some people who, like, I mean, I don’t even know. There’s people who knew this stuff, but it’s great. You guys usually always come through and help find out, like, exactly what I need to know.
Chris: We get the tricky stuff, right? So, I say I don’t know the answers to everything, but we generally know who to ask. So, we call it our help desk. We, this, literally, on my phone right now, I have the list of tickets that are open. One of them is, you know, isolating munitions and pyrotechnics from explosions. There’s another one on, there’s several on metal dust and challenges with inerting or ignition sensitivity.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: So, yeah, when there’s a question people don’t know how to get an answer to, reach out there and help desk kind of get some sort of…
Donovan: I remember I emailed you one that was quite odd. It was, how much lime does it take to make this certain dust and dirt? And we figured it out. We, like, somehow, we found a person who had the formula and got the answer.
Chris: Unfortunately, it’s a lot. It is a lot. But, yes, we did get an answer.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. It kind of made it not a possibility to do that that way.
Chris: It’s not easy for me, but you can do the calculation.
Donovan: You can. You can.
Chris: Yeah.
Donovan: So, but…So that’s what, that is currently what the history of Dust Safety Science has been. And now, what, I mean, you guys are here, you’re presented. What’s new? What’s new with you guys?
Chris: So, one of the reasons we’re exhibiting is we have recently launched the Combustible Dust Training Institute.
Donovan: So, wait, wait, say that again. The Combustible Dust Training Institute. Okay, I’m with you.
Chris: CDTI.
Donovan: Okay.
Chris: The mission with Dust Safety Science was always to have at least one year with zero fatalities worldwide by 2038. Started in 2018. So, those that are counting were seven years in and we got, what, 13 years left?
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think we’re getting better every year.
Chris: Yeah.
Donovan: I don’t know if we’re there yet, but it’s definitely…
Chris: Quantitatively speaking, we haven’t hit a year with zero fatalities worldwide.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: But I think the awareness is getting better. There’s a lot of activity here in the US, but also globally, South America, Asia, Europe. So, that’s been coming along well. And our role in that has been connection platform, education, awareness through Dust Safety Science. One of the challenges was there’s no real pipeline for people to understand this stuff.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: Not necessarily the really detailed questions like you or other centers that help us.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: Just basic, what are combustible hazards? How do you assess them? What’s the right way to do dust collection system design installation? What’s combustible dust testing? What does that look like? What scenarios do we need to do more than the basic set of testing?
Donovan: Like the 101s.
Chris: Yeah. 101s and maybe 201s as well.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: It doesn’t exist. And so, that’s the goal for CDTIs to fill that void of having training programs for people to go through this stuff. All the way from basic, if you want to do testing, having an online on-demand program for understanding the combustible dust testing. Then we’re working all the way up to actually having certifications for being a certified dust safety professional or being a certified DHA leader. And those programs are bigger.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: 6-month, 12-month programs to get a real deep dive in knowledge in this sort of stuff. Also, exposure and experience in the industry so that when you come out with finishing that training, you actually know what you’re talking about. You know what you’re talking about anyway.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. But there is a lot of people who are coming straight out of college that are engineers. And they might be going into a facility, being a facilities engineer. And they get tasked with, you know, now you have this dust collector project. And they might have never learned at all about that the whole way through their college career. And these are educated people. They’re smart people. But that’s just an area they’ve never been exposed to. And you’re right. There’s not just a good resource as of right now to go, until now, to go and start to learn these basic things to educate yourself enough to make the right decision for the health and the safety of the people that are dependent on you to design something correctly.
Chris: Yeah. And there’s that side of the equation, just the, I’d say, junior staff and companies knowing, you know, knowing how to work through. We, because we run a help desk probably at least once a month, if not more, we get a call from consultants saying, “Do you know who we can hire? We’re looking to expand.” We get a call from equipment manufacturers saying, “Hey, we want young talent to know something about combustible dust.” Or, “We just hired junior staff and we want to train them up.”
Donovan: It’s not something your guidance counselor in high school said, “Hey, you know, there’s a career in exploding dust.”
Chris: And so there’s just no, and come on that with, we have a lot of older people that are kind of retiring out of combustible dust. There’s no pipeline of people. So that’s one of the founding things we’re trying to solve with CDTIs. Okay, how do we have a structured program? Maybe it’ll be a university set of course someday where we’ll work towards it. But let’s start with something where folks need to be trained up from knowing nothing to actually be able to go out and support these industries.
Donovan: Even basic vocabulary at time can be challenging at first. What is KSt? What is PMAX? How does that work? What are those means? How do I evaluate this? Not even knowing the vocabulary within this space can set its own set of challenges when someone’s reading a spec or someone’s trying to write a spec to get a bit out. So is that some of the stuff you guys are covering in this?
Chris: It is.
Donovan: When I’m looking at the 101 courses, walk me through a couple of what those are.
Chris: Yeah, so great question. The starting point is we have a certificate program, combustible specialist certificate. That’s a 10 hour on-demand course. We’ve had 80 people go through it so far. And most have finished it now and done the quizzes and got their certificate. So that’s sort of like the step one version.
Donovan: So if I would go into that, what would be some of the basic things I’d learn about?
Chris: So you cover it at a high level combustible dust testing, so identification hazards, the DHA process, so you understand how it works, not necessarily you can go and complete it yourself.
Donovan: So if I had that combustible dust test back, I’d actually read it and know what I’m talking about a little bit.
Chris: Interpretation of data is in there. Then high level on protection methods, prevention methods. It’s sort of, it’s not, we don’t have an awareness course, like a two hour, be aware, this is sort of, I’d say this is 101 level. We will have an awareness course because we haven’t created it yet. So this is enough to bring somebody up to speed, probably geared towards like equipment manufacturer where they want to be able to talk sensibly with their clients about this sort of thing.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: And know what they don’t know. So that’s the certificate program. Then we have a number of core courses within a curriculum that we’re developing. So a much deeper dive on testing, a much deeper dive on hazard prevention and mitigation systems, interpretation results from dust hazard analysis, management systems, like housekeeping, management of change, that sort of thing. And a couple other programs that we’re building out. And if you combine that with this certificate, that’s what the certification is that we’re building towards.
Donovan: Gotcha.
Chris: So to get that certification, then you do all the core course requirements. You have some electives you can specialize in. There is an exam at the end of the six month period. It’s not small, 200 multiple choice questions.
Donovan: Holy moly.
Chris: But it’s not meant to be a walk in the park. It’s also not meant to take six days to get through. And that’s some experience, experiential learning requirements on the job stuff. And that gets you through that certification.
Donovan: So what would be some of those experiential learning?
Chris: There’s two kind of flavors. If you’re working in a job where you’re actively handling the bustle dust on a day to day basis, that’s probably going to be able to fill those requirements.
Donovan: So if I’m in a Powder & Bulk situation such as a wood factory or a grain facility, probably just interacting with what’s going on there would handle that?
Chris: A lot of the time we’re still working through the committee to be able to evaluate experiential learning and what works and what doesn’t.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: But generally, if you’re working with the dust collection company, you have jobs where you’re specifying equipment, that’s a really good experiential learning opportunity. If you’re a health and safety manager and you’re taking the program and you have some combustible dust on site, but you’re taking it just, you know, you’ve had your DHA done by an outside expert and you’re not really involved with projects, we submit projects for those folks, we provide learning opportunities for them. There might be a case study of an incident that happened. You have to back rewrite what a DHA might look like for it.
Donovan: Gotcha.
Chris: There’s a case where if you can’t get that learning experience on your day-to-day job, then we’re providing those learning opportunities for folks. Because we want to be able to do both. We want you guys, we want equipment providers to be able to go through the program, get value, but also then health and safety folks, occupational health and safety, industrial hygiene, so they can step in and be that SME, that subject matter expert for their company to interface with folks that are helping them.
Donovan: So if somebody’s out there and they’re looking on the internet right now and they’re trying to find, they got tasked with the first time their company is going to be dealing with a combustible dust situation.
Chris: Yeah.
Donovan: By the end of this six-month course, they’d probably be pretty well set to be able to evaluate anything that’s coming in, how to actually look at the products that they need to purchase, how to talk to the equipment providers about,
Chris: Right
Donovan: I mean that’s the goal of it?
Chris: It is. Yeah. There’s two programs, there’s a certified DHA leader and then there’s a certified dust safety professional program. That kind of flavors kind of towards the certified dust safety professional.
Donovan: Gotcha.
Chris: There is a DHA leader program as well, which is a bit different. But the certified dust safety professional, it’s really about interfacing better. So when you get quotes for a bunch of exposure protection equipment, you know enough to be able to assess, is this the right protection, does this make sense?
Donovan: How to ask the right questions.
Chris: Yeah. You know, who do I go to if I need to understand the dust collection system. We need to do grounding and bonding. Like, it’s more about being that subject matter expert point of contact within your company, so you at least have somebody that can do that.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: The DHA leader program also has some elements on top of that about how to lead and facilitate the hazard analysis process. How to build a team. Who to look for to bring into that team. How to actually run site assessment. How to do the reporting afterwards.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: That’s kind of where you get in with. If you do a CDSP program, you shouldn’t really be set into the wild to start doing hazard analysis and hazard assessments yourself. There’s more training and experience and requirements on top of that.
Donovan: But if you did the, what was the first one?
Chris: CDSP.
Donovan: You probably would have a better understanding on how to read your dust hazard analysis.
Chris: Exactly.
Donovan: When you have someone bring it back to you.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. And it’s a big challenge. Like, people go get a DHA done today. Some DHA providers are better at this than others. Some will walk through and help them understand. But others just get the paper and they don’t know what to do with it.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: So if you’re a certified dust safety professional, our hope is that you’ll know what to do with that when you start actually making your facility safe.
Donovan: Yeah, because that’s the whole goal of the DHA is that in the end, you have a safer facility.
Chris: That is the goal.
Donovan: That’s the goal. So that people can go home to their families the way they came to work.
Chris: And we can get closer to our mission of one year zero fatalities worldwide.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: Because we can’t if the facility doesn’t actually get safer at the end of the day.
Donovan: Right. Right. And there’s, like you said, I think there’s a lot of people out there that might not even know at this point that they’re dealing in a facility that’s not 100% up to where it should be.
Chris: So we have three levels on what we kind of explained through. We’re trying to make facilities compliant. Well, try to help facilities implement compliant, effective and efficient combustible dust safety programs.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: So step one is, okay, how do we get to compliance?
Donovan: Right.
Chris: Step two is, is it actually effective? So there are some areas, you know, if you have a really simple facility, compliance might keep everyone safe.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: You have a more complex facility. Okay, compliance. What do we need to do on top of that to actually have an effective safety program? And then efficient. How do we have an efficient safety program? So are we spending our safety dollars wisely? Are we getting a good return on our safety dollars spent?
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: Are we over protecting here where if we did a risk assessment, maybe we were able to take that protection scheme, that base of safety, and go with something that’s not over protected and spend that money elsewhere in terms of safety programs training, whatever.
Donovan: Because if it’s not all of those things, then it might end up failing in the end.
Chris: Yeah.
Donovan: People won’t stay with it. People won’t do it.
Chris: Yeah. We call them mature. Like, I’m thinking of a really mature safety system or organization has really mature safety. They have all those elements, right? They’re in compliance.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: They have an efficient safety program. It actually stops you from getting hurt.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: And they have an, or that’s effective. And they have an efficient safety program. They’re being wise with how they’re investing their safety dollars every day. That’s what good looks like. I’m sure you’ve seen various phases of that.
Donovan: I have. I’ve seen good to nothing.
Chris: Yeah. So, you can be any, and we’re just trying to, okay, here’s how you build up that compliance, effective, efficient. And if you skip the step, if you try to do efficient before you are effective or compliant, it doesn’t, a lot of people try to go to that route. It doesn’t work all that well. Same thing if you try to, you know, if you try to make it effective, but say, yeah, we know better than the NFPA 664. So, we’re going to do it this way. And you just guess and leave some stuff out and you’re not in compliance. Maybe you can do that, but in a lot of cases, you’re only leaving out because you haven’t experienced a loss that has driven the change in the requirement that came in the first place.
Donovan: Right.
Chris: So, it’s advisable to start with compliance, then move to effective, and then make it efficient after that.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great model for making it for you.
Chris: I’ll be presenting that next year at Powder and Bulk Solids. I don’t know yet, but maybe I’ll pitch it to them.
Donovan: So, but, okay, so if someone’s interested in signing up for one of these classes, being part of that, how do they do that? How should they reach out? I mean, do you just Google this or what’s the best way to do it?
Chris: The best way is just to go to dustsafetyscience.com, and you’ll see there’ll be a button or tab somewhere that’s training.
Donovan: Okay.
Chris: Eventually, it’ll be more prominent on the site if it’s not already. And that’s the best way. You can always reach out to me, Chris, at dustsafetyscience.com. We run our own podcast.
Donovan: Yeah, you guys are going to respond to information on there.
Chris: And if you’ve got a question, like, training side, do you want training? Do that.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: If you’ve got a question, you’re stuck, you can’t figure something else out, just do the same thing. Go to dustsafetyscience.com and ask us. We don’t know the answer. Chances are we know the person that does.
Donovan: You know a guy.
Chris: And if we don’t, then chances are we don’t have an answer. You might need to ask a better question. We’ll work on it.
Donovan: Yeah. So, are you looking at me, Chris, so I need to ask better questions when I send them to you? No, it’s all right.
Chris: There’s a distribution of users for our help desk from little to lots and Donovan is on the other side of the curve. So you have to use it quite a bit, which is good. We appreciate it.
Donovan: Yeah. So, yeah, I appreciate it too because usually I only get these questions when I come to you when people are trying to make their facilities better and safer. And so if I had to come to you with something, Chris, I always, for me, it’s great because people aren’t just ignoring issues anymore. And we’re actually asking hard questions as opposed to just kicking that can down the road to where, well, we’ll just wait and see what happens. And I don’t think that’s really a good answer.
Chris: I agree.
Donovan: Yeah.
Chris: Thanks for having me on. So I look forward two more years to do another one of the next steps.
Donovan: Yeah, there you go. There you go. So, hey, thanks for everybody for listening. Check out Chris at Dust Safety Science and check us out on YouTube, Instagram, all those social media feeds, like and subscribe. And until next time, stay healthy and stay safe.
Chris: See you.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe Better. Work safer.
The VFD Advantage: Smart Efficiency in Action
