Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions
about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience podcast are that
of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host
of the Getting Salty Experience podcast. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast.
All in a world we go, Welcome back as you rise. All
right, did you look at the eclipse today? I did? You didn't
burn your eyeballs? You have to because in Florida, you only we have
like a little scoop shape of the song, Yeah, a little bit.
What was your percentage? Maybe a quarter? And if you will kind of
did the like a three quarter crescent of the moon, you would kind of
imagine just that little outskirts of it. Mm hmm, like nine something like
that. My daughter went up to uh Burlington, Vermont. They saw the
whole total eclipse there. Hmm. I wasn't I wasn't that excited about the
eclipse. No, the video I sent you of the eclipse that that was.
That was a guy that I got shot. I think we probably could
show that people. People would figure out what that come on a little bit.
Well, if the guy would have manscaped, it would have been a
little bit better. But I thought it was Actually you didn't do it yourself.
No, a little more cleaned up than that guy. I mean that
guy was a little in Yeah. Yeah, man, he needs a little
manscaping, you know what I'm saying, A little yeah, a little bit
of the you know, I did you do yesterday? How did you do
yesterday? Oh, chief Steve Man? Did he put on a hell of
a shin dig for his daughter? She got married yesterday? I got boxed
early on, but then I had to go right to the water. I
should set you send it to him? Yet you said it to him to
him, being my old lady box We had a great time and were dancing,
great food. Man, he must have paid some pretty top dollar for
that bed, boy, I tell you that much. Man, he didn't
spare no expense. That's good. Even. I even seen him smile,
believe it or not, he had a smile. Really, Yep. It
must have been his daughter's last daughter's getting married. Yeah, he's all right.
How many does it have again? Him? He's got uh, two
girls and a boy? All right? So I got four girls. One
wedding down, three to go. I only got to say for one but
last yesterday opened my eyes and my opening the account shoveling some money because these
things ain't cheap. No, uh, chief is retiring, He was,
Yeah, is it? What did you talk? I was on I'm like
white on rice Bro. Last charts coming up tomorrow tonight? Is it just
last talk? But I had told him I got the show. But I
think I might have him. I might have him, get him on the
one twelve guy? He doesn't he doesn't want to come on. Two guys?
What he doesn't want to come on? You know how they are the
guys who've seen the most fire Like What am I gonna say? I don't
know how many times can I yell at Louis every time I tell you tell
your friend to start doing the ship for sure. Anyway, listen the kind
of show we got, bro. Not only we got the best hot judging
guests. We bring the greatest fire stories. We bring you unique products created
by firefighters, good firefighters. That's what we mean. Man, Oh guys,
this guy has been doing all right. Yeah. Man, you know,
some of the smartest guys get some of the dumbest guys. I know
there's a white spectrum in the fire service. Bro, these guys are a
good side of the spectrum. I was gonna say what side of the spectrum
you, I was gonna say spectrum. That's really a good word. Yeah
you got that picture guns. Yeah, I'm working on the right genius.
I can tell you that much. That's what I'm gonna say that some firemen
will just see and can create with their hands and amazing. So this is
what we gotta bring you. We got to bring you new products, cutting
edge because to get salt. The experience podcasts the only one that brings the
fire house, kitchen table and cutting edge products to you, bro, and
picture faces there it comes comes. Yeah you know it takes a few seconds.
Oh no, come on, come on, Well I don't know.
Let's give me show. I like the first. All right, now,
I'll work on that because I'm giving you such glowing accolades and it's not me,
it's not I bro. Oh wait here we go. Oh wait,
I'm not lying. Okay, we go boom, Sorry here it is yeah
that picture, but I can see, uh, you look like a white
mister t a you. I appreciate that good with that mohawk and kicking right
pretty of food. Do you have to do you have to die that mohawk?
Or no? On occasion it turns like yeah, is it like burnt?
It's like trump? Or no? No? Yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous
even with the funny face. Alright, let's say so, let's do some
commercials here really quick guns, here we go. Armor Tough firehouse flooring was
recently installed in Station number seven, the newest of the Dacab County fire stations
in Decatur, Georgia. Meeting Deputy Chief Smith of Support Services, Vince explained
that Armor Tough interlocking flooring is the only floor that is tough enough to withstand
the abuse of fire apparatus along with fire personnel at a very busy station.
Chief Smith explained, the flooring in all of our stations over the years gave
us multiple problems. We need a floor that can last as long as the
walls and the roof. That's why we chose Armor Tough. The installation team
came from New Jersey and in three days they had completed their work without any
disruption to our daily operations. We were very impressed with not only the product,
but with the workmanship as well. I highly recommend Armour Tough for your
station's floor. Calvin's Today for a no obligation quote at nine oh eight nine
one seven seven six nine seven cap cut check cut. As you know,
will be on IDY in next week, next weekday, next week, next
Tuesday in booth times zero zero two ten thousand and two. Come out and
see if you'll get to see mister Osden out there with his book. We'll
have I played commercial No no, here we go. Come get your autograph
copy of They Save New York at this year's FDIC twenty twenty four at the
Getting Salty Booth. It's the nation's premiere fire conference and photographer Glenn Osden will
be there and he'll autograph your book at the aforemention Getting Salty Booth during exhibit
hours on both Thursday and Friday, April eighteenth and nineteenth, respectively. Each
book will come with a limited edition sixteen by twenty color poster that is suitable
for framing and This limited edition quffee table book features the compelling stories of a
ninety FDNY firefighters and is almost three hundred pages packed with action photos from the
nineteen seventies all the way up to today's FD and Y fire operations. Read
the personal stories of the men and women who fought the warriors, fires,
the World Trade Center and Black Sunday tragedies, and almost every major incident in
the last fifty years of the FD and Y. Come see us at the
getting Salty boot in the hallway outside the main exhibit area Thursday and Friday of
fd I C Week April eighteenth and nineteenth, twenty twenty four. And for
at an extra a little something on the top, little whooped cream on the
top with the cherry. Friday afternoon, we do something with the fighting injur
Guys right next to us, they get two kegs of beer on the free
out, So fireman and free beer. They raffle off stuff. We raffle
off stuff. They got some beer girls there. It's a it's a it's
a hoot. It's a hoot. Come on out and see it. The
last day the Friday of Indy Friday night. Come on, guys, you
know during the day talk about three o'clock the firefighter model if his freeze for
me, you know what I'm saying. So let's beer. There's plenty of
it, all right, Let's get these guys in there. Yeah, they're
out there, like, let's go gentlemen. See all right, well,
bringing in your ready guns, all right, coming to the stage. We
got questioning Ken from the fire Wipes, not presston pressing, it's resting.
What's up, boys, what's up? Guys? I finally got him.
Coolcau. We finally got him. We see him at every show. He's
like, yeah, I'll come on the show. You'll come on the show,
and then yet pass us. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna come on
the show another year. Passing. I like that. Where are you guys
at right now? Somebody's house with the firehouse. We're at the office,
fire wipes office. Oh dude, what did you get that flag? That's
amazing. I love that firefighter in northern Arizona made it for us. Really
were going correctly? Yep, Yeah, we're in the Phoenix area. Oh
man, we got started. Let's get patriotic. Please, yes, sir,
here we go, rough, You're right, all right, here we
go. I plague allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible with
liberty and justice for all excellently. Who you got in there? Chris Burke?
Is that? Who's in there? Untill he's in there? I think
Chris Burke is from Australia. Isn't he my role? Chris? That's a
good question. I might be. I forget you guys, good day,
you sell worldwide? Somebody from Australia. All right, let's get start people.
Before we get started, let's let's find a little bit about Kennon Creston
when hello, are you guys? Fireman? Had you start? How'd you
guys meet? You grow up? Did you grow up? Because you know
the balloon in the string over there? I just got told today right blowing
in the string myself. I grew up in the military. I was ten.
Then we moved to Arizona when my dad got out, and been here
ever since, so Arizona's home. Been a firefighter now for twenty one years
and almost the last nineteen of them for City of Phoenix. Currently a captain
paramedic, primarily work in our special operations. I'm a dual tech, so
we're has Matt and TRT, but on the FEMA team there for a while,
so I get to do a lot of pretty fun things. At work,
pretty heavily involved in our training and I got a long term temp currently
over on engine ten. So having a good time. Me and Ken have
been friends for what I don't know, almost fifteen years now, let's gonna
say six minutes. Yeah, yeah, what do we like each other?
Fifteen years? Not different conversation. I know, there's just a couple on.
So that's how we met. We met at a Arizona State football game
through a mutual friend that's on the fire department, and uh, just hit
it off right away, you know, having a good time, a lot
of the same interest, a lot of the same friends, and it just
clicked right away. So who said I love you first? At Yeah,
definitely silly things, you know, are you guys working in the same department?
Can you in Phoenix too? So I'm not a fire firefighter, so
I'm just in side of things. I'm the string. We're talking about the
balloon in the string, right, somebody somebody explained explain with the balloon and
the string for people who don't know. So when I when I talked to
question, you know, we see each other at shows and stuff like that,
and you know, while the show is going on, Me and have
will bullshit about how business is going with you know, how things are headed,
with what you're look at for your company, what you look at for
your company, and you know, there has to be somebody who's got the
ideas, especially in a in a in a partnership type of a thing,
and somebody's got the ideas and somebody has to be grounded and you know,
money smart and crest And said to me, he goes, yeah, it's
just like a balloon and a string, you know. And I was just
like, holy ship man, Cooobs is the balloon and on the string?
I went over to He forgot all about it. I know he did.
He was probably We talked about that all the time as I like to throw
out a lot of ideas and what we might want to do. It hits
me with ideas every day every day. He let me see if the ken
do you give the wall wall? You know, I always lead him with
it. That sounds like a good idea. That sounds like a good idea.
Yeah, you know, let me think about that. That sounds like
a good idea. He answers my ideas with the question, how do you
think we're going to pay for that? Oh? You have to pay for
these things, pay for these things. Yeah yeah, so what do you
do? So So I've been in banking for over twenty plus years and specialized
in small business landing for a long time, and and Chrstin and I just
spitball in our business ideas, and you know, we we we came up
with you know, firewifes together and you know we you know, balloon string.
I'm the string. I'm I kind of started, uh you know,
getting into the minutia, so to speak, and and trying to figure out
how we're going to make this work all the you know, all the good
stuff. Where the initial idea to see where did that come from? Who's
who came up with that? Be me? Balloon? Yeah yeah, I
was working up on our engine twenty seven. We went to a fire,
good house fire there for a while. We run our way back and uh,
pretty bad trauma kicked out in that area. So we went, you
know, directly on our way back to the station to that call. Ended
up having right into the hospital and honestly, we were getting screamed at by
the nurses at the hospital because we were rinsing off in the sink, making
a pretty big mess. That led to, what do you mean the great
things fire department does having doesn't have something for you to clean up with?
And the things that we had on the truck were all like, you know,
anti blood and that kind of stuff that you wouldn't want to touch your
skin or your eyes or anything like that. I mean how some of them
even say will cause cancer on the package. And that just that night we
were running calls and I was looking stuff up on the internet. What was
available. Obviously, baby wipes was the first thing that I would have thought
of to help us at that moment. The little light bulb. Yeah,
and even funnier, there was actually two things on the market at the time
that were marketed to firefighters. So I actually ordered some that night. But
I was teaching at the academy, working on a busy truck and teaching at
the college, and we had some pretty serious issues with those products burning guys
eyes. One was like real oily, so guy's masks went stay into their
faces very well. And when I called them both companies, I asked to
talk to the owners and I had some very particular questions and their answers were
pretty lackluster. One told me that we were having an allergic reaction, and
the other one didn't know what an seba was, so it kind of yes.
So it really pissed me off, to be honest, took a pretty
big offense to that that they were marketing to us and they didn't know anything
about it. And that's where me and Kim were actually on a road trip
to Las Vegas going out there for a concert, and I was just venting
to him about, you know, what I had found and was calling these
people and having some issues, and he said, well, tell me about
it. And obviously I'd done a little bit of research on it, and
I was pretty passionate about when I get into things. And he asked me,
why wouldn't we do that together, and we had a big laugh.
I was like, yeah, not us, no way, we're pretty big
it's and he really sold me on the idea of the business. I obviously
I believed in the need in the application, but having a guy that understood
business end and what we could do, and honestly, I would have been
on the ground in about fifteen minutes or Nember never even figure out how to
fill out LLC work you need to just string How long ago was that question
was that ten years? Five years, ten years? What do we talk?
Almost ten years? Yeah, because we we started we actually launched the
business in twenty fourteen, I think I remember that. That's what we did
too. So fifteen is when we launched it. But it was almost a
year and a half of product development area. That must be crazy doing that
part. Yeah, it was interesting. It actually took us The formula itself
was because we knew what based on these hazards like getting into things like weren't
safe for us, what was going to hurt us, what was going to
hurt our equipment. It actually took us longer to decide on the packaging then
it did the formula because we came in with bookends like categories. It couldn't
be like alcohols or solvents or things that would you know, hurt us or
equipment. Really deleted some of the things that were out there and what those
products were using. That kind of frustrated me in the beginning, and it
took us longer to like I said, the logo the name was pretty h
pretty quick, but the logo and the packaging took longer than the formula based
on, you know, the hazards and what we were going to use them
for before all this this technical idea, you know, this technical stuff that
they got to go through and saving lives. This is what I got right
here, A good idea. I come up with pizza cutter shaped like this
guy comes up to save lives. It's a little bit of a difference the
spectrum, you know, than they get. How many times we're at the
boot and somebody like opens up like he's got the multi tool, looks like
a hydrant and they're like, oh, what is this. We're like,
oh, ship we got like you know, He's like, oh, that's
that was interesting. I'm like, dude, this guy's gonna sue us for
everything we have, right, you know, stupid ship. But before we
get I wanted to let's take a look at the video guns. Yeah,
since we're getting into the business end here that young guy. Yeah yeah,
let's see how this make sure the volumes is well if we cover the world.
Great screenshot there. I really I want to hear all about that.
We got no volume, no volume, Jesus Christ, Pete. I swear
to that I was just talking you off, quiet playing no volume nothing,
all right, work on it? All right, Well we'll see if we
can come back to that. I don't know, Uh, that's surprise.
And how how did you when you guys first got together, how did you
what was your model? Like what were you trying to figure out like as
far as uh, you know, dollars and R and D and all that
stuff first. You know, any in any business, you know, you
want to you know, is there is there a hole to fill? Right?
Is there is there something available that can be a solution to a problem
something like that. One thing that we found, you know, obviously pretty
quickly is you know, cancer is a huge deal in the fire industry,
and that's when we found out that it was particular exposure on your skin.
Having the absorption happen in your skin is one of the main contributing factors to
that. So when we found that out, we almost felt more of an
obligation to start the business, and we made it. You know, we
said, you know, now we we have to do this. So running
the numbers and and things like that, that was you know, obviously,
we've never run a business together. We've never run you know, we've never
opened a business. But I've worked in the small business industry for for quite
a while and understanding what it takes to get a business started and looking at
the actual market itself. Is the product going to sell? Yeah, it
might solve a problem, but is anybody going to buy it? So that's
you know, that was where we changed gears initially when we opened the doors,
is we were ninety We're ninety percent education, ten percent by We want
to educate people about the problem, you know, minimizing exposure, doing all
that stuff. That was the business model is to get the education out there
because back in the early days, you know, nobody really understood that cancer
was even a problem. Well that's a culture too, right, We talk
about that on the show all the time. The culture is you know,
even guys today, I'm sure everybody knows that when you go into these jobs,
right, stuff that's burning, right, couches, all that stuff that's
burning now, it's all cancer. Right. Well, you know what,
not that long ago we were fighting has not because we wanted to wear a
bunker gear in the TV room in the kitchen. Well, I'm just that's
culture, That's what I'm saying. I'm saying it's not that long ago.
It was all I said. There are guys today that are taking their mask
off, and you know when they're overhauling still, right, what is that?
That's culture? Right? That's so I think it's come a long way.
I mean, you know, it's not until you retire. You know.
Since I've retired, you know, we talk about it, Kevin,
you know the same thing. Now I'm like, holy shit, you know,
I wish I would have kept my mask on a little longer because now
I'm worried because every day, every day, not a couple of times a
month, not once a week, every day there's another guy that we know
somewhere, or somebody posts something on the fan page that's passing away unfortunately a
cancer. So it's really not a matter of I think it's been difficult.
You know, I kind of sympathize with the challenge a little bit, only
because as much as we deep dive into this, I mean, there was
over ten years on the fire department, working in pretty busy areas, very
respectful senior firefighters doing exactly what we're talking about, wearing their gear, never
washing it. The only time I got new gear is when it got burned
up so bad they took it from me. And having to break those habits
myself, that will muscle memory. Even as as involved and embedded in this
as I am and have been, there are still times I catch myself,
right, I want to be quote unquote you know, yeah, it's you
know, you start moving fast and you do things the way you've always done
it, and but I you know, we're getting better. But in the
very early years, there was everything from snake oil and why do I need
this? And I would never And that's just part of the job and the
acceptance of injury or death within our services. Just I tell the story when
I first started volunteering, I was fifteen and I remember being told distinctively that
when you become a firefighter, you take seven years off your life. And
I was like, well, in my mind at fifteen, I'm like,
well, one hundred and ninety three is not that bad. Yeah, the
reality is is that fifty to forty three and I that's a different conversation.
And I think that the reality of that, and you know, good or
bad, social media and Internet and all these outreach things are allowing people to
see that it's not just a problem in their department, it's international. And
when it comes to the business conversation, that's where it was very interesting to
have a product that affects us that hopefully has a potential impact and solution.
Internationally, these fires everywhere all over the world are still dealing with the same
products. They may fight them differently. The building construction will be different,
you know, the way their trucks are set up are different. But what
is burning and how fire operates contents in the building mostly So now that for
us, that's been very interesting to be in a space that with a product
that can copy and paste. You know, the hazards of fire are the
same as far as smoke in Texasity, Australia, Europe, Canada, North
America, and South America. We're dealing with many of the same things.
So it's been exciting and interesting to see that education change, but to realize
that the hazard is really the same right now. I don't know if it's
sent a matter of education because we all know it. Maybe back then we
could say, you know, but today the information is out there. I
just think also that that at that age that you're in the fire department,
you don't even think about when you're retiring. For the most part, you
don't think about past what you're doing right now. You don't think about what
when you retire, and how many years do I have after I retire to
live, you know, a productive, fruitful life, something that I'm going
to enjoy before the fire house. You know, it's twenty years before and
hopefully if you're in for twenty years or more, you want to live another
thirty forty years after that. But you're not thinking about that when you're overholding.
You're not saying, ah, yeah, I put my mask on,
no doubt, because early on, I just don't want to mess up,
right, I don't want to do this at your reputation too, right.
I mean, you want to be aggressive. You want to be you know,
you know I use the term salty, but you want to be that
guy, right, you want to be you want to back in the day,
you want it to look dirty like you went to fires. Right,
It was part of the whole thing. Right Now, you know we've made
fun like when they you know now they change the gear out all the time.
So you know, we used to say clean was the new salty.
Right. It was like a funny line that we used to say. But
I think the biggest thing now is like when you have trusted members of the
fire service, that are carrying this message, you know, giving some posiums
and talks and like you guys doing right and now generationally in my career,
I've had guys that I looked up to worked with that have died from cancer.
Oh yeah, there's no doubt. Now, guys behind me with way
less years and way less time, not these fires are getting cancer. And
I'm hoping that as our leaders through whatever organization you're part of, when you're
looking up the chain, and they're the ones telling you put on your mask,
they're the ones telling you to wash your hood. They're the ones you
know. And I really related. I had a chief Compton. I was
a previous chief in Phoenix, and he does a lot of things nationally and
I don't know if you guys have had him on, pretty amazing speaker talks
about like the he made the correlation with ems. In the eighties, used
to be a noble gloves and no mask and no sleeves and knee deep in
blood and that was the cool thing. And nowadays guys won't even clean the
bathrooms or clean chicken without gloves on, like you, without even question and
the fires are the worst hazmat calls. We're going to and how many guys
are afraid to even join the hazmat team because they don't want to be exposure.
They don't want to be a glow worm. But I work because it
keeps our guys safe. And I had someone told me a long time ago
it's the fire department, for the fire department has Matt's number one goals to
keep our guys safe. But yet on these fires that we go to,
it's the worst toxic soup that we're in, and we want to take our
mask off and go swimming in it. Like how because we like it?
Right? I like the way it smells. I like I like the idea
true in the morning and a ship got a fire. Those guys don't deserve
it, right like we want it save the point four hours for us.
Like it's just I still have that mindset that, yeah, well it's gonna
you know, I think, like you were saying, like the new guys
that coming on today, right, those guys are going to be so far
ahead because all of these things are going to be in place. You would
hope that you know, we're just catching up to you know you guys generation
right, you know that tail end of your generation making sure that the guys
and then it don't stuck in the middle, are you know, taking care
of taking care of themselves because of you know what we're saying with the cancer,
right, I mean, that's the bottle. But I wanted to ask
you, guys. I was thinking about it and I saw it in the
outline that we had talked about. What was some of the stuff early on,
like some of the struggles, any issues that you had when you started
the business that were, you know, stick out to you. Obviously besides
of brick through the window, we had guys, snake oil, how dare
you challenge the culture? Who were you to tell us how to fight?
Really? And yeah, from it didn't matter that apartment, right, it
didn't. It wasn't just big, big, you know, big fire departments
trying to pick on little fire department. It was everyone just there was a
lot of folks that said, that's just part of the job. The acceptance
of this is the badge of honor if you die in the line of duty.
You can hear people saying that there's no doubt. I could hear people
saying that it was you signed up for this type of just part of it.
You signed up to put yourself in harm's way to help others. You
didn't sign up to expose yourself every day. When there was an alternative,
you could still do your job and put your life on the line without exposing
yourself. So when you're older, you know, you're about sixty five pounds
because chance has ravaged your body, you know, and old guys they can
all go fuck themselves, quite honestly. Well, it was interesting because I
had we were I don't remember what show it was, but somebody told me,
like, this is the way we've always done it. He was you
never heard that before either, Yeah, right, But it was interesting that
gentleman walked away and another person standing there, and I wish I knew their
name because it was such a profound statement. He said, what a generational
thing to say, And I go, what does that? What do you
mean by that? He goes, well, depending on how many years you
have on the fire department or what generation, the way we've always done it,
Like we used to have horses and steam engines and wool jackets, and
there was no such thing as an SCBA. Some guys write tailboard, cotton
jacket, you know, hose whatever. It was like when people say that
that's during their time, So how do we go in that statement? Right?
I just like blew my lids back of what a profound I was actually
so stunned. I didn't get his name. I was like, wow,
But that's something I really cared with me that depending on what part of the
country or world you work in the fire service, that needle is different.
You know, leather helmets, plastic counts, black jackets, tan jackets,
whatever. But everyone's dealing with that same timeline in their department. So whatever
the way we've always done, it has a timeline attached to it, which
is such a fun This is what Patty Lee wrote. Patty Lee was on
in the water is Back in the day, the mask was in the compartment.
It was the pain the hands to put on. We went in without
it. Now he could he can easily say to other guys, oh,
you guys wear a mask today. Plus he's what do you guys wear a
mask? We don't wear a mask back then, right, because that's what
they did in their time. Right, So he's the guy who wears his
mask all the time. Tell the next generation, oh, you use wipes
to forget about it? I mean, come on, yeah, but that's
like every generation that you go back and say the same thing. But that
fits perfect to what Cressen just said. That's that's how they that's how the
job was, right, the man, they didn't even have masks. That
the one mask was in the compartment in a suitcase. Right, you have
a mask on your back now, right, you have this, you have
this, you have the knowledge, you have, the education, you have.
There's so many things that's not your time. That's not your time back
there. This is your time. Like if you're on the job, this
is your time. You know you're not. This is the way we've always
done it. This is how you do it now, right, you're prepared.
You can go to work. That's it. So again I say it's
until it was a perfect thing. Like you said before, when you're on
the job, you're not concerned about that stuff because ah, and that's another
thing, jose a good point that was like you know horsehair, you know
couches, and you know all this other crap and rich wood and all that
stuff. Right regularly that the buildings were venting a lot faster because they only
had single pane windows. You know, nothing was getting cooked in there,
like it is now and all the plastic and all that crap. Right,
So so everybody knows we can go through that the same crap over and over
again. But it comes down to exactly what you said, that this is
it's not your time. You know, that's not how we do it anymore.
Right, So, yeah, I think you're to tell you're out.
You don't realize it. Like when you're just driving down the road and you
see a column, you want to go chase it down because nothing's been kicked
out yet. You go see what it is. It's so much harder to
tell the difference of a car fire to a house fire these days. You're
right, career, it was like, oh look at that a little bit
of ground. Yeah yeah, brown smoke. Now, right man, it's
hard to tell from the room worth a good point we have, I mean
just from a visual end point. When guys have been around you go,
do you remember when that was different? Like yeah, now you can't.
That's a good point too. Get into the roofing or whatever. It's just
black, you know what I mean? Like you said, it's just it's
just six hundred times worse than what it was. How are the guys buy
you like, how how is it in your department? How are the guys
like are really on it or now this area has it's been a change for
us. But we were actually spearheaded this stuff years ago when it first came
out, and we're very aggressive with it. So we do the whole decon
process. It's in a policy now, you know, the whole wipes the
whole thing. We're very proactive with that. Or with every job. You
guys job have everything. These guys are cleaning up. It's now you know,
first engine in has to set up DCON. It's just part of the
process, the DCOM before you go to rehab and it's built that policy.
Now, once it's done right, you don't even think about it anymore because
it's that's how Now, this is how you've always done it right at every
job. This is what you always do now right, Like for me to
do that right now, I'd be like, get the hell out of here,
I just want to get the hell out of here. But yeah,
if you're going into a job, that's what you do all the time.
It's not even a thought, you know what I mean. You know I'm
thinking about how I'm like I was guilty of doing that too, because remember
they used to take you'll you have two cents a bunkie, Yeah, and
you had to turn your one set in. Yeah. I would turn a
new one in it all the time, key because I didn't want to lose
the smell of my buggy. And finally he came back and they were like,
dude, you keep sending the clean one zig you know, yeah,
there's no doubt. It's just it's the culture, right, it's your mindset.
It just takes time, unfortunately, and we're trying to get it out
to the guys again. I did not think about this twenty seven years on
the job. I did not think about it until the twenty seventh year and
one day. Because after the one day, Now, all I have to
do is keep waking up. Right before, I didn't give a shit,
you know, I was going to work. I didn't care, you know
whatever. Now I'm like, holy shit, I'm retired. I want to
keep waking up every day. And every time I look on the Internet of
social media, one of my friends is dying somewhere somehow, and I'm like,
going for check ups. Now, get out of bed. You got
a pain, Like, oh, is that cancer? Is that my pancreas
holy ship. We make fun because we're scared to death, right, So
like literally, so, uh, you know I think that uh what did
you guys? That's another thing I wanted to ask not to get off the
subject, because you guys were talking about how was it like the R and
D process, Like how did you even start all that? Thing? Like
that was yeah, yeah, bro, yeah yeah, right, we get
I think in the beginning, the fact that there was some failures to what
I had ordered and tried really helped put up some parameters because it became,
well, why is this burning my eyes? Why did this not let us
get a good mass seal? It gummed up the regulator. It became at
what is wrong with these things? And through that irritation, that really is
what led us to like the you know, the bumpers on the bowling alley
for R and D, knowing that categorically could it have it couldn't have alcohol
or solvents or drying agent or heavy oils. And then I honestly, for
a while there I was visiting firefighters that I trusted that would just tear your
hopes and dreams apart, right, really, really honest guys, at the
station saying hey, I have this side, and honestly, it became a
guys asking that, you know, part of the FEMA dog team, like
can I use this on my dog? Okay, we'll make sure you can
use it on your dog. And then guys that are customer service oriented on
our side of the world, you know, Bruno, and that whole thing
was like for pulling an animal out of a fire, like is it safe
to use to clean that animal up to be able to give them back if
they don't, you know, they're not that injured. Are they safe to
use on children? Can you use it on your mask? Can I use
it on my body? Is it you know? Is it gonna dry out?
And it just guys just went through it and shredded it, and honestly
we were taking notes. I made sure that, you know, talking to
Ken, we would come back and go, okay, it needs to there's
things that needs to be here's the things it doesn't need to be very very
clear instructions how to use it, which is funny. You know, it's
like washing your body. You wouldn't start low and work your way up and
drag that stuff across your face. But yet we've had to really just make
sure that the product itself would last, that would be durable. With what
we're doing, it wasn't gonna shred and that you know, we've done testing
with Motorola. We just finished completing. We're the first wipe to be cleared
to be using on thermal imaging cameras seek thermal Imaging. We work with them
Safari Land for their redline columns. So we're just going through and making sure
that's not only safe for us through manufacturing, but the items that would be
used on. And we're very honest about it, like you know the NFPA
eighteen fifty one stuff like wash your gear, send it in, use the
stuff extractors. Right, this is not the only thing you're doing now.
We're not the silver bullet I called the gree Condominos. We're one dominant in
the succession of things that need to happen. But it is safe to use
on you. We made sure your mask, your radio, and your tick
which are the things that are appropriate to use it on. And we're very
honest about that. Through looking at understanding the application. That also looked at
through R and D is where do firefighters operate? We talk we're just talking
about house fires, Well the daily is this a you know, crews that
can continue to go train or shop if they get a car fire. Yes?
Is this for wildland folks, FEMA, natural disasters, people that are
working in all these other environments where firefighters find themselves, Yes, it's we
looked at it. What helped with the R and D mostly is when we
got to the mindset that this is a limited water supply field hygiene situation.
This is one of those things that like you need to be able to if
you need if you wanted to take a shower or wash your hands, but
you didn't have that availability. This will do that. And that's what we
made sure is like once we understood the environment and the application, and then
obviously excluded the hazards that would hurt us or equipment, then it really allowed
us to zero in and it it was. It was not as difficult as
you would imagine by understanding by placing those parameters, we're able to zero in
on it by categories, not having to go through and make a thousand types
of wipes itself, which was pretty great. How different was your initial product
to where you are now? Honestly, there's only been one change to the
formulation from the very beginning. Really, do you have a patent on that?
Do you have pass patents? We have trademarks on everything because patents you
can change things three percent from the legal But what I will We've had some
folks that we call them impostre wipes. Everyone that joke. We joke about
that all the time on here's another impost wipe. They try to do it
differently, cheaper, whatever, you know, magic they want to drop before
either right, I shouldn't, guys, do it not my logo right there,
but you know those things that when people try to do that, you
know, we've had to learn it to compliment. But the majority is like
I think I'm still the only firefighter involved in these companies. They really missed
the mark and they'll bring in these super material cheaper packaging or the formulation itself
is honestly reckless. It's it's almost insulting sometimes, like if you're going to
copy us, at least understand why we did these things. And they'll like
alcohols are solvents and the moment you touch your eye, it burns you.
It's like who tested your product before you put it on the market, And
honestly, it's at the point now that I love when somebody i'd rather it's
it's very gratifying when somebody has been using another product, they use ours,
and they almost tell me our sales pitch all their problems, all the failures,
all the challenges they're telling me. And I'm like, yeah, you
know, last time I saw you, you gave me a box, right,
and I had them. It was probably two shows ago, so last
year at some point. So I have them on my work bench, right,
I don't ever you know, they're just sitting on my bench. I
don't go to fires anymore, right, so I don't even know what it
was a couple of months ago, I was cutting wood and everything. I
had dust all over me, right, so I said, what the heck
am I gonna? I opened it up. I was like this, I
wipe my face all over. You know what I liked about the whole thing
is it didn't rip, like I didn't tear away like you were talking about
like shred like I can definitely tell like it's a quad like that part is
that's probably like three quarters of the thing. Is you want something that's going
to stay together while you while you're cleaning yourself, right. The funny part
is we get and this came from asking guys like, there's no high oil,
and it doesn't smell like X body spray, We have no added.
The old guys like it, this smells like a club, like I don't
want to the nightclub, and the you know what I mean, Yeah,
exactly, guys are really con it's it's important. And then through that conversation
it's like, well, we re encapsulate. So if you wipe out the
inside of your mask or wipe your face and you put it back in overhaul
recycle, you're on a bigger fire. You're going back in for whatever reason.
Well, we need to make sure that now, because intended use is
we're FDA governed for your body. But the fact that we're putting on our
face, our eyes, our nose, but we put that mask back on,
so now we're ingesting it, we're inhaling it. There's a totally different
kind of exposure than what they govern by, which is why these other wipes
even exist. People are like, well, why do they allow them to
have that? Well, because intended use is your body. But within our
job and the application, there really is more than that. So it's just
something you know, we tell people, like we don't really do a lot
of slam anything like that. We just tell people be safe, understand the
categories that you're putting on yourself, Like you wouldn't spray windex in your eye
or anything like that. So if something has drying agents, solvents or alcoholic
just do a little homework, Like, don't just because the marketing says it's
good. You know that it's safe, and a lot of industries in the
world that has great marketing that tells you and it's is exactly what the wipe
is meant to do? What does it do, how does it pick up?
You know what it picks up? What is it meant to do?
Exactly? A shower in a bag. So the difference with ours high water
content shower in a bag and surfactants, so we've gone through the testing process
for like heavy metals, carbons, and oils, which the majority of things
in the world are made up of. So those things lift off off your
skin like taking a shower. Like the difference that we tell people is when
you take a camp shower and there's just water on you versus being able to
take a usializing body wash. That feeling of clean lifts those oils and things
off and the carbons off your skin cleans you. So that's the way it
works versus like a baby wipe. Even the things that are out there,
baby wipes aren't exactly a shower. It is like a white or smear,
so you don't see it anymore. Versus our wipes are design for like the
same things they use in like a hospital, like showering the person that can't
get up. So when you have those oils or those carbons or any of
that kind of stuff that's on your body that creates rashes or skin breakdown or
whatever that is, that actually helps mimic what a shower is, which is
really the whole point. You should shower within the hour or at least that's
what they say. So ours is that interim or if you find yourself like
wildland firefighters that are out there, they don't have that option for teen hours
on the line. This gives them that availability or wherever they find themselves,
you know, female wild land, there's lots of places they're working that are
you know, pretty taxing and nasty, and this allows them to fill that
gap. Are you selling to like obviously you sell it to like fire departments,
you sell to individuals like how who have you sold to? Like who's
all that stuff? What do you get? Cool? Well, so obviously
we've got our website. You can always buy direct from us, but we're
also with a lot of the big name outfits as far as distributors like you
know, Boundary, Darley fire Store, just to name a few, as
well as like some of the independent shops that are more local and supply more
of the smaller departments. So there's a you know, as far as availability,
you can get that, you know, pretty much anywhere. And if
you have a distributor that you you or your department works with that is not
listed on our website, you can just you can call them and tell them
to give us a call and we'll set them up as a distributor. So
so we make that that uh, that process. So just because it popped
up on the bottom, that is firewipes dot com and we are doing the
ten percent off getting Salty. We're going to run that for three weeks,
so anybody that uses that there it is ten percent off firewipes dot com And
really like one of the things you talked about for an R and D.
One of the biggest things we learned about is procurement in the fire surface is
one of the worst things. These contracts and government entities that need to cut
through the red tape has been very, very challenging. So from us that
allows us, i think, to be very different from not only the fire
service side, but still having a lot of hands on and interaction with the
business, is that when folks come to their challenges, we've actually altered some
of the items that we've had, not the formulation, but some of the
you know, we offer a bolk packaging, We've add a utility bag,
We've done a lot of things based on the customers interactions and conversations with us.
And that's where when someone says, hey, we buy from Joe's Fire
Supply everything, but he doesn't sell this, well, tell him to give
us a call and we're able to fix that. So it's we always want
to support our distributors, but ultimately it's about supporting the customer and the firefighters
in the field. So if there's a way to do that, communicate to
us and we will do it the best we can. And really the majority
of changes that we've had in our organization or the business or the product delivery
has come from our customers telling us this is what we need and we were
able to do that. So it's been exciting when people communicate to us,
huh, were able to get Phoenix fired upon it. We're working on it
that. You know, it's hard to be a profit in your hometown.
Yeah, yeah, I got you about that. Yeah, there's there's red
tape with those things. And I think I would tell you that our department
in the valley, I mean, we have a ton of presence. By
far, we're the leader in the industry at Arizona without question. But we've
had nothing but support from my organization buying in procurements its own animal. It's
and you know, it goes. It's not just what the fire department wants,
it's what the city can do budgetary. There's a lot of better.
So I give you a little back here. You know, a couple of
dinners over here at the steakhouse. Yeah, I'm getting salty t shirts.
So somebody was asking of the industries that might uh you know, this might
work definitely the military, right. One of the guys, Gabe was saying
he was a former infantryman. You know, it's a whole of the market
out there, obviously, you guys, I'm sure getting military people anyway,
any factory workers anything like that, This would be grateful. I will join
it on the line. You know. As far as like some of the
other stuff that we're working, I already thought about it because my wife,
my boys and boy Scots now we can't go with them anymore. They're working
on their eagle scats. But you know, my wife since baby wives is
if you can't take a shot with them, you have the baby wives.
Fuck that getting them the firewives. They can do the wipe down with the
firewives that night. You know. Well, I would say, like we
have you know, we have some industrial folks, oil rig pipelines, gas
industry, some of the big rig like caterpillar folks that are working on these
things out in remote areas. The fact that it cuts through oil and Greece
and takes those things off. We've done some testing with the military. It
cuts through cami paint, which is impossible to take off your face. I
would say the biggest challenges We had a lot of industries that are utilizing but
the language is that firewipes Onstein Decon. It's very particular. So with that
being said, we have some things that are coming up that we are getting
to other industries and we've had folks through the heavy metal testing and the availability
to cut through some of those products. It is getting utilized. But unless
someone is able to translate that product right now, I think when you see
it on the shelf, it'd be hard to understand why you would utilize it
in some of these other sectors. But we have something out there for something
else. Probably Yeah, I got them, I got my my best guy
on it right here. All right, strength, you've got them all.
What are you going to say when they A while ago we actually had a
talk about the military stuff. When the wipes first came out. I don't
know if you guys remember, it was they were very strong. They pulled
a lead of the military skin and whatnot. And when this first came out,
people were buying those and people will having reactions to them that don't for
some reasons. And again this is a very very beginning stages of when it
has come out, probably well before you guys, But we had a guy
that used those and unfortunately he developed a condition for him, and he can't
use whites. He's afraid to use any kind of wipes because of these military
grade wipes that he used obviously well before you guys, but just trying to
get him to stay clean. But he's very proactive in this kind of stuff.
Light removal is is, uh, there's a there's a few different ways
to go about it from a scientific standpoint. Don't have to get into that.
But when you when you really break it down, is it's the lifting
and removal of those heavy metals is what is the name of the game.
And uh, soap and water is probably the best way to remove it.
We've got our testing, you know, it's available on our website. We've
we've we've tested on lead and heavy other heavy metals removals and we can do
the same, if not a better job than a lot of those previous products
that are using much harsher chemicals and ours are you know safety, Yeah,
this is not, he says, We use it. We've used you as
we've sampled, they've been out there and they were great. It's just I
felt bad for the guy that can move. Very beginning when the whole Decon
craze is coming out, people going nuts. They want to take all kinds
of things in the people active and you know, they were just trying everything
and anything. And obviously for this one guy in a department, we've we've
had a lot of conversations about how that happens, you know, especially the
soft skin around the neck, the eyes. Some pretty bad reactions on folks,
and that's kind of one of the things we tell people to do some
research because you really don't want to trade one hazard for the other, and
that is a terrible thing that now you have folks that are dealing with that.
I would say we've had a you know, to give it one positive
thing with the COVID, the fact that people came very comfortable with using wipes
and more open minded to that obviously a large impact on what we're doing.
But we're still very proactive on the conversation about making sure what you're using is
not a stronger you're not treating one problem for the other, and that idea
of like you don't go home and take a shower and you're like, well
my eyes are burning, and that's okay whatever you're using. I mean,
we get rid of whatever is falling out just red lash on of my arm
every time. I love the way it smells like. I just we wouldn't
do that. And I think that's the piece of this for us is do
what works, have the best results possible while not causing damage or harm to
yourself or your equipment in between. You know, even if they said,
and I joke about this all the time, but if pouring bleach over your
head was the best way to get rid of carcinnngens, it was proven us,
well, that's so damaging to everything else. That's really not the best
way. What's effective and what's possible in the field and whatever like. We
talked about what our members are capable of doing in these remote situations, what
is repeatable and what they're going to commit to are two different conversations. And
that's the best thing is that what our members are going to do every time
to have the best results in the most frequency of application. To me as
a firefighter, I'd want something that's like that. I actually was able to
pull up the video. I fixed that. I have the video of how
to use it if you guys want to share that now. Job, I'm
back on the guns band wagons. Sorry, it just took me. I
had to redownload. It is that loud enough? Now? Is that better?
Yeah? It's perfect. How to use firewipes start with cleaning your eyelids
and the corners of your eyes. Next, wipe down your forehead, cheeks,
and jawline. Then wipe down the rest of your neck, front and
back. Move on to wiping down your ears and your hair. Next,
clean your forearms and your wrists. Finally, wipe down your hands. You
may also wipe down your underarms and groin as they are high absorption points as
well. Please dispose of the contaminant wipe appropriately when finished. Utilizing firewipes after
an incident helps you to remove fireground contaminants from the skin and minimize your exposure.
Firewipes do not replace the need to take a shower, but they do
give you ability to perform feel decont until a shower is available. Thank you
for taking time to learn about firewipes. For more nation, please visit us
at firewipes dot com. Protect yourself, stay safe out there. You guys
have no idea how many out takes I was gonna ask, like I have
is thinking about him? Like can't you stay this right? You gotta do
the bloopers like part of doing the blooper shows. It is so great,
the camera spotlight on spot I can't do to Neanderthals trying to remember three lines.
He would he would be talking and I would be reading this line like
this. I can't miss my cue. I gotta make sure I do have
a question two hour a day. It was like seven hours at guns the
maybe you touch on it before. How many uh, how much airy can
you cover with one wipe? You recommended one one for the you know kind
of thing. Yeah, so that's a great question. There are products out
there that will tell you you need to use a wipe for every square enter
your body. We disagree with that. Our wipe will absolutely if you are
wearing your gear and I back, let me digress for a second. If
you wear your gear through the entire incident, like we're supposed to, one
wipe will absolutely clean your body. I tell folks all the time, if
you have black chunks on your face and your arms, don't buy wipes this
quarter, invest in training, buy wipes next quarter. Five thousand dollars worth
of superhero gear. Wear it right, or you buy a white but absolutely
one will clean your body because if you look at the standard that happens neck
up, arms down, and the hands are generally those areas for folks that
are maybe working in the FEMA and or wildland areas, Like we tell them
like, hey two, if you're out digging in the dirt all day,
but as needed, right, if you're in a position or doing a tech
rescue and you find yourself on the spot that needs more of it, well
then great. That's the nice part is we don't make the bath towel size
because they cost more. You end up wasting them. Folks have a tendency
not to use them because like, man, this is you know eight bucks
a wipe. I don't want to use it for that. Ours are broken
up for that eight by twelve. So if you need more, great,
If not one absolute the water content and the availability have both sides will clean
all those standard areas for working. So when we tell folks, they're like,
that's always a big one, like well this this wipe here is x
amount of dollar or x dollars more cheaper. Well great, Well, how
many are they telling you to use? Do they dry out the multi packaging
which we don't do. There's no baby type. Everything that we have is
this. It's individually wrapped. It's what we call triple film. It's very
difficult. I always have the biggest, strongest guys that come to the booth
try to open it. Besides the little relief Chad there, I go,
hey, man, don't bite it, because you gotta tell truckies don't put
it in their mouth, you know. But I'm like, try to open
it, and I just cheer them on. I'm like, you almost got
to keep going. So it doesn't you know, if it's in your bunker
pants, it's in your gear, spike bag, go bag, wherever they're
floating around the truck. They don't get pierced and tore open. They're not
paper. So we've had a lot of success and that's probably one of the
number one things we get is the durability of the exterior. So every time
you open a fire wipe, you're getting the same consistency. Right. We
don't open a coke in California and expect something different than New York. You
want that consistency, which for us is you know, safety and trust within
the products. So that's been a big part for us is how we continue
that. Now, who are you guys have to follow certain guidelines and as
far as quality control of what goes in it, like what government entity oversees
something like what you guys have FDA, FDA for body wipes, we have
been trying. There isn't any other like as far as n f PA or
any of these other folks have not got into that yet. We have been
a part of some of those conversations, which is great because nowadays, you
know, these years later, it's nice to be invited to those kind of
panels and conversations because for us, that intended use, especially of your face
and the mask, is such a different type of hazard that that would help
protect our guys. Whoever's making a product out there, great, you know,
I challenge anybody that's doing that, just make sure it's safe. And
hopefully some of those things would create some parameters. But we haven't been able
to move that needle on the FDA section, but I'm hoping through the fire
Service side, they will continue to look at that and hopefully rEFInd some of
those safety parameters that what would be safe to use for our folks in the
environments that we work in. Who's some shoddy companies that are out there,
we could sneeze their name if you want, I'm sorry you didn't say.
We do have an handful of competitors out there. If you go on our
website, we don't do any head to head comparison, and honestly, we
feel that we do a really good job and that they're chasing us, and
at that point, we don't even bring ourselves to that. If you look
at the testing and if you flip over the package on the back and look
at the categories of things that are in there, it's very clear what products
are safe to use and which ones aren't. And honestly, I think if
you went to them who whatever company that is, and start talking to them
about the job, you'll know, Like it's like you know, I mean,
I'm a car guy, and if you talk to someone who built their
car versus the one that bought it, you know, within two minutes or
less, right, they know what they're talking about. I feel the same
thing when it comes to products. There's I would never buy something for my
guys in the truck that I didn't trust that that person a knew what they
were talking about, and b that I didn't get to demo and put through
the ring aer before putting it on the truck. If those folks don't know
what they're talking about and they're not very very committed to letting you demo them
and try them, well, they're probably trying to hide something. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, it was a good question, Nick Don What about then,
Johnson, Yeah, about the lithium ion batteryes, what about expposeing to
lithium ion batteries? So for the heavy metal piece of that, yes,
they work well. The problem is that with most lithium exposures you're talking about
such gas getting expelled from those things, so that's a whole nother issue.
The problem is is that when it comes to people are asking like, well,
can I clean my item? So they do well work well for that
as far as the heavy metal removal part, because those are getting kicked out
depending on the makeup of the lithium battery. There are different kinds out there.
I won't get into all of that, but the different kinds of batteries
have different heavy metals that are getting kicked out of them, so that does
work well for that piece. The bigger issue is is like, our product
does not fall into the NFP eighteen fifty one sections, and they're doing a
ton of research of what is good because of the fibers, they are super
sticky and they're heavy, so those sticking to the fibrous pieces to what we
have is the issue. If you have a plastic piece or a rubber piece
easier to clean because it's non porous, taking the heavy metals off of the
skin. They work very well. But we're also very clear that whatever products
are telling you that they are pulling stuff out of your skin, that doesn't
the physiology doesn't work that way. If there's a product telling you that whatever
you've already absorbed into your skin is now coming out, the only way to
do that is you know, and that's still up for conversation is like you
know, perspiring, so whether you're using cardio or these things, that you're
sweating those things out. So part of that I had at I smelt a
lot of Jamieson's coming out. I was doing the treadmill. So but it
does work well. And the heavy oils like we've had things like uh,
poison oak, poison ivy. We were some of the early years and testing
these things like you cut hall of Pangs at the station, you get that
oil on your skin, wo uh, and it works really well for that.
It takes those oh yeah, but the poison the booters all the time
like hey man, you got something on your face right here? Yeah,
uh so you know, always fun. But it does work really well for
those things up to do the poison ivy poison O bro. Who was that
guy? I want to who the guys in California that uh down for the
cause. So that was nice. Also for the pepper spray, it works
really well for the O C stuff because it's heavy oil. Uh. The
problem is when you get into like the crystals and things like that which is
out there, water activates those things. So you don't want to use our
wipe if you have the crystal based stuff. If you have the oil stuff
works really well. When you said you use one wipe to clean whole body,
would you recommend grabbing another white to clean off your equipment and stuff a
separate wife, Well, I would only because of water content like these things.
They you know, we'll show you we happily, we'll show you guys
again in FDIIC. But there's a ton of water content if you squeeze them,
it's amazing. But the water's not running out of the wipe. It's
not sloshing down on you, but you are absolutely transferring utilizing the water to
pick those things up. So if I was going to clean my body,
I would not use the same wipe to be cleaning my equipment only because of
transferring it. I wouldn't want to do that because usually if you're especially in
your mask or the mask of the radio, depending on where you wear,
those things and a tick, that's getting the most exposure because they're outside of
your gear. So I would not I would absolutely not go the other way.
I guess if you only had one, it would work, but I
would always make the recommendation to utilize the second one for your gear. But
would I use one wipe on my mask first, Yes, and then my
radio my tic camera. Absolutely not a problem to be able to do that.
You guys have any of the big fire upontments around the country, like
signed up or I mean, is everybody using them? How does that work?
There's a bunch of them nationally and internationally. We have a bunch of
big apartments. We don't really carry a list because well, two things happen
one. It's hard to keep track with some of those folks and some of
the entities that buy them are not always named directly. There's large fire departments
that get a lot of their money by donors in their area, and that's
that secondary group is what buys the majority of their items, so it's hard
to always track that. The other thing is through our disugar network. We
try really hard not to call them and go, hey, who's buying these
things because they kind of take it as a threat because we still sell direct
We would love not to, but honestly, there's a lot of smaller outfits
out there that I think are really underserved, even from our disubart network,
like fire Investigators, the community colleges, the professional fire colleges, a lot
of the junior programs like the Cadets or the Explorers, which are all like
the junior Cadet programs throughout the country. A lot of these places don't go
after them because you know, they don't see them as big, you know,
big ticket purchasing. But really for us, like we look at one
like they're either are firefighters or exposing themselves or will be firefighters, and especially
the young folks, like we're helping teach them from the very beginning. It's
all they will ever know. So I myself starting at fifteen volunteering. I
took a huge interest in that, in making sure what we were doing.
And once we found out these you know, the Walmarts of the world and
the fire service that aren't really going after them or really even answering their phone
calls their emails, we wanted to make sure whoever needed them could get a
hold of them. But we don't undercut our distributors. We don't offer any
you know, crazy pricing. We make sure to honor those relationships because the
big department sets all they can buy through. So so you guys have been
around for ten years, what do you guys have coming up? Like,
what do you see the company doing in the future. Well, I would
say just a few things that we have now, like one of the things
I mentioned earlier, but we did bring it up here. So one of
the again going back to customers, we had folks that asked like folk because
they came in packs of boxes of twelve only in the very beginning, and
people like, hey, we use them more than that, you know,
real busy departments, colleges things like that. They're like, we want the
bull So we did that. There's boxes of four hundred cases, excuse me
a four hundred that are much cheaper within that. But then someone goes,
well, hey, where do we store them? Get a rubber may tub?
And they're like, where do I get rubber mat tubs for every kind
of fire truck I have in my department. So Sean Gray came up with
this idea and told us give him a plug. These little utility bags.
They can fit like up to fifty wipes in them. So that's been one
of the cool things because now it's deployable storage. Pretty awesome. In their
dcon we have these other little retarded well but this is a you know,
I mean some people would use them. You're like you being on female femurs
well down here and you know, if you're in the field, somebody,
if we're there out there. I mean, the quick answer to that is
absolutely safe to use on your body. Had to twelve you find yourself or
wildland deployment situation there it is. That's a nice size too, yeah,
eight by twelve. But if you're gonna use it on your butt, nice
your man, move right there, bro. They're very bearable pushing through,
but if you cut them in half like that, then they're more manageable.
You don't want to wipe yourself with a freaking hands out. Yeah, Rob,
Yeah you have too that way. If you got one for the you
know, then you need to clean everything up, you know. Second half
I say, I'm not saying in the woods. You know, I might
have a couple of these in my bag if I'm going in the woods.
Now. Well, now all of a sudden you find it all. Yeah,
you gotta pack it on your work but I don't got to pack it
on my work fence. Usual the last time, from balloon to balloon,
I got you in two weeks, Amn, getting what you want to put
a sticker on your notes? You're yeah, I saw a Pelican case there
too, and you're in you guys have relic. Yeah, so we were
given away. We're gonna be at FBIC with number twenty two to eight.
We're doing a cooler. That cooler right there, it's a Pelican thirty core.
We give one away every year. The reason we do that, and
we have a great relationship with Pelican, is because these are all air tight,
and that's important not only for dehydration things like that, but because you
can actually submerge them in ice and water. So for us in the desert,
you know, we live thirty miles from the sun, it's pretty hot.
Sometimes it feels nice, which is great, but it actually helped when
they're colder for decon because just like closes the poor side. So and some
folks are like, well, what do you mean have you ever done fiberglass
or anything like that. You don't want to take a hot shark as it
opens up, so them being chilled, if at all possible, is always
a better option when you can for that reason. So it does close down
the poor side, so you can remove whatever is still topical in your skin.
So that's why we give it away. It's a talking point as well.
Would be a good segue to wait, where is it that's inside the
main Yeah, it's inside, just inside the food court area, the main
area. Well, I'll be using some of those to clean myself up after
I'm before taking a little bit outside. Just drank some ice. We're gonna
have bring some ice in that cool yet a lot of but a lot of
use perfect. Yeah, yeah, we do. We have another video guns
and that was the only one. No, I have the the original one
that we were supposed to present that a did you get sound on it.
Oh yeah, come on, b there we go like the music, though
there should be a spring. Hi. I'm Creston mud Though, owner of
fire wipes and a sixteen year firefighter. Fire Wipes are designed specifically to meet
our needs for onsen dcon field DCON personal hygiene. Fire wipes are individually packaged
to prevent cross contamination and the high They are an eight x twelve cleansing tallette
and industrial strength and biodegradable. Fire wipes were specifically designed to meet the needs
of on scene DCON and are safe to use on all external dermal areas.
Fireworks are safe to use on your SEBA mask and leave no oily or sticky
residue. They have no harmful chemicals, no longer I irritants. They are
hypoalagenic, no added fragrance, latex free, and alcohol free. Firewipes are
packaged air tight and can be stored in coolers to be utilized for rehab and
on scene DCON. I'm glad I got my story straight for that video twenty
two. Did you guys ever talk to anybody from the FDNY at all?
Yeah, We've had a few conversations and been doing some testing over there as
well. Well, that's definitely out with a bunch of Canoli's and they'll have
to hand out like that in Arizona. You got that bring that right,
go to bring us a stack that box, open up box like in Showshank
Redemption Open my mom made a whole bunch of I always laugh at those things.
We haven't had anybody hit us with that. Maybe I'm just not paying
attention, but not the handshakes or anything like that yet. But uh,
yeah, you know, we've done. It's interesting the timelines we've it's overnight
success stuff. We've had folks that we've done testing with for six months and
then boom, big change. And sometimes we've learned that folks do the testing
or they try the product, they love it, and there is either a
fiscal that has to be reset on their calendar. Not everybody runs calendars,
you know, us in Phoenix reset in the summer. All these differ different
things, and not to mention whatever previous product if they're utilizing it, we've
learned that they need to run through that even though they may deem it not
the best of what they may want. They're going to run through whatever inventory
they have and then make the change. So the timelines on these have been
very interesting, big or small that it's the challenges are all pretty similar.
Well, I know a great way that you can advertise to get out to
this, just little niche of the fire service right roof. No couple of
guys, you know what I mean, A couple of guys that can get
the word spread the word out there. Are you guys still allowed in the
firehouse? It's close. I have no doubte have all the connections. You
are Maley pirate hooker. That's what they say when you walk into the station.
This would be a good time for our Yeah, we got to run
a really quick in and it's a perfect day. We usually do this on
Thursday nights, but I told guns will do it tonight because this is like
hitting the ball for tea right here, bro, you know, yeah,
here we go. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit
organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and
research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health,
safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders
too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation. All right,
so I don't even have to read one of the sheet and I all
you gotta do is get firewives, bro. Like we Roofie say it all
the time. Roofie said it was like it makes sense. From the time
you retire, all you want to do is wake up every day and live
the rest of your life, collecting that pension, enjoying your wife, enjoying
your kids, and join your drink grandkids don't all that should So don't be
a macho man, right, there's no room for macho men anymore. Well,
the fire that's a comment like even gons I was saying, like I'm
sure a lot of the departments, it's it's already out there. It's it's
it's growing, it's moving. Right. So you know, if you're listening
to this, uh, put the word in for the firewipe guys. You
know, firefighters, they're doing the right thing. And uh, that's why
we want to support those guys. I mean, that's the bottom line.
You know, better than buying it from China or Wallmart or some bullshit like
that, tes buy it from the guys who are out there doing it and
still working for God's sake, and he knows what he's sellings. If you
didn't get that those two guys know what they're talking about from this album,
I'm like, this guy's definitely a Hasmac. He's too smart. I don't
even known even the ship that's coming out of his mouth. I saw,
I saw ken was going. It was going like this. You know,
I would say it for anybody. The big thing is just reach out if
you have questions firewipes dot com. We have contact page there, social media.
I would say the majority of what I do these days is we call
it direct direct factory support. If that's understanding the product challenges, implementing it
into the field policy. I don't ever tell people how to run their shop,
especially I'm not a chief or anything like that, but I have no
problem sharing the wins and losses we've had along the way with departments and you
know, fast forwarding hopefully some successes and some ideas, and we've had a
lot of impact within that, whether it's answering the questions for whoever the procurement
folks are and when it comes to money, R and D questions, when
it comes to testing, I spend a lot of time on Zoom meetings like
this just explaining some of the hazards and the application of the product, and
you just see the light bulbs go off and it's you know, we live
this every day, so what I may think is a secondary like just common
sense thought is not always there. But we have no problems. So when
someone reached out and says, hey, we need help, that's you name
it. Some of these large organizations you know, we've been involved FCSN,
Carney Strong, you know, so many of these folks have been so helpful
to us. But even folks that are deeply embedded in those organizations say well,
how do I understand this? And we take time to help them teach
them and we always see it moving the needle. And then some of the
larger folks that you know, when it comes to the proofs in the pudding,
like I myself get to be involved in some of the hot classes FDICEE.
We've done stuff at Firehouse Eckert fire Training, Inside Training, MAX Firebox,
fire colleges and around if yeah, like just proofs in the pudding so
I can tell you whatever you want. Everything looks good under the lights at
the trade show, but out there on the fire ground, in places where
things are actually on fires, where you get to see what works. And
for us, we've had that kind of mindset. For us, I could
tell you whatever I want, but see it for yourself and when you decide
through utilizing it, that's what you want. Well, if you need help
with education or anything else, well that's what we're really here for. You
know. We let our distributors handle the bulk of these buying because that's just
the way the world works. But we take a lot of pride in being
able to know what we're talking about, understand those challenges, and come up
with creative ways for application or implementation into the department. So for us,
we take a lot of pride. And I want to segue right into that
because John in the chat just said they must be good after an AMS call,
you know, more dangerous fluids stuff like that. So so yes,
we've had some challenges when it comes well, we've been cautionary when it comes
to that kind of marketing for the reason that these are not antimicrobial. There
are things out there by an xcaviside, that kind of stuff that kill blood
worn pathogens. But microbials is also what we're entirely made out of so if
it's killing it on the outside of your skin, there's a potential it's actually
hurting you a little bit, right, And it's all about lesser than two
evils kill the blood. Maybe you kill some skin, but still better than
what could get you For us. It's actually pretty amazing because if you think
about from an EMS standpoint, what do we normally do. We get a
stack of four by four as we pour a bunch of saline all over it,
sloshing everywhere. That's what this is. It's a shower in a bag,
but better we use it out here. I've used it on my truck
for many years, cleaning up blood, dried blood, things like that.
It works really really well for cleaning folks up, whether it's from customer service
standpoint, like a tech rescue guy goes down on the mountain, got dirt
all over them, Bam, you can help them out. Folks that are
injured and medical wise, great, does a good job. And if you
wish that you could wash your hands or take a shower, this is it.
And it's kind of that just like the alcohol, you know, stuff
that yeah, you want to gel and gel out those signs that everyone had
at the time, but they still tell you the number one thing is to
wash your hands, and for us that has been very helpful for us to
do that, but it's hard to market that in the EMS space. For
me, I've had that fear that someone would think that they could clean their
monitor with it or the gurney, thinking it's going to kill the blood that's
on there. And so you haven't really pushed into that space because I would
be worried about someone exposing right right, right right, assuming ours did it.
But it's also what keeps us safe to use it on your face,
you know, in your mask. So we're in a weird place where yeah,
it works straight for some things, but I just don't want our guys
to assume it's the you know, it's not the silver bullet for all things,
right right, right, Well, listen again, what's the getting Salty
code? Right? Go to firewipes dot com. Ten percent off At firewipes
dot com. The code is getting Salty one word and it's ten percent off.
It's good for three weeks. Make sure to check out these guys if
you're in FDIC uh eight correct? Is that right? Just to make sure
what other what other shows you guys going to this year, you're going to
any other shows this year, or you're going to Harrisburg or any of those.
Not yet, we've had some options. We're kind of looking at what
we're going to be doing. We've been sitting out a lot of products port
Firehouse in California with the c Text folks that just happened. We send a
lot of product out there to support them. So at the moment, you
know, the change in Firehouse, the way that they're going to be doing
that in Charlotte this year. Yeah, that is the same. We've been
been great to work with, even you know, changing spots around the country.
They've been awesome. This kind of format I think is a little different
than the standards. Yeah, well that's been a change. So we're going
to reevaluate, you know, and then obviously when Intershoots get things figured out,
if they do here in the States, we'd love to be with them,
and you know, they try to get that off here, right,
Yeah, so if that happens at some point, but if not, we'll
be in Germany when that goes off. But you know, at this point,
we're having the option of do we go to shows or do we help
people have fire wipes in their hands so they can trial them. And we're
doing the same thing, right, I mean in the end, we're getting
more word out, you know on the podcast at this point, you know,
like bringing companies, bringing guys, telling stories, all that stuff.
So, I mean, I like going to the shows. But you know,
fd C is the the super Bowl, though, I do say that.
I mean, there's a lot of people out there. It's a great
time. You know, they do a really nice job to have the classes,
so it really is really nice to McDonald's and Wendy's out there, right,
who we eat all the time with donal Well, Well, Coops has
got like a thirty six out stake in front of him after he just had
like what what is that? The shrip with the horse radis right, yeah,
we call it. We're done. We're like the girls calling there,
We're like, oh, yeah, that's that. That's White Castles are delicious,
shre Maryland as well terrible. Yeah, exactly exactly. Any questions in
the chat from you guys, you delinkuids, what do you got? I
also I just wanted to say John and I saw a quote that he had
the need him in was another scenario that really did help. You know,
was it just a fire thing, right? I mean I remember the firehouses
had black walls. You know, the walls were white like subway tile,
you know, from one hundred years ago, and they were black just from
the exhaust of the rigs. It was just incredible. So that was just
a you know, something that you know, after a while just put then
Ederman on right. You know, when it first came out, you know,
it used to get squished between the wall, right, I mean how
many times by the rig But then after a while it just became that's what
we do, right, So great show ut to see proactive safety concepts like
the supporter and brought to the forefront of our business. That's the baby.
I think we had a fire recently and I had a young member that there
and took his mask off because he was you know, whatever reason. And
there wasn't even conversation. I just looked over, I tapped my mask and
immediately masks back on. Not a conversation. And after we got done,
he came up with, hey man, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean
no problem, thank you. I get it. Be better, be better
for yourself, your family, your future, your retirement were before that might
have been a fight with some folks. Oh what dude, You wouldn't even
have been able to would You wouldn't even be able to say anything to any
I mean, and Fdny, that's that was just Listen. I never had
when the fire, when I didn't see orange, the mask was off,
like you couldn't see still, you couldn't breathe still, it was off.
That's just what we did, unfortunately, you know what I mean. So
it's just I think that's why, you know, I'm passionate about this.
I'm not really passionate about most things, you know, when it comes to
products or any of that stuff. You know, I'm kind of into it.
He's like, you know, trying to help firemen. But you know,
as far as the shows go to, when we talk about stuff on
this show, cancer is like scares the hell out of me, you know
what I mean. So it's just that's one thing that I really we try
to get across, you know, and if you get across a couple of
guys, that's all we're trying to do. Over time. One guy,
Yeah, sure, you know how diseases to be one, but you beat
that one too, So now we're moving on. I got a stent a
couple of weeks ago. I feel great. I was eating and sh this
job it does require a lot, and we obviously sacrifice a lot to do
it, but you shouldn't have to sacrifice more than you need to. Like
the job is dangerous, I believe in it. It's something I'm even passionate
about myself, and I accept that. But if we can just take a
little bit off the top to enjoy it at the end, right, because
we talk about everything we sacrificed to get to the end, to enjoy retirement
produced it like even just a little bit, like I'll wear my vest on
traffic calls not to get hit, I'll wear my mask on fires not to
get cancer a little bit, you know, a little a little later in
my life, like trying to do the small things that add up over the
full career. And I think that is really I mean, how we don't
even put boocher lines in the trap boards anymore if we can fill it up
with the deck gun we do, like minimize where you can't exposure. Yeah,
and it's just that would have never I wouldn't even Oh my goodness,
I can't even I think about the guys that if I would have even brought
that up in the beginning of my career getting all but the game, Christen,
I was Coops and I we have a guy he's been on the show,
Rob Brown, right, does great job with the far FDNY. You
know, he checks for everything. You go there for four or five hour
day. You know, you're doing your blood work, you're doing cats scan,
you're doing everything, stress tests, all this stuff, right, and
he picks up on mostly cancers, right, for the most part, he's
picking up guy's blood, you know, prostate calling all the stuff, you
know, whatever it is. So we talk about that on the show all
the time. You know, get yourself checked out. Go to this guy.
So I go to him once a year, right, I go in,
you know, February March, I go to kind of like the same
time. So I went and you know, knock everything out of the park.
Everything looks good, right, So like three days later, I look
down, I get a phone call. I was away. I get a
phone call and I looked down at my phone and it's him. Because they
were doing the blood work, right, my heart sank, not not because
I was you know, I had a little blockage. It's because I thought
he was going to say when I was waiting for him, when I picked
up that phone for him to say, you know, Liul, I'm sorry,
but you know you got you have That's what I see, right,
Yeah, So when I pick up the phone and his uh partner is on
the phone, he's like little just a little bit of bad luck, you
know, or bad news, he says, And yeah, I mean I'm
already waiting because I know it's yeah, yeah, well this is why I'm
saying. This is why it means a lot to me, because I would
have been taken the stint all day long, you know what I'm saying,
Like that was like the best news after I got past the part where he's
like, yeah, you got a little bit of a blockage. We got
to get in there. We're gonna put a step whatever, you know,
talk to kubes. You know. Step now is like doing a cavity,
you know what I mean. Like it's nothing, right, But out of
those two scenarios, I got the better scenario, right, So, I
mean, I've been thinking about this for weeks, right, so I have
to you know, this is why it's important to do these things, and
especially if you're you know, for us, maybe it's inevitable down the road.
You know, the guys who you know, we lived our life that
way and that job, and that's just hopefully you know, we keep on
top of it. But for guys that are new, that's that's that's uncalled.
You know, you're doing yourself. It's uncalled for man, you know,
cause you don't want to ever get that call, believe me. And
I didn't get the call, and I still got the call, you know
what I'm saying. Like I was waiting, I was so I was petrified
to pick up the phone because I knew it was going to be And then
the guy says, I got bad news for you, But thank god,
it wasn't that bad news, you know what I mean. So, guys
all the time, if if you ever get sick or hurt, I'll come
paint your house, I'll mow the grass. You know, we'll make sure
your family's taking care of whatever you need. But I'd rather not, and
not because I'm lazy, but because i'd rather you not be hurt, injured,
sick or killed. And because of this job I want you to does
was my liaison too by the way. You know, I was gonna take
care of his wife. Don't prop I way I said, I said,
Coop, you could be don't let god, so don't let gods will be
mad come up here. He'd be long dipping. You know. One more
thing, put down the bowl of ice cream and get on a goddamn treadmill.
All right, we're talking about health. Oh and the wives. Yeah,
sorry, you're stuck in the before do that, but go ahead,
finish the straw boys. Good luck, man. I'm happy for you guys.
You're doing well and you're doing a good thing. Thank you. You
guys like you're making some kind of stupid pizza cutter and selling it, you
know, I mean, actually we're actually doing something to help the brothers,
you know what, I meat and stuff in that big fat mouth, right
y. That's like you gotta you got like a really good balloon. I
got, Like my my balloon is like, uh, don't even ask anything
a little bit, you know what I mean, Like it's getting old and
the flady you know what I mean, Like you got it. You still
have a good strong balloon, you know, colorfower pizza there it cuts that
right you're talking about you're talking my guy wrong over here. He's like that,
stay in the face with all you cool cat. So we're gonna see
a bulky going out to Indy. Come to the boot. We'll do a
little potty absolutely, we'll see you guys there. Yeah, who's that?
This podcast will say the education you teach now were more brothers in the early
sixties. You gotta be Johnny. Yeah, all right, Uh, Thursday
night we have but you just told me Roaddance Captain Rod Tans one twenty truck
rescue two guy one thirty eight guy and then uh, I think we're out
of here after that, we're going next week. We're going to be uh
out on the plane. Although you're driving, I'll be on a plane.
And that's it. Don't forget the new products coming out us in the fire.
Why. I just finished the first part of the rescue documentary nineteen fifteen
to nineteen seventy. Mike's editing it right now. But if you want it,
got to sign up, That's what I'm saying. Do you website yet?
Not yet? We put that out. That's a pre lim This is
what it's gonna look like when it goes excellory. All right, guys,
thank you so much. I was definitely educated tonight and enjoyed myself and we
did a good thing. We helped the brothers out. Thank you for sure.
Thank you guys. Nice job boys. Yeah, what do we got?
That's it. We have any shout outs? No shouts, you guys
have any shoutouts. There's a long list of people. I guess I don't
want to forget anybody, but so many folks, I mean early on people
reach out to social media, some of these influencers, these organizations. But
I would also like to acknowledge the people that were naysayers in the beginning.
Is we've had some folks that really helped push us because of the level of
pushback that going to be the right thing to do. And some of those
folks have turned into friends. They have openly circled back and just said hey,
I don't know why I thought that, or they had a friend that
got cancer themselves, and people have really kind of opened their eyes, and
honestly, it is it's pretty amazing that the positive and the negatives out there
have helped push us to do this every day. And like you said,
it's a passion project. It's it hardly feels like work and that, and
to have people come up and say, hey, you've made a difference in
the way that they do business or their department or wherever it may be.
That right there. To hear a fireman tell another fireman thank you. We
say that all the time, not just all the time, Like get accolator
you want to cry with, Oh yeah, you're getting accolator refirement. You
are doing something right. I like when I see the guy like a real
saulty guy from the fd M. Y, dude, I love the show.
Well, why the fun you gotta whisper it? Why can't you say
that part? Great? And honestly that's probably you know, when you got
guys, not just the people that are running the programs or sitting in the
office, when you got line guys coming up and saying hey, I like
this, it makes the difference. I tell the young guys to do what's
you know, do the right thing and protect themselves. Honestly, you can't
ask for a better thing. No, you can't ask better than that.
Brother, Good job fellas. All right, you guys, great job you.
We'll see you guys. Yeah, what's your favorite color balloon? I'll
bring you on. Like all right now. Alright, guys, we'll see
it Thursday night. Until then, stay long ago. All right, everybody
will see it the big One. Thanks again, boys, Stay on,
don't hang up, Yeah, don't hang up. Guys. Uh, pull
up your boots. It's time to go to work. You guys have a
good night. Yeah. I don't like that's you on the top floor.