Can a fan really prevent grain dust explosions?
Yes. At a large grain elevator in Kansas, SonicAire’s Class II, Division 1 certified fans helped eliminate dangerous dust buildup and reduced the need for manual cleaning. Operations Manager Travis Davis shares how these fans improved safety, reduced shutdowns, and proved that engineered airflow can be a game-changing dust control solution in ag environments.
If you’ve ever wondered:
- “Can a fan really help with dust in a grain elevator?”
- “Why hasn’t the grain industry adopted new dust solutions?”
- “How do I reduce manual housekeeping and increase uptime?”
…this episode is for you.
Episode Transcript:
Welcome back to the OnAire podcast. I’m Jordan.
And I’m Taylor.
Hey, it’s 2026, first pod of the year. It’s good to be back.
Yeah, happy new year.
Yeah, you too. Did you have a good holiday?
We did. We were a little sick, but I think everyone in the world was, too.
Yeah, it was going around.
The joy that keeps on giving.
Thankfully I dodged it, for now.
Phenomenal podcast today. We’re excited about our guest, Travis Davis, who operates a large grain elevator out in Kansas. And we are just excited to be talking about grain.
Yeah, sometimes it becomes a little bit of a sore subject for me just because of all the certification hurdles. But, you know what? We look past that. We love our people. We love the people that certified it too, but you know, they were kind of annoying.
Grain is the gift that keeps on giving, or at least we hope it will. It’s been a long journey to get to this point. Grain is a new industry for us. Our Class II Div 1 certified fan is a new product for us. And so, it’s kind of uncharted territory.
Yeah, it’s definitely one of those things. Because when we started down this road, and you were like, “Hey we’re going to put some fans in elevators.” I was really confused because I was wondering if we were going to have to put the elevator music on the fan or if it just had to sink into it. where would we have to pull the power from? But yeah, I found out that it’s not an elevator.
Yeah, you don’t ride the elevator.
And then the little elevators that they put in the elevator is not called an elevator either.
It’s a man lift. It’s super confusing. I still don’t understand.
Nope. But they feed us every day, and they do the world a great service and a favor by producing what we eat day in day out. And then food for the things that we eat, too.
That’s right. Alright, we’re going to bring in Travis from the green room. Enjoy. You guys are going to love it.
Yeah, this is a great one. See you soon.
Thanks for watching.
Travis, welcome to the podcast, to the OnAire podcast. The one and only podcasts all about all things dust. So thanks for being our first guest of 2026.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.
You make it sound a lot more impressive than it actually is, because not sure how many other people do anything like we do, or anything dust related.
That’s what makes us unique.
It is, it is.
The one and only dust podcast. So Travis, we are excited to have you here, because you do something that we have very little experience with. It is completely new to us, and we’re trying to learn as well as we go through this journey of dust and grain and agriculture. So, when SonicAire started, we started in textiles because that’s just where it was. And it started in the southeast with lint buildup and textile factories and that sort of thing. And then we progressed from there into paper products, particularly toilet paper. Then we went to wood and other things like that. And so, here we are 20 years into the SonicAire story, and we’re just now getting into the grain and agriculture sector of things. So, it’s exciting to have you here to tell us a little bit more about that. So, we’ve been working together for a couple years now, but I’m excited for everybody else to learn.
Yeah, I know. This is definitely one of those things that we’ve been trying to learn about. And even when we started doing OnAire, this was kind of one of the things that we started with. It was like, hey, we’re trying to build this product to get into this new market, and here we have this market.
The guy.
I don’t know about that.
So, you’ve been doing grain and ag and around that whole industry pretty much your whole career. Kind of grew up in it.
Yeah, not grew up in it. So, coming out of college, I started with the company where I’m at. Been there for 24 years just here January 7th, actually.
Congratulations.
Yeah, that’s awesome. So, you said you didn’t necessarily start out thinking that direction or whatever. But how did you morph? What was the background of Travis getting over that way?
Truly by the grace of God. So, to kind of and this kind of takes us back. So, 9-11 actually just happened right before I was going to graduate. There was a lot of hiring freezes in a lot of companies that I was trying to kind of get into. And so, just to be honest with you, my wife and I prayed about it. and What really led us? I mean, it was a step of faith. And God just opened up this door, and we prayed that he wouldn’t close every other door. And so, long story short, we took the dive. And I walked into a grain elevator; didn’t even know and had never even been in one. So, it was just kind of like a complete step of faith. That’s what kind of did it as crazy as it sounds.
When one door closes a grain elevator opens apparently.
Yeah, that’s definitely one way to put it.
So, what is your educational background? So, talk about college.
I went to K-State University and got my undergraduate there. While I was employed, I went back and got an MBA with an ag emphasis, too. So, my undergrad is in an ag systems management type field.
And now you’re doing that. Managing in the ag industry. Leading people. And so, talk to us a little bit about just how an elevator works, from like a business standpoint, like what you guys do, and then just from a technical standpoint, like inside the walls, like what happens within the elevator.
There’s all different types of shapes and sizes of grain elevators. And so, most people would probably break it up into three different groups. Some people would probably call one of them being a country elevator, and it’s usually smaller. And that’s going to be more taking on the grain from the farmer. Most of those are truck in, truck out. Some of them can have some rail. Then you’re going to have some that are going to be a rail terminal, which can do shuttle trains and bring them in in large quantities as well as to ship those out. And then there’s going to be the export ones. And so, those are the ones that are going to be down on the Gulf, that are going to take in trains and things like that, and then they’re going to load vessels going out into the ocean, going everywhere in the world pretty much. And so, as you kind of step up in those three, the speeds usually normally pick up and everything like that. And the size normally kind of picks up, too. There are some smaller elevators that do have a lot of high volume and put through. And so really, I mean, the main goal of a grain elevator is to bring in grain, to maintain the quality, to not lose it, and then to ship it out in the quality and the specs that the customer is requesting.
There’s not a ton of new technology as crazy as it sounds. I mean, there is some, but it’s not an industry that has a lot of technology and change in it. There have been some tried and true things that most people have kind of stuck with throughout the years.
And most of the grain elevators, concrete wise, have been around since the 50s and 60s and 70s. There’s not been a lot of growth in that. And so, you’ve got a lot of, you know, kind of an older type of footprint. And so, some of the older ones are a higher labor, and not as automated and things like that. And so you’ve got to kind of overcome that. And some of the ones that I’ve had the opportunities to kind of work in, we’ve been able to automate quite a bit, but most of them, it’s not very cost-effective to sometimes, versus the cost of labor.
Sure. So, one of the things I found fascinating when we visited your facility was that It’s really kind of a natural refrigeration process, almost, that you guys are trying to accomplish to maintain that quality. Can you talk about how that works, and what you do, and what you’re looking for, and the cycles throughout the year and the seasons, and that whole thing? There’s really a science to it. It’s fascinating.
Yeah, I mean kind of tried and true. The man that taught me it, and it’s just, you know, we really haven’t changed it much. But very cyclical and seasonal for what we do. Normally, we take the grain in. So the grain will come in for us. And so, like I’m talking wheat. So, the grain will come in, and it’ll be in the 90s or the hundreds, normally, the ambient temperature outside in the summertime. And so what we found out is that the goal of it is that, if we can get it down to in the 50s or in the 40s, we can store it for one year and not really need to touch it. And so we’re talking in concrete bins. And so, like what you said, the concrete is kind of an insulator.
And so, the timeline for us of kind of normally what we do is: the wheat harvest takes place for us during June and into July some. And so, it’s still warm, and then we’re usually taking in the fall crop. Right around September 1st all the way usually somewhere to Thanksgiving or even sometimes after. But what we do is when the weather starts to turn cold, we don’t have as much aeration to try and cool the grain down on the bins. And so, we actually have to turn it and move it, and we do that with light commodities. And so, we turn it. And so, as it’s exposed to the outside air, then it begins to start to work its way down. And then we treat it with some things like that to kill some of the bugs and everything like that so that we can increase the storage life as well.
So, it comes out of the bottom of the bin?
Yep.
And then it’s carried by belt over to the elevator that’s taking it all the way back to the top of the bins. And then it’s going to find a new home and a new bin. Is that correct?
That is 100% correct.
And then it’s just the transportation and the getting it out and kind of aerating it while the temperatures are cooler that brings the temperature down.
Yep. So, our goal is to try and do that normally. It depends on what God gives us, but normally, we’re trying to turn grain from October all the way to the first of April. Normally, once we kind of hit that timeline, the grain mass should be cooler than the ambient air temperature. So, we would be losing ground if we were to turn it. So, we stop when the opportunity does, really.
So, go ahead.
That’s super interesting. And you’re talking about maintaining quality. And this, like, learning about grain, this has been one of the coolest things of all time for me. One, because I saw your whiteboard, and I’m a whiteboard nerd, and it’s kind of the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. But, can you talk a little bit about how this quality process works. Where you have somebody sending in an order, and they’re like, “I want a B plus.” And so, you are mixing the different grades together. Obviously not y’all’s proprietary process, but just kind of the general industry, how they move about that.
Yep. So, how it works is that every inbound load is graded. And so, we actually segregate it based off of the grades in it. And so, if there’s something that is an outlier, we may move that and put it into a different bin and try and segregate that. So the goal of it is to barely be the grade that we need to ship out so that we can blend out some of the off-grade quality. And so, every time that we touch it and we move it, we actually take samples to make sure that we are maintaining that quality
And so, one other thing that we do, too, from a quality standpoint, is that we also keep track of the temperatures. So that tells us kind of what’s going on in that bin. So if the temperatures are starting to increase, then you know that there’s something going on there. And so, normally, that is the indicator to us that we need to start to turn some grain then.
So cool.
And then so, from October to April, you’re flipping grain as fast as you can, as hard as you can, all the time.
Yes.
Grain’s moving, all day every day.
Yep.
And every time you handle grain, you touch grain, you move grain, you’re going to lose a little bit in the form of dust.
Yep.
All right. So where does all the dust go?
So, first of all, we have dust collectors, right? And so, those will try and collect some of that. Some of the other dust is going to go out into the air and onto the pieces of equipment and into the facility. And so, then that’s where the challenge is of trying to maintain that and to stay in compliance. That’s where the challenge is of trying to keep people safe, take care of the assets. And we have standards and safety protocols and everything like that within the industry as well as within our company that we need to make sure that we are maintaining.
We all know that grain is volatile. And you, being more from that area and whatnot, can you tell us a little bit about what your perspective was, especially going in to this new industry fresh. But I’m sure you knew about…like, we talk about Brad growing up in Kansas and whatnot, and him knowing that that was just kind of a thing where these events happen at grain elevators.
So, as crazy as it sounds, that wasn’t as common of a knowledge to me when I jumped into it. I mean, I really did kind of jump into it not knowing what I was getting into. But I mean, because most of the stuff probably took place in the 70s and the early 80s. So, to date myself, I was fairly young at the time, and of course that’s not on my radar then. And so, from that, really the industry for the most part, I mean there would be some instance that would take place in the industry, but not like on a very frequent basis.
I do remember one. I mean, I was in high school, and I was building a swim pool, and I was…Man, I was probably 20 miles from this. But there was an elevator explosion, and I remember the ground even rocked where we were. But like, I didn’t know too much at the time. There was a firefighter that was working for us, and we kind of talked about it because we found out about it. And of course, he had people that were going there trying to find out if everybody was okay and everything like that from his side. So that was kind of like my first exposure to it, but it didn’t really register to me. And honestly that didn’t really go into my decision-making process as crazy as that sounds, just being young and not thinking that that was…just kind of fearless probably, just going into stuff.
Yeah, wow. But that type of thing probably drives everything in the grain industry now, the safety aspect of it.
Yeah, I mean it’s huge. I mean, the safety of it, it’s a constant thing that we have to keep track of, that we have to maintain, that we have to monitor, just to make sure that we aren’t putting anybody in harm’s way.
So, how do you manage that dust once it gets out and escapes?
So, most places have a housekeeping schedule, right? So, the normal traditional way is to have dust collection be the primary way, but any stuff that doesn’t get collected from that, it’s usually to go and start to clean it up. So usually, that goes with a broom and a shovel or compressed air to do some type of blowdown. But normally you’ve got to shut off the pieces of equipment so that you don’t have any type of failure and then a spark. And then you’ve got suspended grain dust in a tight area, and then you are potentially creating that hazardous atmosphere.
Yeah, volatile environment. So, what’s the labor market like for you these days?
So, the labor market is challenging, right? And so that was one of the things that kind of drove me to look into, is there a better way that we can do things to be more efficient with our labor? Because, as labor costs continue to go up, and seemingly a large portion of the workforce don’t want to do any type of manual labor like that, that becomes challenging. And so, that’s what kind of led me to the whole process of trying to see, you know, is there something else that we can do that’s going to help us to be more efficient? To get the bushels turned that we need to to get where we can find success.
Yeah, I’ve been to your facility and some others like it, and that manual housekeeping job, I understand why the labor market’s kind of difficult, because it doesn’t look fun from what we saw.
It’s not glamorous. Nobody comes out of high school going, “I can’t wait to go down to the elevator down here and start pushing grain with a shovel!”
And a lot of these places are not small by any stretch of the imagination. And so, just the amount of just walking back and forth, not even taking into account the sweeping and shoveling and things like that. So, yeah
So, you were saying that led you to look at what are the alternatives? So, how did you two really get linked up?
So, I went to a trade show, and I saw SonicAire. And I came and tried to promote it and see if we could go down that road. And it wasn’t like there was a lot of fear in that. And there at the time, there wasn’t that support. So, quietly and patiently, I kind of waited and kept on bringing it up. Sometimes I’m kind of persistent, and maybe sometimes to a fault. But kind of stuck with it, and long story short, I finally got some people in my corner that were willing to potentially take a look at it. So, I think we reached out and we called…and I can’t remember who I talked to first. But we went down the road of trying to come up with something. And so, I had to do a huge sales pitch to the company to see if we could do it. And we had to assess all the risk and talk about it, of what would even be required if we were going be able to go that way. And so, we worked through that process, and that was a pretty long process honestly. But once we came back to SonicAire, we kind of knew what we needed. And then that’s when I came. And so, there was a gentleman that was with the company, and then…just to be honest with you, and you can cut this out if you want, sorry. But he ended up leaving the company.
Yep, Mike?
Yeah, and so then I ended up more so talking with you, Jordan, and just saying, here is what I need, and here’s this. And I was trying to sell you on being able to come up with an explosion proof fan and to go down that road because I just felt the need to do it. So, the real need for me is that: when we would go into the head house, I would have to shut down at least every other day or every three days to blow down. And so, I was losing precious time that we needed to be turning. And I just needed to come up with a way, I mean there’s got to be some way that we can do this. And I never let go of seeing that fan at the trade show. And we got some stuff, and just kind of came back to it. And so, I mean, that’s really where the journey started for us probably.
So, at the time, I think we had the Class II Division 2 certified fan, and we needed to elevate to go to Division 1 to be in your space. And so, when we approached UL about it, they go, “A fan blowing dust around in a Div 1 environment. That’s a bad idea.” We go, “We understand, we understand. But I don’t think you really understand what we’re saying and what we’re proposing and how we’re going to create truly a safer space and a more efficient work environment for these guys.”
Yeah, I mean, because I had the same journey, because we had to sell it, too, within the company. Because there was a lot of people that were scared, right? And like, I get it. And so, that was kind of the journey, just to kind of be persistent and to talk people through it. And then we did a trial, right? So, you guys came up with the fan after a long journey and things like that, and it was good. And then we had to put one in, and then we had to check it out and try it and see how things were going to go.
Yeah, long journey, good? Eh, debatable, but…
Still a touchy subject for Taylor.
You can go back and watch episode one, you can hear all about it, but yeah. We went through…I mean, from the time that you started on this, this is probably five years before you got anything.
Yeah, because I even remember talking to UL to even try and say, you know, this is something that, I mean, if we can get this, this is beneficial. And it was good.
Yeah, we talked to UL a little bit, too.
Joyous times, joyous times.
Can we hashtag UL on this podcast?
Got to love them. Shoutout to UL.
Thank you for your service and your hard work, but be better.
We got it. We got it. We did it. D1.
Yeah, and I know it’s a great thing. So, you went through the process, sold it internally. We worked together and got the product out. Now, you did the trial period, and then what’s been different? Is it working? I mean, you can be honest with us. Tell us the good, the bad.
So, we put them in strategic places. There were some places where I wanted to put some that we were not able to. Because when you guys came out and did an assessment, we weren’t going to probably get the performance and the results that we wanted because of some of the obstructions. And so, we had bought so many, and so we kind of strategically placed them. With my team, we kind of went in there and we talked about where we were going to do it. And we talked with you guys because you kind of had the tribal knowledge of how much that a fan would cover. And so, we proposed some stuff and kind of went back and forth on the proposal, and we did the install. And today, I mean, it’s been a blessing because I don’t have to shut down to blow down the head house in certain places. And so, that is probably one of the key things. I could walk down in those parts of the facilities, and I don’t have dust on the spouse or dust on the ledges and things like that. And so, as you go through that, I mean, you can just sense that it’s safer because of that. And so, for us, what we elected to do, and part of the selling process and the approval process for us, is that ours run during the evening when we aren’t there in the middle of the morning for several hours. Then, when we come back in the morning, the dust that was generated is on the ground, and then we just clean it up and we just keep on going. So, it’s pretty smooth.
I love that. So, would you say because of the additional uptime that you’ve been able to achieve with the fans they paid for themselves?
Yes.
That’s great to hear. In even just being able to…I mean, this is one of the things that we want to do as a company. Like you said, we have a lot of people that have to go in and sell this equipment. Because it’s like, “You’re putting a fan in a dusty place? Are you insane?” But our goal is really to, once we’re up and running, we don’t want to be in your process. We want to be out of the way. We just want to be part of the housekeeping so that you don’t have to worry about any of these extra dangers that are happening as dust buildup occurs. And so that we’re just part of the housekeeping now. It’s not this extra thing that you have to take care of. It’s just, we’re making things a little bit more efficient, little by little, so that you can do the things that you’re good at.
And because the fans are running so frequently, when they do come on, you’re not getting this huge dust cloud. Everybody envisions just, oh my gosh, It’s going to be a white out dust cloud when we turn these fans on, and that’s just not the case when you run them that frequently every single day.
That is true. Yeah, I mean because even when we turn them on, I thought it would just be…I mean, we shut down the whole place to turn them on for the first time because we didn’t know what it was going to be. And that was part of our trial and part of the agreement of what we were going to do. And I was just impressed because it was pretty quiet, and it was not that dusty. I mean very, very little. And it’s kind of cool to just come up in there first thing in the morning and there’s a light dust on the ground, and you just go in there, and you just run a broom over it and then we’re done.
That’s awesome.
Man, it sounds like a like a whole different level of cleanliness for your facility in a day and time when it’s hard to get somebody to come in and think about doing high dustings and high cleanings.
There’s some places in the facility, certain floors where we can have like 20 foot of floors. And to say that we could effectively get up and clean those areas, even blowing down would be a challenge. It’s definitely more thorough, and you don’t see those areas like what we used to see now.
That’s great. That’s great. How has that impacted your employees?
So, you’re probably not going to like this answer, but I’ll tell you it because I still think it’s encouraging. So, they take it for granted now. Because it’s something that they don’t need to do, and so it’s just like normal life to them now, right? So, I don’t think people really realize the impact, and they kind of forget what they used to be doing. And so, it’s just kind of a foreign thought now.
That’s okay.
No, that’s a good answer.
I love that.
There are people there, especially if you’ve had any labor turns, they didn’t even know what used to happen.
That’s exactly right.
Where, because of the equipment, their job is a little bit easier, honestly. So, that’s great.
So, you were talking about the grain industry typically being slow-moving, not a lot of change. We’re using the same facility, same technology. Where is the industry going?
The goal of it probably is to have as little labor as you can, really. I mean, that’s going to be where everybody’s going towards, and so it’s just trying to work that way. But there’s some of them that are going to be dinosaurs, that are going to be hard to modify over. The newer facilities, you’ve got a lot of safeties and things like that coming in now. There’s a lot of safeties on pieces of equipment. So, where is it going? It’s slowly getting better. I mean, from my perspective, and this is my opinion, take it that way. But most of the people have tried to exhaust the areas of opportunity, really. And so, there’s some in certain areas and not some in others.
What about the evolution of regulation? You and I were talking a little bit this morning about OSHA. Have you seen that increase in your two and a half decades? Like, how is that today versus when you got started?
Yeah, I mean there’s definitely a lot of laws and requirements and regulations in place to keep the workplace safe, and I think that that’s a good thing. And so, the challenge of it is is that there’s more of an emphasis at times. There’s called Local Emphasis Programs and things like that. And so, there’s been some of those that have gone around, too. Normally, if there’s an uptick of challenges within the industry, then the flashlight will be shown on us, and then you’re going to have, within the industry, a higher frequency of inspections and visits and things like that.
They’re always watching.
Always.
They know where you are.
Big Brother.
Yeah, especially when they are like hey, we’re launching this whole new big standard. We’ve got something else to check on. Have you seen any direct impact or know of any impact that’s come in since they’ve done the standard consolidation to 660?
Not from my vantage point, but that’s very probably limited now today. I mean, I don’t always stay up with that as much as what I used to to be quite honest with you. I kind of focus on what’s going on in my neck of the world and try and change that.
So, you and I, we talk about people management and leadership, that sort of thing quite a bit. I know that’s something that’s near and dear to your heart as it is ours and the way we care for our teams and things like that. But how does that play out in the elevator? Because you guys are doing the same thing every day. How do you keep people inspired and motivated? Because what you guys are doing is incredibly important. You guys are feeding the world. Like, the food chain runs right through your parking lot, literally. And so, how do you keep people reminded of how important their work is and inspired and excited to get up and come to work every day to turn grain?
Yeah, I mean it’s a challenge. We do daily toolbox meetings. And the cool thing is that our people actually talk. People will talk on their own accord. And they’ll bring up the areas that we need to improve. They’ll even shoutout and give encouragement and things like that, too. And we have some things like the Most Valuable Colleague, something that’s voted upon by all of our colleagues to recognize who went above and beyond. So, there’s a lot of things. And we do training all the time. On a monthly basis, we do all of the required trainings. But we usually go above and beyond that, too. So, it’s a constant message, really, of what we’re trying to do.
Yeah, it’s a challenge. I mean, we build kind of obscure equipment, but it is kind of a daily thing even for us to know, like, when we’re out there building mounts this morning before we came in here, just kind of like, why does this matter? And we’re so interconnected with the different industries and very grateful to be involved with you in the grain industry, where it’s like, well, if we do this right, then we’re protecting the people that are doing the things that are changing the world. Whether you’re feeding the world, or building any of this equipment that’s behind us, everybody’s making a small little impact. And we’re putting this web together through our little efforts. And so, that’s why, no matter what we’re doing, your work matters.
And that’s why it’s fun to have you here on site today. To take Travis around and introduce him to a few people. And people get to see: this is who gets to go home safe at the end of the day. This is who gets to run his facility a little more efficiently. He can he can spin more grain through there, and it just keeps the whole world turning.
Absolutely, yeah. So, as we’re getting towards a wrap-up point, you came into the industry kind of bright-eyed and new, and so what is your advice to the next generation stepping into grain management and work in these processes?
The thing that I would say, probably, is just to love people well. As crazy as it sounds, that’s the driving point of even the fan, right, is: how can I make the job easier and better? But if you love people well, the people that you’re working with, then you can’t go wrong. And so, I think that’s it. And some of the challenges that will come up and some adversity to continue to love well and not to back off of that.
That’s great. That’s great.
Sounds so simple. That’s not easy every day.
No, it’s not. Sometimes people challenge you, but still to love them in spite of that.
That’s great. That’s perfect. Yeah, we should stop there.
I think so.
That’s a good wrap-up right there. Travis, I can’t thank you enough for being here today. I am certain (shertain) sure and certain, shertain, that everyone listening has benefited greatly from your words of wisdom and your experience and the things that you’ve shared today. It’s phenomenal.
Thank you very much for inviting me here.
All right. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Be sure to like, subscribe down below, share. Send it to your loved ones, your friends, your family. Love your coworkers, send it to them. Even the ones you don’t like, send it to them as well so they can listen and follow along, hopefully, for all things dust-related here at the OnAire podcast. So, I’m Jordan.
And I’m Taylor.
We’ll see you next time.
Peace!