🎙️ Back Where It All Began: Trade Shows, Tragedy, and Turning Points | OnAire Podcast
In this episode of the OnAire Podcast, hosts Jordan and Taylor take you behind the scenes of SonicAire’s recent return to The Clean Show in Orlando—one of the laundry industry’s premier events. From early memories at the booth in 2009 to partnering with major brands like Cintas, it’s a nostalgic look at how far SonicAire has come. But this episode isn’t just about looking back. We also discuss a tragic combustible dust explosion in Nebraska that claimed three lives—including two young girls—and what the industry must learn from it. As safety leaders, we reflect on the heartbreaking reality that these events are preventable with the right systems and leadership mindset in place.
What is this OnAire Podcast episode about?
This episode covers SonicAire’s return to The Clean Show, one of the top trade shows in the laundry industry. Hosts Jordan and Taylor share stories from past events, highlight real customer success stories, and explain how trade shows have helped shape product innovation at SonicAire.
Why is combustible dust discussed in this episode?
The team responds to a recent fatal combustible dust explosion in Nebraska, reflecting on how tragedies like this highlight the urgent need for proactive dust control solutions in manufacturing environments.
How does SonicAire help prevent dust explosions?
SonicAire’s patented fans use Dynamic Particle Control to stop overhead dust buildup, keeping facilities cleaner, safer, and in compliance with OSHA and NFPA standards — reducing the need for manual cleaning and helping prevent catastrophic dust events.
What else is featured?
The hosts discuss their partnership with Kansas State University, where SonicAire supports dust safety training and education for future industry leaders.
Should you listen?
Yes — if you’re in operations, EH&S, or leadership at a dust-generating facility, this episode offers practical insights into safety, culture, and the real impact of engineered dust control.
Episode Transcript:
Welcome back to the OnAire Podcast. I’m Jordan.
And I’m Taylor.
And here we are again in the OnAire Studios coming at you live from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. So, it is almost September. Here we are at the end of August. School’s back, school’s in session.
Everybody’s trickling in. The buses are back in traffic now.
Big yellow buses.
You know, all of the good things.
Traffic was a nightmare this morning. Like, big city problems.
Yeah, I thought I could outsmart the GPS. It gave me an alternate route. And so, you know what? I’m smarter than this. Actually, it was a lot worse the opposite way that I went. And so, instead of sitting in five minutes of traffic, I sat in about 45.
Oof, Yeah, the highway I came down this morning had at least three fender bender pileups on it and just, it was a mess.
We don’t do good driving in traffic here in North Carolina. We also don’t do good driving in snow. Really, in any condition, North Carolina drivers are at a handicap.
If it rains.
Yeah, if it’s sunny, whatever you want to say.
Well, cooler weather’s here. And hats off to you. You beat me to it. You’re breaking out the SonicAire vest this year. I love vest season, cooler weather.
It’s an opportunity for me to actually feel like I’m pulling fall towards me. That’s the best time of the year, hands down, no contest. And if it’s going to be around that temperature, even though I know probably after this weekend, it’s going to be 90 degrees again, like 105% humidity for the next six weeks into October. And this is like a little fake fall. I don’t care. I’m going to take advantage of it.
Yeah, and I feel like the vest is one of man’s greatest inventions. I feel like I can wear it from 40 degrees to almost 80 degrees and still be okay.
It’s socially acceptable if nothing else.
That’s true.
And nobody can see you sweating anyway, so.
It’s true. Speaking of sweating, I was in Orlando last week. It was not too bad for Orlando in August. I have to be honest, but it was warmer than it is here. It was awesome. We were there for the Clean Show again, once again. Been at the clean show every year since 2009 that they’ve had it.
If we zoom back to 2009, I don’t even think you were employed.
That is correct. Yeah, that was my trial run. Brad said, “Hey, I need some help. Are you available?” And I took a couple days off my other job and came to help Brad at the booth. And that’s where we got to meet Cintas. They’ve been a great partner ever since. I didn’t even know what a fan was. I was just kind of there to pass out brochures and shake some hands.
A warm body.
That’s right. Keep people engaged while Brad was talking to somebody else, and he could come over and answer questions and things like that.
I mean, he was there with an order book and-
Oh man, we were swiping credit cards. He had one of those credit card machines where you lay down the carbon copy thing and run the thing over top of it, old school. And then the badge scanners were nothing like they are now. Now they’re on an app on your phone, which is super convenient. And back then you had to get people, “Can I scan your badge?” And they would have to pull their badge out of this plastic sleeve and hand it to you, and you would dunk it down in this machine. And then it would print it out on this ticker tape thing and then you’d have to come home and then type up all the leads and the email addresses from the ticker tape.
It’s basically like the old accounting calculator. You get the carbon copy.
Which I’m sure was an advancement beyond just handing out business cards, but not much.
Yeah, it is pretty amazing how everything has changed, especially with the clean show, because that’s one of our favorite ones to go to all the time. People get there, they know us, we’re very involved in that industry, and we have had even customers help us through design challenges for them, working through, we talked about Cintas, designing some of our equipment specific to their needs.
But yeah, you were there in 2009, didn’t know what a fan was, didn’t know we would be doing a podcast about it, however many years later. But yeah, almost nostalgic going back to that at this point.
It really is. And you walk in, and I have to take myself back to the first time I went, which I was kind of like a kid in there, just…a washing machine that’s like 40 feet long, a tunnel washer, they put dirty clothes in one end and they get tumbled back and forth with this big screw thing in the middle of it, and then they roll out the end and they’re clean. And then a dryer that is just massive, and you put it in the big dryers and then these little steam things, they puff your shirt out and take all the wrinkles out.
The laundry industry is really cool to me. It was one of the first places that I went to go help with some customer facing thing when I first started here. And we were taking a fan down, hanging a fan, I don’t remember. But just kind of a cool industry. Because I was watching it and I’m like, I need to get hooked up with these guys and drop my clothes off because this thing is like folding it and pressing it and steaming them as they’re coming through. And it’s all automated, and they just catch it on the other side, they bag it up, and it goes back to the hotels or the resorts or whatever. But yeah, definitely just an interesting thing that people aren’t aware of. And it’s one of those things that’s going on behind the scenes most of the time because I never once thought like, hey, where does my towel go at when I’m at the hotel? And they come and clean the room.
And here’s the cool thing, I got to stay in a hotel, it was the Rosen Center right across from the conference center. And I then found out after I was staying there that the Rosen Center actually has some of our fans in their laundries.
Oh wow.
So that was cool, I was drying off or whatever with a towel. And I’m like, huh, this is in a laundry that’s been protected and cleaned with Sonic Air fans. Pretty cool, it’s all full circle. We had a lot of customers come by the booth and people that didn’t need anything, they were just walking around and said, took time out of their day to stop by and say, hey, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever bought for my laundry. And I get asked all the time, how do these things work and that sort of thing. And they have said, don’t even think about it. Don’t ask how much it is, don’t worry about it, just buy it, buy it now. And it was so awesome to have those conversations with existing customers and get to hear their story.
Yeah, that is really cool. And you know, we’ve talked about trade shares a few times on here and I think me and you geek out about them a little bit. Because we do get those opportunities just to talk with those customers and see what’s going on with them.
I was in Indiana yesterday at a customer facility and, you know, it’s one of those things where we get to ask those questions like, what do you need? Because we know how to do the ceilings and take care of all that dust stuff. But there’s new areas that we’re getting introduced to through certifications or just like, hey, we have this problem now. Like, you’ve taken care of this, now how can you handle these things? And that’s always just a cool question. Sometimes it’s like, I’m not trying to sell it to you, I’m just engineer brain here, trying to figure out how to get from A to B. So, like, what would be helpful?
And I think the Clean Show is a great example of that with all the product elements coming from there.
Yeah, it was fun. It’s fun to be back. And we had a great team there all four days. It was just good, good times, good to be with. Good to be in the industry again, back out there, where we all started, where SonicAire started. That was the beginning.
All right, let’s talk about the news a little bit. Unfortunately, we were talking about another tragic combustible dust incident. Earlier this month in Nebraska, there was an explosion that claimed the life of a father and two little girls, one 12, one 8. I’m a dad of two girls. And just a couple of years ago, they would have been about that same age for both of them. And just heartbreaking, heartbreaking tragedy.
It’s sad. And it’s tough kind of being on our side of the fence in the safety world, in the combustible dust area, just because you know that things don’t have to happen this way. And we’re not even trying to plug our equipment at this point because we don’t know if we would have been able to help or not, but it just sucks because you know that something could have happened. Somebody could have done something differently. Some process could have been shorn up. Because these things, they don’t just magically happen. It’s a buildup and a process. One of the things going through and looking at this is that this is not their first time getting pinged for something with dust.
Yeah, previous OSHA fines.
Probably 10, 15 years ago, they got pinged for having some dust accumulation problems. And it’s not easy. It’s not cheap. It’s not always the most efficient thing to do, to put in these barriers, these sensors, these fans, dust collection, whatever, it’s hard. It is. But at the end of the day, you have to. Or you end up in the situation where you have a tragedy and a loss of life. But it goes so much further than that because in some way, thankfully they were the only ones there. It could have been much, much worse. But what you have coming out of this is you have an entire community impacted. You’ve got the personal side of things and all of the broken pieces from that. You have a facility that’s in the middle of a town that is, it’s disrupting everything.
And then you have people that work there. What are they doing? How are they going to provide and go through and hit these things? But it just is, it’s tragic. And it sucks all around because of how many things it impacts. And it’s a great reminder that even when it’s difficult, even when it’s hard, even when it’s expensive, these are the things that we have to take care of. Because us working in management here and things like that, the people that report to us or we get the opportunity to lead and stuff is like, they’re our priority.
That’s right. It’s our responsibility.
Their safety, their wellbeing, whatever it is, that’s kind of our first responsibility here.
And unfortunately, a lot of this stuff comes down to money. It’s all a financial problem. It’s all a money problem. And it’s where you’re willing to invest your money and spend your money. I’m sure these facility owners knew that there was something they could do. They were aware of the problem. And for whatever reason, they chose not to invest money in a solution to create a safer work environment.
Yeah, and it is tough. Because I work in ops, yeah, we’ve said that all the time. And that’s got its fun things. You get to solve the problems and process things through and fine tune these little details that make you more efficient. But a lot of times there is a capital expense that goes with it. And so, you have to work through those things. But if you can’t set this baseline that we’re going to provide a safe work environment, that has a direct impact on company culture. It has a direct impact on who you’re able to recruit into your building and show what you actually care about.
Because it doesn’t just stop with who’s in the building. We spend more time together than we do with our families just because of how our work system is structured and everything. But my family cares about how my work environment is too. And so especially out in the Midwest where all of these grain elevators are, and this was a bioenergy and fuel kind of place. But they have to be on this heightened alert. I mean, we’ve talked about it to no extent. Brad, when he started the company, he was talking about growing up in Kansas. This is a different type of facility, but there’s a constant fear that something is going to happen.
Yeah. And last time we got together, we were talking with Andy Rice from Reeb, and he’s their health and safety manager. And he was explaining to us how safety is a core value for them. It’s at the heart of everything they do. It’s out in front. Everybody in the organization is aware of that. And they take efforts to create a safer work environment. And it shows.
And you have to. You have to start with your why, and work out to it. And so, like, what’s important to you? Is it just grinding out that bottom dollar, that bottom line number? Or is it actually providing a means for the people that are coming through your doors?
Yeah.
So, the exact ignition source of this explosion hasn’t been determined yet. All signs are pointing to wood dust, wood dust accumulation, possibly some dust collection issues, possibly some dust accumulation and pile up issues, possibly some kind of hot bearing or something like that. We don’t know yet, but of course we’re all in the whole safety community and manufacturing community should be paying close attention to this investigation and what comes out of it. The best we can do at this point is try to learn something so that we don’t repeat it again.
Yeah. And it’s like anything you do in life, even from the point where you start playing T-ball or something, it’s like, you just can’t see an accident or a problem or an error happen and then not do anything about it. Because you’re just going to keep doing the same thing. And we, with Dr. Dust himself, Chris Clooney, his goal of getting through a time where there’s no dust explosions. And it seemed like we were trending in a pretty good direction. I don’t know if it’s just a recency bias thing, but it’s picking up. Like we’re running into these issues again. And you don’t know if it’s economically driven because of economic uncertainty or whatever’s going on. And people trying to cut corners and cut costs and still drive through to get production. Or if somebody feels like they’ve hit a sweet spot with profit and not willing to make a sacrifice to invest in these things. But it is a reminder. It’s like, these things are preventable. And the devastation that they can cause is permanent.
Yeah. And we’ve talked about this before. You can’t hit reset. It’s not a video game. You can’t just back up and start over again. When a dust explosion takes place, it’s catastrophic and it’s final, unfortunately.
Alright, so let’s work together. Let’s learn what we can from tragic events like this. And speaking of learning, you’re headed back to Kansas again to do some training.
Yeah. Speaking of the Midwest, and education. One of the cool partnerships that we’ve been working on here in the past couple of years is working with Kansas State. We have donated some fans and put them into some of those labs out there in the colleges. And since we’ve developed that relationship, we’ve been able to go and help out with, they do a class every year, or here recently, called the Fundamentals of Dust Collection. Which is great. Because we want all of our customers to collect as much as possible, right? We’re in the fugitive dust space. And so, if their dust collection is working well, we’re just going to be there to be a huge benefit and a blessing to the customer.
But if you’re new to dust collection or trying to improve on your processes, I was able to go to this class last year and it was just a wealth of information. And we get to go help and talk on safety and, what about the extra stuff that doesn’t get collected. But it’s been a really great relationship, and they’re in the middle of building a new facility, and we’re going to get some more fans in there just to help out. And we may even get a surprise podcast guest out of it. Shout out to Jonathan. You know who you are and where you’re at. But we’re super excited to get him.
Teaser?
Yeah, because he’s just a wealth of knowledge in that space. And so, it’s really cool to be able to partner with him and other universities. We’ve done several others. And so, it’s a cool opportunity, and I’m excited to head out there and try and shed some light on what’s going on in the world and help people prevent these kind of problems.
So, if people want to attend that, can they go to K-State in their bulk powder handling department?
Yep, it’s out of the K-State Olathe. It’s in Salina, that area in Kansas. Yeah, there should be registration there.
Cool. Register online, come check it out. Come see Taylor and learn more about dust control and dust management.
Oh yeah. We’ll teach you something. We’ll find out how valuable it is. But we’ll teach you something.
All right, that wraps us up. Thanks for attending. Thanks for checking us out. We appreciate you and all the work you’re doing out there in the world to create a safer, healthier, more efficient workplace for you and your facility as well as everyone out there in the world. So, thanks for watching. Give us a like and subscribe wherever you’re following us online so more people can find us. So, without any further ramblings, I’m Jordan. I’m Taylor. Thanks for watching.