Pandemic-era demand for clean air brings business boom upstate
By Brian Dwyer Northern NY
PUBLISHED 6:17 AM ET Jan. 10, 2022 -
SOURCE - https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/watertown/news/2022/01/10/north-country-air-filtration-businesses-thriving-in-pandemic-2022
For more than 30 years, a small, family-owned company in Oswego County has worked to improve air quality inside of commonly used buildings. Until the last two years, it wasn’t all that important to many.
Now of course, it’s one of the most important things we think about amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Healthway Family of Brands in Pulaski is teaming up with a western New York company to introduce a new filtration system — one that, as testing has shown, can clean an entire classroom in less than 15 minutes.
What You Need To Know
-Healthway Family of Brands has operated in Central New York for 30 years, but the COVID-19 outbreak has shown how important its work truly is.
-Healthway is teaming up with Stark Tech of Western New York to innovate air cleaning technology
-As a result, Healthway is adding a new assembly facility and 70-100 jobs in Pulaski
“The average student will spend close to 15,000 hours in a classroom between kindergarten and when they graduate high school. Knowing that they are in these spaces day in and day out we want to make sure that, not just K-12 and higher [education], but also other commercial spaces are optimal from an indoor air quality standpoint,” Stark Tech Vice President of Business Development Andrew Weidert said.
The more we learn about COVID, the more we understand the importance of clean air.
It’s long been the goal Healthway Family of Brands — which as new variants continue to invade us, is partnering with Stark Tech, to come up with the latest technology to keep our indoor spaces clean.
“Every system is tested to guarantee that level of ultra-fine particle remover, but also so that it is much more energy-efficient. So as the world looks at adopting these solutions through multiple, vertical markets, it's really important that they’re not only effective in what they take out of the space but also energy efficient so we are not adding extra energy costs,” Healthway’s Vinny Lobdell said.
A new filtration system that is being assembled here in Pulaski in Healthway’s facilities is helping keep a small community economically viable.
“This is where it all started and we feel it's really important as we grow to continue to, you know, our success should be the community’s success,” Lobdell said.
As Healthway and Stark continue to improve the technology, the demand for it, specifically this brand new Fan Filtration Unit, is already exploding. With the demand of these new machines likely to reach more than 50 to 100 a day, that means Healthway itself has to grow.
“We’re local companies and our success has been the community getting behind us, so we’re very adamant about making sure that we stay here and add jobs to the local community because again, much of our success is because of this local community,” Lobdell said.
Anywhere from 70 to 100 jobs will be coming into a new facility Healthway is building, in part, to help assemble the new machine.
“At Stark Tech, we really evaluated all the solutions you could apply for better indoor air quality, and quite frankly we really didn’t see one that was best in class for commercial spaces and also applicable in mission-critical spaces,” Weidert said of his company’s desire to join forces with Healthway.
The goal is for the FFU to change that. It’s something that not only Central and Northern New York is rooting for, but frankly, the entire world as the pandemic continues to wage on.
Healthway’s international business has exploded since the beginning of COVID, even sending machines to Tokyo ahead of the Olympic Games. Stark meanwhile, is also busy putting its filter technology into the Olympic facilities in Lake Placid, which are currently undergoing major renovations.