Butler company's switches save lives
BUTLER — BWI Eagle's electronic remotes have saved lives on transit rails, on airfields and in coal mines worldwide.
David Festog, president and senior engineer, said these products are his favorite out of all of the wireless remotes and electronic specialty products he produces at BWI.
The assembly of the 90-plus products at BWI happens in the shop, something Festog said sets his company apart from others.
"A lot of companies import products," Festog said. "Maybe they assembled pieces, but they didn't design it from the ground up like us."
BWI also custom makes products, often on the same day.
"With other businesses, this is how it works, and they can't change it," Festog said. "But we can take our products and change it for no additional cost."
Festog designed one of the life-saving products for coal preparation plants — the Air Eagle Wireless Stop Switch.
Festog had heard of incidences where bulldozer operators could be buried alive while moving coal over large surge piles. The coal is supplied to the bulldozer by conveyor belts.
If an air pocket forms in the pile of coal, the coal could possibly sink with the dozer on top of it. If no one noticed, the coal would continue to pile up because the worker would be unable to get out.
However, with BWI's stop switch, if the worker gets into trouble, he can push a wireless stop button that sends a signal to the plant and automatically shuts down the conveyor belt distributing the coal to the worker's site.
"We had a niche market we developed," he said.
Another life-saving product is a Portable ProTracker, an audible and visible wireless alarm for transit rails.
When the wheels of the transit cars run over the alarm, it sends a signal to a worker's portable receiver to alert them that a train is coming.
If a train is going 100 mph and is about 15 seconds away, the sensor alerts the worker, giving him or her time to get off the track.
"You'd think, 'Oh, a train, you'd hear that coming,' " Festog said. "But these are mostly people movers that are much quieter than say, a locomotive."
Festog said there was a fatality on the Washington, D.C., subway where a worker backed away from one track and stepped onto another track into an oncoming train.The sensor can be completely submerged in water with no damage. It also is completely solid, keeping dirt out.BWI also makes remote controls for military Humvees.The army simulates roadside bomb situations for its trainees. Festog said the natural instinct is to accelerate if a roadside bomb goes off.However, when a bomb goes off, it usually disables the vehicle. BWI's device shuts off the Humvee through a remote during the simulation, training the soldiers to find another solution."The remote receiver is under the seat of each Humvee," Festog said. "Most of the guys don't even know it's there."Another remote comes in handy at airports. Pittsburgh International Airport is one airport that has a system in which light poles around the airfield change from green to yellow to red as lightning gets closer. The control towers can see the lights, but sometimes the workers can't.If the workers don't have their radios on, often the control tower can't alert them to the oncoming storm.BWI's device hooks up to the light system and wirelessly transmits the alerts to multiple receivers around the airport so the plane personnel can see a flashing warning beacon to tell them of the storm.BWI ships its products by UPS all over the United States and Canada. Festog also said the Internet has given him customers who never would have found him otherwise, such as Disney World, NASA and NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.Festog said Earnhardt couldn't find a remote that would reach far enough to allow him to turn on his landing pad lights from his helicopter. He found his solution in BWI Eagle, which made such a remote.Technological advances have helped his company as well. Festog said the company used to have to hand-wire everything, but now can use computers to configure his products.Festog got his start in the business when he worked as a technician at the Mindel Corp. in Monroeville, a company that made transformers.When it went out of business, there was still a viable market for the coal industry, and Festog went to work at Butler Winding Inc. in 1988.BWI Eagle began under its umbrella and took its initials from the company, a manufacturer of transformers. It separated in 1991 and moved to Route 422.It's been on Pillow Street for four years, but Festog said it's growing out of the building more quickly than he anticipated.Festog plans to keep expanding the business and to let more people know about the numerous products that are made there.
