My name is Kellen Gurniak and I am the Director of Marketing at Ram Air Gear Dryer.
My objective is to connect with fire departments in North America about the positive long term health benefits of properly handling and cleaning contaminated bunker gear.
Our emphasis has always been on a fast, durable and adaptive equipment that can be used by fire departments of any size.
When Lance designed the first bunker gear dryer for his department 25 years ago, he had first-hand experience of the environment and what was required of a bunker gear dryer so that firefighters could depend on it.
His approach was firefighter centric, focus on what they need and would benefit from and design it around those needs.
You know the challenges that go along with a piece of equipment, whether it’s time, space or power concerns- even worries about how it is used.
This makes it easier for our products to connect with firefighters because our Founder and President is interwoven with the profession.
He is someone who has walked in their boots and has lived their life for 30 years.
Long dry times for bunker gear have always been a reason for firefighters to skip washing their bunker gear.
However, the percentage of firefighters that face various forms of cancer linked to their time serving as a firefighter is staggering.
Kellen Gurniak
By providing a dryer that can dry bunker gear as fast as they can wash it, we hope that less firefighters will wash their gear without hesitation.
It’s one small contribution we can make but it can be an important one over the length of a firefighters career.
Our focus as a company has always been on fast dry times. Ram Air Gear Dryer’s s fast dry times mean that firefighters can get their washed, dried and put back together in their locker for the next time they need it.
Our heated dryers fully comply with NFPA guidelines, but some departments may have internal restrictions on equipment or they don’t have the power requirement in the stations infrastructure to run a heated dryer.
Our Ambient Dryers are a great match for these departments. We make dryer capacity recommendations based on the departments extractor capacity, so that the department is able to wash it, dry it and put it back together for storage without slowing down!
Fire departments rely on the standards developed and implemented by NFPA. Part of the NFPA 1850 combined standard covers how bunker gear should be dried.
Air temperature must not exceed 105°F when drying bunker gear and our dryers comply with that standard.
With a couple of safeguards in place to monitor the air temperature, firefighters can trust that their gear will be dried quickly, without compromising the integrity or longevity of their gear.
The fire service is made up of selfless individuals who put their life on the line for their community members, something they truly believe in.
Our Hometown Heroes Grant is all about protecting the long-term health and safety of those who do so much for us.
Kellen Gurniak
The Grant is especially beneficial for fire departments who face budget constraints. They may rely on grant applications to get the equipment they need to save lives.
The Hometown Heroes Grant is a way for us to give back. The number of applicants is overwhelming because you realize how many departments need a turnout gear dryer.
Every year, hundreds of millions in grant funding is awarded across the United States, through both publicly and privately funded grants.
We have partnered with a grant assistance program to help fire departments find grants they can apply for, help create a narrative and review to ensure that their best application is submitted.
Our Special-Ops Gear Dryer can be used for bunker gear as well as immersion or hazmat suits or suits that have attached boots and gloves and need to be dried inverted.
These suits can be challenging to clean properly, so we put together a decontamination package to both clean these suits with a detergent and then rinse the suits before placing them on the dryer.
Looking ahead at the next five years our goal is to continue to get our message out across the world.
We have been selling globally for a number of years now, but with INTERSCHUTZ on the horizon in 2026 we are putting a real emphasis on global expansion beyond our current North American presence.
Kellen Gurniak
This will be our first time exhibiting at INTERSCHUTZ and are excited to present our dryers to new countries.
Personally, I am super excited to meet all the firefighters from across the world and to hear the different challenges that may be faced during a structure fire in cities that are hundreds of years old.
