GILL — Bus company F.M. Kuzmeskus Inc. needed a way to cheaply, quickly and safely disinfect school buses, so Executive Vice President Pam Reipold turned to another longtime Franklin County employer: Bete Fog Nozzle.
“You couldn’t find a sprayer, a fogger, a mister, anywhere to save your life,” she said this week, citing heightened demand because of the coronavirus pandemic. “We ordered one that’s still on back order. I know the Betes. I called and said, ‘You make fog nozzles. That’s what I need.’”
What followed was eight months of research, development and experimentation, resulting in the Bete Fastpass public area spray system for disinfecting school buses. It’s already approved by state transportation authorities in Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as by school districts it serves including Pioneer Valley Regional, Gill-Montague, Franklin Tech and Erving, Reipold said.
And the system is getting attention from other bus companies and school districts in New England and across the country, said Ted Toothaker, a project engineer with Bete, located in Greenfield.
“We are at the forefront of it at the moment. It looks like it’s going to be a highly demanded product,” he said. “We will likely see quite a few orders. It’ll be good for the business and good for the community.”
The father of two children ages 5 and 8, Toothaker said he understands the importance of the fight against the coronavirus.
“I think the biggest thing (is) having two kids and knowing how hard it is without having school and that social interaction,” he said. “Getting them back in a safe manner was one of my prime directives in the project team.”
It can take 15 to 20 minutes to spray a bus with disinfectant by hand, he said. And that work includes a employee in protective gear potentially exposed to the disinfectant.
The Fastpass system is different. Bete, working with Kuzmeskus, installs tubing and spray nozzles permanently in the bus.
Bete also built a sprayer unit on a little cart with a reservoir for the liquid and an air compressor. The cart can supply disinfecting liquid for two buses at a time.
A technician hooks the cart up to the buses’ tube systems and the disinfecting can be done in five minuets without boarding either bus. The system runs automatically and purges the liquid with a blast of air at the end of its cycle.
The job is done consistently, with full coverage of seats and surfaces, Reipold said. The bus company disinfects each bus twice per school day: after the morning run and after taking the kids home in the afternoon.
Bete is a fourth-generation family company founded in 1950 that makes nozzles for the marine and energy industries, Toothaker said. It has about 160 employees. The nozzles for the buses were specially designed using Bete’s expertise.
Bus companies, including Peter Pan of Springfield, are all reacting to the need to keep buses sanitary.
Kuzmeskus charter motor coaches aren’t on the road right now due to travel restrictions, Reipold said. But they are outfitted with new air-handling equipment, and crews will use ultraviolet light to disinfect the coaches because they have cloth and leather upholstery that won’t work with the sprays.
Kuzmeskus is still installing the Bete equipment on its school buses.
“It’s just been a really great collaboration,” Reipold said. “It’s great to work with a local business like Bete.”
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Getting kids back to school safely: Bete Fog Nozzle, F.M. Kuzmeskus team up on bus disinfection system - MassLive.com
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