They call themselves old fogies, but two owners of a small start-up company in Stiles are keeping pace with other entrepreneurs in the Midwest with their one-of-a-kind water purification system.
The husband-and-wife business team of Jim Gilmet and Mariannna “Yana” DeMyer have developed Roving Blue, a 25-pound, portable purification unit capable of supplying clean drinking water for 190 people a day.
Gilmet and DeMyer hope their device will one day be used for humanitarian work and eventually military operations. Their most recent prototype is being shown to distributors in Alaska, Africa and Australia.
“What we do is fill a gap,” DeMyer said. “There are a million products that are small and designed for a few people. Then there are water purification systems that serve thousands of people, so ours is a niche product.”
“This is extremely different from our competition,” Gilmet said. “We are really excited about it. You can put this in any lake, river or stream. We have even tested it in the sewer.”
Their innovative product caught the attention of Autodesk, a company famous for AutoCAD and other design software. DeMyer learned last week Roving Blue has been selected as one of 25 companies to be a “fast track” company, which qualifies it for design assistance, mentoring and technical support to get its machine to manufacturing — and to market, faster.
In June, Gilmet and DeMyer finished third of 300 competitors in the advanced manufacturing division of the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest, which earned them scholarships to the Cleantech Open, a national accelerator and business competition.
“Third place out of 300 people, that was really neat. We were pretty excited,” DeMyer said.
Their scholarships will cover the $525 per person entrance fee to the Cleantech Open, a five-month competition that started in July. It requires contestants to go through a customer discovery process, create a plan stating how their business will help solve a major problem and attend at least one forum, either in San Francisco or New York.
Gilmet and DeMyer attended both forums to help them learn where to focus their efforts.
“It was rigid and quite intensive,” Gilmet said. “They hardly give you a chance to go to the bathroom.”
“We were kind of the old fogies in the group, quite honestly. There were a lot of young, techie people,” said DeMyer, 51. Gilmet is 59.
The couple made it to the semifinals in the Midwest competition, which places them in the final 75. The next Midwest division will take place in Chicago in late October. If Gilmet and DeMyer finish as finalists in Chicago, they will go back to San Francisco in November for the national finale to compete for a $200,000 grand prize.
To help develop their system, Gilmet and DeMyer requested a business loan from the Oconto County Economic Development Corporation. They demonstrated the system for an OCEDC subcommittee, using water from their pond.
“Our feeling was that (Gilmet and DeMyer) represent the kind of entrepreneurial drive we want to promote in Oconto County. I think they are going to be very successful,” said Paul Ehrfurth, executive director of OCEDC. It was Ehrfurth who encouraged Gilmet and DeMyer to enter the governor’s competition.
The County Board on Aug. 21 approved a business development revolving loan of $50,000 for five years at 2.6 percent interest.
Gilmet and DeMyer created their first prototype in 2012 while visiting a friend in the Alaskan wilderness. They started with a previously built machine and altered it to work in the elements.
“Yana was kind of the inventor and MacGyvered the whole thing together,” Gilmet said, referring to the ingenuity of TV’s secret agent Angus MacGyver. “Bags were hanging from the ceilings, and water was dripping into things all over, but it worked.”
DeMyer is a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a degree in science communication.
Upon returning to Wisconsin, the couple began working on a second prototype, which they took to Las Vegas for a shooting, hunting and outdoor trade show. They developed two more prototypes this year.
Almost all components of the Roving Blue unit are made locally or in the U.S.
“There is a lot of talent around here. That is one of the reasons I tried to use as many local suppliers as I could,” DeMyer said.
Jim Ash of Custom Medal Specialists in Oconto Falls has been great for providing materials for the unit, she said.
The unit pumps water through four levels of mechanical filtration before sending it through an ozone generator, Gilmet and DeMyer’s “secret sauce.”
Ozone is an oxidant one-and-a-half times more powerful than chlorine and is often used in bottled water for sanitation. DeMyer said they create ozone using water rather than air, which allows their device to overcome problems with altitude and humidity that affect devices that create ozone with air.
“You can really take our system anywhere and get clean water,” DeMyer said. “It’s highly effective against things like bacteria and viruses.”
Roving Blue employs one part-time and three full-time workers and several independent contractors. DeMyer expects the staff to grow to six to eight full-time employees in about three years. In addition to Roving Blue, Gilmet and DeMyer run White Knight Commercial Funding and Midwest Koi at their Stiles home.
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