While working a house fire in 2010 as a firefighter paramedic for the Pattonville Fire Protection District, Jason Cerrano had an idea that would change his life.
“It’s not a big hero story,” Cerrano said. “It was just a little bit of smoke coming out of the eaves, and (the crew) wasn’t calling for water very quickly, and I just spent a lot of time going in circles around the truck.”
Cerrano did not lack urgency. The fire panel that controls the truck’s water flow faced the street, obscuring his view of the fire. He was responsible for operating the pump, but he felt isolated from the rest of the crew.
“You can only listen to the radio,” he said. “And this was probably my fourth trip around the truck and I was like, ‘Man, there has to be a better way.’
He thought the solution would be to install a pump panel on both sides of the truck. “The only way to do this was to digitize it, and once I got to that point I realized it was now possible to automate it now that everything is connected.”
That thought started Cerrano, a native of Quincy, Illinois, and current resident of Lake St. Louis, on a years-long journey that led him to invent the SAM control system. Similar to a tablet, the fully digital interface controls how a fire truck pumps, sucks and discharges water.
The SAM Control System (SAM stands for Simple Apparatus Management) is now used in more than 120 fire departments across the country. Many of these departments are concentrated in the St. Louis area, including Cahokia Heights, New Athens, Mascoutah, Glen Carbon, Rolla, Maryland Heights and O’Fallon, Missouri.
The SAM control system in Freeburg, Illinois
Hans Mueller, fire chief of the Freeburg Fire Protection District in St. Clair County, Illinois, first learned about the SAM control system at a trade show about eight years ago. years. He was not immediately on board.
Relying on new, fully digital technology was an obstacle. “There’s a lot of electronics and I thought, ‘Man, we have a lot to do on this.’ We have people walking into a burning building and I’m relying on a computer,” Mueller said.
But as the technology evolved, Mueller recognized its potential. Not only did the control system automate what firefighters previously did manually, but he knew it would help his volunteer fire department in rural areas of Freeburg where there are no fire hydrants.
Specifically, Mueller was excited that it would make drawing water easier. This is when firefighters must vacuum up water from a swimming pool, lake, or other water source.
“One of the hardest things we can ask an engineer to do is draw water to supply water to a burning barn or something. It’s a little difficult to do,” he said. “And then you take a guy and you put him in this truck, against another truck and it makes things more complicated.
“With this system, there’s a button you slide that says, ‘I want to be in draft mode.’ I’m slipping this. It knows it has to suck water in to keep pressure from getting in there, but it does all that priming and everything for you,” he said.
The system can also automate switching between different water sources.
“Watching this system do everything for you, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is really good,'” he added. “Those are the moments in an officer or fire chief whenever they’re on these rules-structured fires where you’re crossing all your fingers and toes (hoping) that everything will go well.”
Brian Munoz
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St. Louis Public Radio
Jason Cerrano’s entrepreneurial journey
Cerrano’s journey to the fire service began in the late 1990s when he was a student at Missouri S&T pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering.
“What do you have on your belt?” he asked a friend at a college party, referring to a bulky pager on his belt. “It’s my fire pager,” the friend replied.
“So you’re telling me I can just go sign up tomorrow (to volunteer) and they’ll give me the clothes and put me on the trucks? And he says, ‘Yeah.’
“I loved it,” Cerrano said. “Once I did it and got into the department, it’s hard not to love the job.” He even left the Missouri S&T baseball team to spend more time volunteering with the Rolla Fire Department.
After graduating from college, Cerrano turned down an engineering job and became a firefighter paramedic. He had every intention of retiring as a firefighter until his journey to invention began when his house burned down in 2010.
“It starts with patents,” Cerrano said. He worked with Armstrong Teasdale patent attorneys in Clayton for nearly eight years. “You almost become family with your patent attorneys. »
Once the patents were obtained, Cerrano worked with another local company to develop a video game demonstrating how the technology worked. But it wasn’t until a big trade show in Indianapolis, when firefighters from the St. Louis Fire Department stopped by his booth, that things took off.
“(The St. Louis Fire Department) was in the process of retrofitting all of their trucks to go digital, and they were like, ‘Well, that’s interesting. Maybe you could play with one of the older (trucks) first, and they actually gave me a 1999 Smeal from Engine House No. 10, and they gave me the truck .
Cerrano built a prototype of the SAM control system. The truck was returned to service five months later. “It’s not easy to get a fire truck, especially if you’re going to have to make major modifications to it. So it was really brave of the city of St. Louis to help us,” he said.
Cerrano sold his company to Illinois-based IDEX Fire and Safety in 2018. He continues to work for the company as business manager of research and development. Once the company has a proven track record of reliable delivery of the SAM control system, the next step is to install this technology on more fire trucks.
“Our next biggest challenge is achieving adoption by the fire service,” he said. “No one likes change and firefighters are world famous for their resistance to change. That’s partly for good reason, Cerrano said, because a firefighter’s muscle memory in stressful situations is paramount.
“If there’s enough upside, they’ll find a way to take advantage of it,” he said.
Brian Munoz
/
St. Louis Public Radio
Hear inventor Jason Cerrano and Freeburg Fire Chief Hans Mueller discuss the SAM control system on Saint-Louis live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
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