Page 18 - BusinessWest February 3, 2025

Excel Dryer’s leaders aimed to make the recent office renovation both energy-efficient and human-centric.
Photo courtesy of Excel Dryer
sink — along with paper towels.
“That’s the best of both worlds; it doesn’t have to be one or the
other — it can be both,” he told BusinessWest. “You put the dryer next to the faucet for hand drying, and if people need paper for any- thing else or just to dry their hands, it’s there.”
Such hybrid systems could be a viable alternative for the archi- tects and business owners still favoring paper, he said, citing the case of the USDA headquarters in Washington, a 1 million-square- foot building where bathrooms with two sinks and two towel dis-
pensers were switched to two sinks, one towel dispenser, and one high-speed hand dryer.
“They ran the stats, and it led to one fewer full dumpster load of waste per week,” he noted. “That equated to a $30,000-a-year savings in waste alone, just from the dumpster fees, not even looking at the cost of buying, shipping, and installing paper towels, and this is something we’re educating architects
on.”For this issue and its focus on manu- facturing and construction, we talked with Gagnon about the XLERATOR and its continued evolution, as well as the Excel company, how far it’s come over the past 25 years or so, and where the growth potential lies as David continues to battle Goliath.
Air Apparent
Turning block the clock to January 2020, Gagnon recalled watching the
news on television, having his eyes diverted to a crawler at the bot- tom of the screen, and seeing some reference to a coronavirus in China.
He couldn’t have imagined what was to come, but he already knew that this was real trouble for his company and his sector.
And he was right.
With the world soon laser-focused on controlling the spread of germs, the high-speed hand dryer was soon to come under more scrutiny than ever, with orders for the products slowing and long- time clients asking questions about just how safe they were to use.
“The pandemic was a gift that fell right into the paper industry’s lap,” Gagnon explained. “They’d been saying that hand dryers blow
“The pandemic was a gift that fell right into the paper industry’s lap.”
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David Ference
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18 FEBRUARY 3, 2025 << MANUFACTURING & CONSTRUCTION >>
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