2019_PWN_V1_No4-web

Aerial
Advantage
Softwashing drones built by
North Carolina-based Lucid Drone
Technologies promise to make
businesses more efficient
BY DREW RUBLE
In a recent Forbes magazine article
titled “The Future of Work: Humans
+ Gigs + Robots are the New Blended
Workforce,” author Jeanne Meister explored
how it’s “humans AND machines
who comprise the new blended workforce,
not humans VS. machines.”
Meister highlights the new category
of jobs emerging that blend blue collar
work with digital know-how, which she
defined as “New Collar jobs.”
“What is needed” she says, “is the
ability to re-imagine how [businesses]…
invest in learning and development…
and nurture a new blended workforce.”
Twenty-somethings Andrew Ashur,
David Danielson, and Adrian Mayans
clearly see that same future for the pressure
washing industry. Together, the millennial
entrepreneurs co-founded Lucid
Drone Technologies near Charlotte,
North Carolina shortly after graduating
from Davidson College. Their mission?
To swell technology use in the pressure
washing industry in an effort to lower
costs, increase efficiency, and transform
blue collar into new collar.
Andrew Ashur David Danielson Adrian Mayans
A BETTER
WAY
It all started one day while the three
budding entrepreneurs were driving into
Charlotte. That’s when they happened
to witness a pressure wash operator
hanging off of the side of a tall building
in order to clean it.
“We basically said, ‘wow, that literally
looks like the worst job in the world.
With modern technology there has to
be a better way to do this,’” Mayans recalled.
“We started doing some research
into the space and quickly realized a
glaring market inefficiency.”
Enter drones.
Ashur, Danielson, and Mayans – all
certified remote drone pilots through the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
– quickly set out to service the industry
with custom building cleaning drones.
The trio spent countless hours on the
Davidson campus in open areas testing
the mathematics inherent to using
drones as a cleaning device.
Each drone is tethered and is constantly
being fed the fluids necessary to
clean from a soft wash pump on the back
of a truck. The drone’s cleaning method
is soft washing, which uses a low pressure
solution (60 to 100 PSI) instead of blasting
a surface with 3000 to 4000 PSI. It’s
all about relying on responsible chemistry
to treat stains, whether it’s brick,
limestone, roofs, or any other surface.
“The product development cycle was
long. You think about a tethered system
where the softwashing hose is attached to
the drone… it’s variable payload – every
successive foot you go higher, you’re car-
6 | PRESSURE WASH NEWS | VOL. 1, NO. 4 | FALL 2019