Dave Kjederquist, Director of Sales at Swenson, said, “It seems funny now, but those were different times. Originally, Swenson didn’t want anything to do with the anti-icing equipment. The early formulas that ensured good performance (including the correct placement and distance of the pumps to the sprayers) added a lot of tricky variables that made it tough to develop a reliable design.”
An Idea Forms
Ernie Kois offered, “The ideas that started to appear in the industry about liquid sprayers for snow and deicing really came from the developments in sprayers on the agricultural side. At that time, we were making our own poly tanks with our own molds, and we started experimenting with a variety of different ways to apply the technology to deicing because nobody was doing liquid. For the prototype, we had 1,300 gallons of liquid on an 8-yard sander. We ended up buying the sanders from Swenson with extended front rails. Then we stacked two 500-gallon tanks from Super Products on the front.”
Dave continued, “With Kois Brothers and others continuing to push the technology, Swenson started seeing a viable opportunity to step into the liquid sprayer market. In 1996, we worked with Kois and won a state contract for 35 deicers. Although the original Swenson/Kois design worked very well, the designs would continue to evolve.”
Dave added, “Later, in 2009, Scott (Kois) came to the Swenson facilities several times and assisted our engineers with some of his newer ideas about the technology. He helped us design the frame and leg stand and how those pieces could all turn and collapse inside. It was a challenging design, but despite our early hesitation, it got done and ended up being successful.”
“However,” Gary Kois offered with a smile, “that early design was so strong (and heavy) you could park a tank on it.”
A Lasting Partnership
Everyone agreed that the relationship between Swenson and Kois Brothers has been very valuable. Today, the liquid sprayer technology that began development with Kois Brothers has evolved into a highly efficient and reliable system, one that continues to set the standard in the industry. “It's not just about building products, it's about building relationships,” Dave added. “It’s a partnership that has lasted because we continue to innovate together, pushing boundaries to create solutions that work for our customers. Success is helped a lot by teamwork — friendship doesn’t hurt either.”
