About Us
Our story
Have you ever walked into a guest room only to be immediately hit with the stale smell of smoke, musty odors of mold, or other unpleasant scents? This is where the FreshAir Sensor story begins.
Our founder, Jack O’Toole had spent decades traveling the world in his role leading specialized units in the United States Marine Corp — visiting nearly 50 different countries over the years. A common and unfortunate component of his travels and hotel stays was poor air quality and lingering in-room odors that immediately started the guest experience on the wrong foot.
Fast forward a few years, and while studying at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, Jack stumbled upon a solution to the problem. In a presentation by Dartmouth Chemistry Professor Dr. Joe BelBruno, a global expert on molecularly sensitive polymers, he learned of new molecular sensor technology that could be utilized to monitor for and specifically detect tobacco and marijuana smoke at the molecular level. Eureka!
Jack and Joe began looking at existing smoking detection solutions available in the industry, and immediately determined that the simplistic and outdated particle or optical detector technology available in the industry was inaccurate, prone to false positives, and completely insufficient to solve the smoking challenge. They realized that Joe’s molecular sensor — which can only be triggered by tobacco and marijuana molecules and nothing else — could not only provide 100% accuracy of smoking detection, but could also offer indisputable scientific proof of smoking to help ensure hoteliers could successfully charge cleaning fees for unauthorized smoking. Joe also pointed out that they could build a device that could do other interesting things as well, such as monitoring in-room temperature, humidity, VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), etc. Thus, the FreshAir Sensor was born.
Joined by Trip Davis, an experienced entrepreneur with decades of leadership in developing successful travel technology companies, FreshAir Sensor has set a new standard in tobacco and marijuana sensor technology for hospitality.
But the story doesn’t end there. Today, with a dedicated and talented team of chemists, engineers, and client experience managers, FreshAir Sensor continues to explore new applications for molecular sensor technology at our Lebanon, New Hampshire laboratories and production facilites. With research into car rental, industrial, energy, waste management, and other applications, the rest of the FreshAir Sensor story is yet to be written.
Leadership
Trip Davis
CEO
Jack O'Toole
Founder and President
Dr Joe BelBruno
Founder and Chief Science Officer