Welcome - My First Blog Post

Hello All,
I would like to say "welcome", and that this is the very first posting in the "Live_and_Breathe_Better_in_LA" blog.

In order to formally introduce myself, my name is Darrell Smith and I currently reside in Southern California.

Up until January 2007, I was the Director of Applications Engineering for a Semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. Basically, my job was to manage a large team of Hardware Design, Software Development and Application Support Engineers and to (ultimately) make life designing our semiconductor chips into telecommunication systems as "pain-free" a process as possible for our customers. After resigning from the company, I (after taking some time off) decided to start up my own business.

Before I proceed much further, allow me to exercise "full disclosure" and confirm that I am a representative with a company called Ecoquest International. Ecoquest International is a company that sells (among other things) Air Purification technology.

There has been a fair amount of things that have said and written about the Air Purifiers from Ecoquest across many different web and blog posts. Some of the information is true and some of it is not true. I will make it a valiant attempt (on my part) to be as honest as I possibly can be on all of the issues surrounding the Air Purifiers from Ecoquest. The goals of this effort is to (hopefully) provide the readership with some clarity on many of the points that have been raised by the authors of some of these other postings.

I suspect that on some controversial issues (such as the use of Ozone - in some of our Air Purification products) I am not going to change any minds. I can accept and respect that. In these postings on this blog, my goal is to discuss and provide clarity on the following topics.

1. To (certainly) talk about the Ecoquest family of Air Purification Products. In particular, I want to discuss the following items about these products.
a. What they can do
b. What they cannot do
c. Some Ozone-free options that are available (if the topic of an Ozone producing Air Purifier is objectionable to you or if you live in Canada or in the State of California).

2. IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) Challenges within the Home
a. Mold
b. Toxic allergens (such as Smoke, dust, etc.).
c. Chemical gases and fumes (within the home)

3. Emerging Viruses and Bacteria (that in some cases, can be addressed with some of Ecoquest's Air Purification Technology). Some of this included (but is not limited to).
a. MRSA
b. H5N1 and H1N1
c. Colds
d. Foodborne Viruses such as eColi and Salmonella

4. How Ecoquest's family of Air Purification products "stack up" against that of our competition.

5. California's Law on Ozone Producing Air Purification machines and what that means for Ecoquest.

NOTE: I expect to write extensively on these topics over the next few weeks. However, the topics that I may write will not necessarily be limited to this topics.

Well, that wasn't too painful for a first Blog. In my next posting, I am going to begin with the process of discussing the capability of each of the Air Purification products that Ecoquest Manufactures.