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Youngstown-rooted Bill Cushwa develops door blockade device
By Kalea Hall
HUDSON
If there is any place that is able to produce a product to protect schools and other organizations it is right here in Northeast Ohio.
This is what Bill Cushwa, whose family has deep roots in Youngstown industrial history, believes. He is founder of National School Control Systems LLC, which created Bearacade Door Control System.
“We have a deep family background in the Mahoning Valley in steel and aluminium,” Cushwa said. “I believe manufacturing a device is in my DNA.”
About a year ago, when Cushwa was on a school- safety board in Hudson as a parent and was a member of the Seton Catholic School board, he came up with the product as an effective way to blockade an office or classroom door.
“I developed the invention, and my business partner and I filed for the patent work,” Cushwa said.
The Bearacade is the device he came up with; it takes eight seconds to put in place and withstands about 5,000 pounds of direct force. In the event of a lockdown situation in a school, the teacher would take the Bearacade, which would be hanging on the wall adjacent to the door that needs to be secured, and anchor it to the floor.
Cushwa and Dave Soulsby partnered with Design Molded Plastics in Twinsburg to use high-impact injection-molded polymers to make the device.
So far, 1,500 have been sold and thousands more are in production.
The product has been marketed primarily to kindergarten-through-12th-grade public schools, but parochial schools, churches and governmental offices also are interested in the product.
“Instead of sitting there and saying someone should do something, I decided to be the one to design and develop [the product],” Cushwa said.
Cushwa has been involved in startup businesses for the past 25 years but never has developed a mechanical device before.
The product has been demonstrated in a few Mahoning County schools and soon will be in Trumbull.
“We are close to having some of [the schools] say yes,” Cushwa said.
Mentor schools recently purchased 500 for the interior doors. Each Bearacade costs $49, but prices can fluctuate depending on the volume purchased.
“While we started off looking at schools, it has really developed into many other markets at this point,” Cushwa said.