Ever an “ideas” man, Jeff Hartman—a tank truck driver by trade—long has tinkered with his equipment, looking for ways to maximize utility.
He first attempted to reinvent himself as an inventor 25 years ago.
In today’s world, people with Hartman’s vision and ambition often are compelled to attempt entrepreneurship by watching ABC TV show Shark Tank, in which business moguls vie for the right to promote, and capitalize on, products with potential. Hartman was inspired by the TV marketers of yesteryear, like Ron Popiel—“Weird Al” Yankovic’s preferred pitchman—Richard Simmons, and, Hartman’s favorite, Billy Mays.
But the Mobile, Ala., native wasn’t truly inspired until tragedy hit too close to home in 2004.
At the time, he was toying with the idea of creating cargo tank baffles that could be removed for cleaning. Then someone he knew was seriously injured after disconnecting a hose they didn’t realize still was under pressure.
“That’s when everything changed, and I went in a different direction,” Hartman recalled.
In the years since, his initial idea has involved into the Xtrasafe Quad Lock camlock, which features a unique four-lever design that prevents full disconnection until a driver or operator is certain the hose is depressurized, and Hartman’s company, Maxisafe Fittings, which he founded with partner George Williamson.
According to Hartman, the Quad Lock improves safety—with a fool-proof, universal design that keeps users in control of every situation, regardless of the circumstances—and saves fleets money by mitigating potential spills. Yet, despite the approval of customers who’ve adopted the fitting, he’s still searching for his George Foreman grill, with skeptical suppliers and a global pandemic conspiring against him.
“It’s a great product he’s got,” said Todd Davison, of Davison Fuels & Oil. “It’s going to go somewhere if he can get the word out.”
Idea’s inception
Hartman’s nearly 30-year driving career includes stints with Davison Oil, Bruce Oakley, Inc., L&B Transport, Action Resources, Superior Bulk Logistics and Suttles Truck Leasing—where inspiration first struck.
“When I left Davison Oil to start doing chemicals, I went from pulling a trailer that had five compartments to a trailer with only one compartment, and the slosh that moves around, from using an ‘open-bore’ tank, makes it an entirely different driving process,” said Hartman, an owner-operator since 1999.
“Slosh can be a real problem, so I started toying with the idea of temporary baffles in chemical tanks, which are open so people can clean them. When you’ve got several compartments in there, it makes the tank virtually impossible to clean, leaving room for contamination. So I was trying to come up with a process where you could have removable baffles, or some type of collapsible baffle, or one that pivots, so you could clean one side, then the other.
“So I kept trying different things, and I felt like I was heading in the right direction.” Then disaster struck a fellow chemical hauler who always was friendly when they crossed paths while unloading, forcing a detour.
“He was a good guy, and it was a really unfortunate circumstance,” Hartman said.
“He had a blowdown valve made onto his fitting, but that one time he forgot to use it, so when he opened the camlock it blew apart, and sent sulfuric acid down his throat. I don’t want to say he lived for two years after that, because he didn’t. He existed.”
Encouraged by his terminal manager to see if he could help prevent someone else from suffering the same fate, Hartman went to work, first mulling the problem going down the road, or while unloading, then brainstorming through sketches—and patented his first design in December 2006. “I was so excited to get it,” Hartman reflected. “I thought once you had a patent, you had it made.”
That wasn’t the case.
His first double-valve camlock went nowhere. It worked well in many applications, including fuel delivery, but viscous products gummed up the mechanism, and liquids that started to thicken above freezing were troublesome. So Hartman went back to the drawing board, producing and patenting several other fittings, including one with a horseshoe-shaped, pressure-activated apparatus with arms that pop up to lock levers under pressure, another with a lockpin design—and one that includes a rubber bladder.
Hartman even invented a rotating spatula Popiel happily would’ve hawked. (See all Hartman’s patents at patents.justia.com/inventor/jeffrey-hartman.)
But try as he might, none of his camlocks worked flawlessly with every product. “That’s the nature of invention,” said Williamson, a patent attorney based in Mobile who began assisting Hartman in 2006. “You don’t hit a home run every time.” But every once in a while, someone does, and Hartman hit his in 2016 with the first iteration of a camlock featuring “cooperating double cam levers,” which—in a lightbulb moment—Hartman thought up after looking outside the fitting, instead of internally, for the solution.
Williamson was so impressed he teamed up with a client for the first time in his 30-year career. “I have a background in environmental engineering and safety, so I recognized the goal with this invention, and the benefits it could offer the industry,” Williamson said. “Even in 2006, when that first design was unsuccessful, I knew a safer camlock could be a great thing for everyone.
“So when he brought me the Quad Lock, there was no question I was interested. I was quite impressed with it, mainly because of its simplicity. It’s an extremely simple design—and by simple, I mean it’s virtually fool-proof.”
Safety innovation
Still, Williamson insisted Hartman hone the idea over the next couple weeks.
“The third time I went back to him, I said, ‘Are you my patent attorney, or are you playing me for a fool?’” Hartman said. “I felt like a sucker at that point. But he wanted me to come up with as many variations as I could, so we could patent all of them, because he felt this was the one that was going to take off.”
The most recent patent on the design, granted in February, 2020, explains the device as “an improved safety camlock fitting having side-by-side double cam levers (with) outer and inner portions, so that when the outer cam levers are opened and the inner cam levers remain closed, the male and female portions of the camlock fitting only slightly separate from each other, allowing the operator to quickly reclose the camlock fitting, if the operator observes that the camlock fitting still contains pressurized material.”
Critically, the Quad Lock works with any material, at any temperature, because the external latches don’t contact the product. “If the thing gets half clogged up with caustic, it still works … because the product is on the inside and the safety mechanism is on the outside,” Hartman said. “So the safety mechanism is unaffected by what’s inside the hose.”
Equally important, the Quad Lock is universally compatible—and its safety assistance is always active.
“You have to open the two outside levers first, so you can’t forget to use it,” Hartman said. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, we put a blowdown valve on it, to doublecheck it, and that’s OK.’ Well, the guy who got hurt—who got this whole thing started—forgot to use the blowdown valve. So you have to remember it. If you’re not paying attention, and you just open it, with other camlocks, the connection blows apart, and all of a sudden, you’ve got a problem.
“Sometimes you have a little spill, other times a big spill, and other times you have an injured worker, and it can go as far as a major spill or fatality.”
Early adoption
Leslie German believes in Hartman, and his Quad Lock fitting.
The terminal manager for Heniff Transportation’s Creola, Ala., terminal was one of Maxisafe’s first customers, purchasing a “handful” of the Quad Lock camlocks for her location, which includes a bulk transload facility that was operated by Superior Bulk Logistics before Heniff acquired Superior in December 2019.
“It’s a very simple design, so it’s weird nobody already thought about it,” German said. “It’s super simple, but it actually works, and it stops leaks. It’s very hard for drivers to unhook hoses that have product going through them without losing a drop, even if it’s only one drop. A good driver will catch it and cap it, and we have mechanisms in place to address that. But this fitting ensures we don’t lose a drop.”
Even one drop can turn into an expensive cleanup. And when more product escapes, it threatens the environment, and the driver or operator. But that’s not the only danger when accidentally disconnecting pressurized equipment. “Unfortunately, we’ve had drivers release pressure incorrectly, and the hose flies back and knocks their hard hat off,” said German, adding that Heniff now is considering a larger order. “So this valve fitting allows you to release pressure safely, and also capture the liquid without it blowing apart.”
Davison echoed the sentiment. His fleet of 50 tractors and 80 trailers based in Mobile primarily is engaged in the delivery of diesel and gasoline, not deadly chemicals, so he’s more concerned about equipment injuring his drivers, and the resulting OSHA reports or workers’ compensation claims, than product “baths.”
“Every guy who uses hoses and sees this fitting is going to like it, because it’s happened to all of us who’ve broken hoses apart,” Davison said. “At some point, you still had pressure on something, and best-case scenario, you take a bath in whatever you’re pumping. Worst case, it pops up and hits you in the forehead, or knocks your teeth out.”
That’s why Davison currently has a dozen trucks equipped with Quad Locks, and continues to add more as older equipment comes up for replacement. They’re not necessary for gravity drops, or at every connection point—they’re most valuable where drivers are disconnecting hoses from pumps—and the additional expense, when added to the cost of an $350 high-pressure hose, is negligible, Davison contended.
“Obviously, they cost a little more than a conventional fitting,” he said. “But to me, on the price of a hose, you might be paying $25 or $30 more for that fitting, and you don’t replace it but every 10 years. And we’re buying the stainless fittings, so we can take them off and reuse them if we have a hose that goes bad.
“I can see this camlock being an industry standard one day.”
Market penetration
To Hartman’s dismay, that’s not the case today.
He now owns 11 patents related to the Quad Lock, with a total of 81 written claims within those well-protected designs. And, Hartman says, independent testing has shown the 3-inch version can withstand 580 pounds of pressure, and the 2-inch fitting is rated up to 860 psi—far higher pressure than most hoses can handle.
Hartman initially pursed a licensing deal, but those efforts proved fruitless, so he and Williamson decided to go it on their own. Now they’re working with distributors and selling directly to end-users, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed those efforts, making it difficult to meet anyone face-to-face. “Our problem right now is we can’t get in to see people, and they just don’t know about it,” Hartman lamented.
But Hartman isn’t the type to give up easily, not after pouring so much into this idea, especially since he remains convinced of the Quad Lock’s safety advantages, both in protecting drivers from their own mistakes, and against malfunctions they can’t control, including stuck, clogged or worn valves, and failed sensors.
“It doesn’t really matter what’s the cause,” he said. “If there’s a problem, it’s usually the truck driver or operator who ends up getting hurt, and that’s where my fitting comes in. If something goes wrong, they’re going to be OK.
“That’s why this fitting will take cam-and-groove into the next 100 years.”
