By Melanie DeStefano

One Warren County family couldn’t sit idly by while they watched a pandemic shut down businesses and life as we knew it in March 2020.

Jim Cash and his wife, Mary Catherine, have been living in Hackettstown for more than 30 years, choosing it as the place they would raise their five children, including Olivia, an engineering student at The College of New Jersey.

“As a family, we have promoted being a jack of all trades and having an entrepreneurial spirit,” said Jim, a mechanical engineer. “Our kids all do their own automotive work, we built a full recording studio in the basement, wired the entire house, installed all the plumbing, etc.”

So, it might not be surprising that when they see a problem, they try to find a solution.

A New Invention

Working together, Jim and Olivia have multiple patents pending for new technology that would completely change how air is filtered in places like offices, restaurants, and schools.

“We spend most of our time indoors, at home, at work, at play. We take the air around us for granted, and that it is safe. This year we found out it is not,” said Jim.

Instead of being housed in walls or external devices, where air must make it to the vents first, their new filtration system is integrated into furniture like desks and tables.

Essentially, said Olivia, the products are “controlling the air movement so that the air is moving in the right direction, to our benefit. Once we push the ‘dirty’ air down away from us, we can filter out the viruses and other pathogens to bring purified air back into the room.”

Another way of thinking about it, said Jim, is to imagine two people on either side of you. One is blowing air away from you with a hair dryer and the other is holding a vacuum.

“Work offices and schools could operate as normal and restaurants could bring in customers up to room capacity again with our products,” Olivia added.

A Family Project

While Olivia’s senior project teammates and professors at TCNJ have been a source of immense and important support, the bulk of the planning and creation has been done at home, which means that her mother and siblings have, by proximity, been involved in bouncing ideas and providing support.

“The most difficult part, I’d say, is separating work time from family time from free time,” Olivia admitted. “Since we are working from our make-shift office space in our house, it is easy to stay working with so many things to do.”

Her brother, Max, has played an especially important role in the process, using 3D printing and other techniques to bring the prototypes to life.

To market the products, livFREEair, LLC, was established, in which Jim, Olivia, and Max are all key players.

Work and Play in Warren County

“I have been on 50 to 100 flights a year, been to nearly every state, and know that New Jersey is underappreciated,” said Jim.

When he and his wife, Mary Catherine, a preschool teacher, wanted to settle down, Hackettstown was a logical place to do it.

“I love being in a town, walking distance to everything, feels like the country, yet we can be in downtown New York City on a weeknight in an hour to catch a show,” he said.

Here, they have raised their five children—Andrey (a cook), Jillian (high school student), Leigh Ann (ER nurse at Hackettstown Medical Center), Olivia, and Max, an automotive technician by trade who is also known for his tackling skills at Hackettstown High School.

The family is active around the county, too, with Jim and his sons participating in the men’s softball league. He is also a Knight of Columbus.

While Olivia had spent the last few years away at school, one of Warren County’s most charming activities remains her favorite: “driving on the back roads.”

It was at Hackettstown High School that Olivia had her first taste of Engineering: “I have always been more of a math and science person—those subjects in school just came more naturally to me. I remember teachers and family friends telling me to study engineering, so I took an Intro to Engineering course in high school and ended up really enjoying it.”

Of course, she added, her dad’s own career “definitely” influenced her, as well.

***

Don’t miss a thing on Inside Warren! Make us a part of your morning routine by bookmarking us and following us on Facebook and Twitter.