BRIGHTON, N.Y. (WROC) — A small local company is looking to expand this year. This is happening at the Brighton-based OTEX Protective. News 8 spoke with CEO Jake Weidert as part of our WHY ROC series.

The company specializes in arc flash PPE by working mainly with commercial electricians on the power grid doing jobs at bigger sites. OTEX came up with unique patented technology that’s driving the business.

“When an electrician is experiencing an arc flash, after that—there’s a toxic fume in the room so we wanted to make sure that we’re going beyond just the temperature to protect them from inhaling that taxic fume,” Weidert explained. “When they have this ventilator on the back of their hard hat it’s pumping the air into the hood so we want to shut that off to preserve the cool clean air inside the hood.”

Weidert says they expect to bring on 15 more workers this year—which would more than double the size of the business.