Smoke Machine Team
Ken Pieroni, Founder / R&D Director of Redline Detection, LLC
Ken Pieroni is the undisputed leading expert in the world regarding smoke technology. No one has more experience, knowledge, or patents regarding smoke machines.
Ken, a native Southern Californian, has always been interested in taking things apart and putting them back together even rebuilding a Chevrolet V-8 engine at 15 years old. He won the State of California Industrial Arts Exposition before going to college to study engineering. Ken spent over two demanding decades in the aerospace industry where he was instrumental in the design, manufacture, and QC of the modern jet Thrust Reverser Actuator system still used today.
Ken decided to strike out on his own by buying and operating an automotive repair facility in Huntington Beach, California. One day a salesman demonstrated a smoke producing leak locator that worked magic to locate leaks. Ken ordered one and upon delivery it was found to be poorly constructed, leaking oil, over priced, and inoperable. The factory told him to take it apart and fix it himself…big mistake!
Pieroni co-founded Champion Engineering and released the Leak Master, an early model smoke machine in a red, roto molded housing at less than half the price of the competition. The Leak Master machine was a success and they purchased their competitor’s company and merged with Global Leak Detection (a Canadian Company) to form STAR EnviroTech. STAR became the holding company for Champion Engineering, Global Leak Detection, and Worldwide Vapor (Vacutec). Ken continued to develop smoke technology for locating leaks for several more years during which time he filed and received 6 U.S. patents for his work. One patent in Pieroni’s name is for the use of nitrogen so as to alleviate dieseling in the smoke chamber which has plagued glow plug machines and is still used in the old technology today.
Subsequently, Ken designed and sold what later became the OTC Leak Tamer and Leak Tamer Plus EVAP. Pieroni was instrumental in designing a private label machine for Snap On which was sold through MotorVac.
After designing and selling smoke machines to Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corp, and General Motors Ken retired from this company. Pieroni was no longer designing, engineering, developing patents, or manufacturing smoke machines for Champion Engineering, Global Leak Detection, Star EnviroTech, and Vacutec and ceased to have any ownership interest in these companies. It must be noted that, none of these companies nor OTC, Snap On, MotorVac, etc. have filed and received a single patent regarding smoke machine technology without Pieroni involved since he left in 2001.
Just as had happened years previously, Ken knew he could improve upon the best smoke machine in the marketplace to compete with the company that had a near monopoly on the automotive smoke machine market. Two years after the expiration of his non-compete, Ken Pieroni founded Redline Detection, LLC with Gene Stauffer. Their common goal was to design a smoke machine around the shortcomings of old glow plug technology to create the smallest, fastest, simplest, safest, and most profitable smoke machine ever made. They were most successful because after a year in development they released the high performance Smoke Pro Total Tech which revolutionized the industry and has become the World’s Best Selling Smoke Machine. The Smoke Pro incorporates all of Pieroni’s world class knowledge and experience into the latest in smoke technology, patented in December 2007.
When he’s not traveling, Ken continues as Redline’s Research & Development Director and has filed two patents in the last year to further advance smoke technology.
