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TrackTrain Gives Firefighters a Record of Risky Situations

Sometimes business plans take a detour.

Twenty-nine-year-old Chris Memmott was intent on building software for police and fire departments to help them keep track of training.

Then he crossed paths with Clive Savacool.

Savacool was a battalion chief with a fire agency in the San Francisco Bay Area. Three months after they met, Savacool took early retirement because the job had taken a toll on his health.

That event got them both thinking, and led to the creation of Exposure Tracker, software that logs firefighters’ exposure to smoke and chemicals. The Web-based product, now in beta, also tracks injuries and exposure to communicable diseases.

The company worked with the Centers for Disease Control on what sort of factors to include in the software, which a person fills out like a questionnaire.

So far, founders and friends have put $375,000 into the company, TrackTrain. Memmott said the software got a lot of attention at a recent firefighting convention, and TrackTrain is in talks with 20 departments, plus a few state fire commissions.

Software for the industry tends to be more than 10 years old and hard to use, Memmott said. The market is wide open, he added, with no vendor having more than 1 percent market share.

Still Using Pen and Paper

Half the police and fire departments are still using pen and paper, he said.

TrackTrain’s software records types of incidents that firefighters respond to. A house built between 1940 and 1980 probably contains asbestos, which is a carcinogen. The software might also log exposure to blood or a needle stick, and even exposure to noise.

Individual firefighters tend to keep their own exposure records. They are mostly papers stuffed in manila folders, Memmott said.

Exposure Tracker does not include any sort of sensor technology that might automatically detect dangerous conditions. But it certainly could, Memmott said. The company built interfaces into the software to do just that. Exposure Tracker has come on the scene just as wearable devices are gaining popularity and kicking out all sorts of data.

Company marketing materials say that when an injury or illness comes to light, firefighters can quickly access a comprehensive database of all the prior exposures and injuries through the software, and streamline the workers’ compensation process. Currently, it can take years for public agencies to process such claims, Memmott said.

This results in better care for the firefighter and a more efficient process for the fire agency’s risk management department.

The Cost

TrackTrain offers a free, 30-day trial for Exposure Tracker. After that, it charges $4 per month or $40 per year for individuals; the charge for enterprises is $2 per user per month.

TrackTrain has four full-time and two part-time employees; its software writers live in Utah and British Columbia.

Memmott grew up in Salt Lake City and graduated from the University of Utah. He was an amateur boxer in high school and was seriously considering law school when the recession of 2008 hit. Since venture capital is scarce in Utah, he spent four years in San Francisco before relocating to San Diego.

The CEO does not come across as the hard-sell type. Memmott said that for him, sales involve other things, such as the boxer’s instinct to put himself out there. He also described sales as a numbers game.

Underselling and over-delivering? That helps, too.

Memmott said that he might introduce Exposure Tracker to other vertical markets such as oil and manufacturing.

TRACKTRAIN

CEO: Chris Memmott

Revenue: Pre-revenue

No. of local employees: Two

Investors: Founders and friends

Headquarters: Downtown

Year founded: 2013

What makes the company innovative: Offers software for mobile devices that tracks firefighters’ exposure to hazardous situations

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