by Bert VanderVeen

Inside an unassuming brick building on West Market Street, a local company is proving that clothes can do a lot more than just make people look good. Buzz Off Insect Shield, LLC, is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to a proprietary technology, Insect Shield, that bonds insect repellent to fabric.

Buzz Off President Richard Lane began developing the special bonding process in 1995, when the military approached him about creating insect-proof uniforms. The military eventually stopped funding the project, but Lane kept pursuing it. “I thought it had a lot of promise commercially,” he explains.

Lane soon found other investors, including his friend, actor Paul Newman. When they also pulled out, he continued his research and hooked up with local businessman Haynes Griffin, now the chairman and CEO of Buzz Off.

As Lane perfected the repellent-bonding process, Griffin figured out what it would take to make it commercially viable. “We’re really in the repellent business, not textiles,” Lane says. “So there was a huge amount of regulatory work we had to do in conjunction with this. We had to get the blessing of the EPA.”

When the Environmental Protection Agency granted the company registration in 2003, the business promptly took off. “We got the registration in July, and by the end of the year commercial products were available through ExOfficio and Orvis,” says Executive Vice President Jason Griffin, citing two clothing manufacturers and retailers that continue to thrive with Buzz Off garments.

The response in the marketplace was immediately positive. “Insect Shield is a new passive protection technology,” Lane says. “All you have to do is get up in the morning and get dressed, so there is a compelling reason to use it.”

“We like to say that in most typical situations, a hat, a short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and socks will give you good protection,” Griffin adds.

The Insect Shield process binds a proprietary permethrin formula tightly to fabric fibers. Permethrin is an EPA-registered product that has been used for more than 30 years in lice shampoos for children, flea dips for dogs, and other products. Garments treated with the formula have been proven and registered to repel mosquitoes, ticks, ants, flies, chiggers, and midges (no-see-ums).

Companies send their goods to the Buzz Off facilities on West Market and South Elm streets, where items are treated and returned ready for sale. Lane says the operation is highly efficient and safe for their workers.

“We developed a system in which all the repellent that’s available goes onto the fabric,” he says. “There’s none left over in the treatment section and no one is exposed. You couldn’t tell the difference in a garment from the beginning of the process to the end. It looks the same when it’s finished.”

Lane has improved the Insect Shield technology since 1993. The initial EPA registration showed the treatment stayed effective for up to 25 launderings. Now, it’s 70. “The actual results our tests show are in excess of that,” says Lane, who adds that he has washed garments 80 to 100 times with no ill effect.

In the meantime, the company has found plenty of new growth avenues. It has received strong demand from the equestrian market, for instance. “Horses are very susceptible to the West Nile virus to the point where it’s nearly always fatal,” Lane says. The company treats stable blankets that keep mosquitoes, flies, and other insects at bay.

Buzz Off has also started working with companies that make camping gear. And in March, it partnered with Cintas Corporation to launch a new insect-repellent uniform collection.

The company is even dabbling in world relief efforts. Last year, it sent a representative to help with a malaria-control project in western Kenya. Buzz Off helped promote malaria prevention and treatment methods for flood-affected populations and distributed Insect Shield-treated wraps to protect women and their children from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

These are big-time initiatives for a company based in an old commercial dry-cleaning facility. But the setting suits Griffin and Lane just fine. To grow a company that’s challenging the notions of what fabrics can do, they can’t be bugged by anything else.