The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

When Mike Wayman graduated Valedictorian from Big Sandy High School in 1989, little did he know that he would be putting engineers to work in the Twin Cities area as well as helping design a huge safety feature for fire trucks known as BackSafe.

Wayman is the son of Karen Jespersen and step son of Rich Jespersen of Big Sandy.

After graduating from Big Sandy High School, Wayman went to Concordia College and North Dakota State both, graduating with a mechanical engineering degree.

Wayman took his mechanical engineering degree and applied it to electronics by being able to design boxes to hold what others designed. His goal was to keep his boxes cool when filled with very hot equipment.

In 2009 Wayman got a degree in Business Ed and formed his own business called Integrity Design Engineering. Wayman had found that many firms needed engineers for specific projects but could not afford to keep a full time engineer on staff. Wayman's unique idea was that he would have engineers on staff that could be hired by firms for specialized engineering work. There were 13 employees who went many places, did their job, and then came back to Integrity Design Engineering for their next assignment.

In the process of running his business Wayman met Fire Captain Jovan Palmieri who told Wayman of the issues that firemen had in backing their trucks into traffic while not being able to see anything and having to use spotters who sometimes had trouble with their signals in telling drivers how to back up and when not to back up.

Out of that union BackSafe Systems was born.

Mike Brusseau brought nearly 35 years of experience in manufacturing, product development and leadership to bear in fulfilling the mission of BackSafe Systems. He is the President of the Company.

Mike Wayman serves as CEO of the Company. Married and with three children (grandchildren for Karen and Rich Jespersen) they live in the Twin Cities area.

The fire captain Jovan Palmieri serves as inventor and industry consultant. He presently works full time as a Fire Captain/Paramedic for the City of St. Paul.

Wayman is quick to say that BackSafe is not a camera and does need a spotter. It is composed of a Driver Cab Unit, Event Recording Device, Spotter Handset and a Charging Station.

In the words of the inventors of this unique system, here is what it does.

"With BackSafe's innovative handset and cab unit features, the spotter and driver are able to communicate clearly and instantly via "true position" technology--no more hand signals, no more shouting, no more miscommunication. 'Stop' and 'Go' LED lights, a handset safety trigger and digital event logs all work together to help reduce backing accidents, prevent costly damage and save lives."

It is too early to tell if the company is going to sell a lot of these fire truck safety features or not but it would seem there are applications for large trucks in general where visibility is not good looking out to the rear.