 Hey, good afternoon everybody. It is a wonderful pleasure to be here, learning and engaging with one another, to just see this industry develop from sort of what I would call fledgling underground history to more of a mainstream application and opportunity for everyone to become more relaxed and hopefully healthier through the process. What I'll be doing today is just giving a little bit of background about NSF and then talking about the criteria that Ashkan mentioned that we've used to evaluate a flotation system and then of course a little later we'll have a question-answer session. As part of the discussion I'll give a little bit of the background of NSF just so you understand who we are and what we've done in the past and how that might be able to benefit this industry. Again, although flotation has been around for a long time it hasn't really had the infrastructure in place to make it easy to open a float center to operate the business and to not have to have potentially problems either with the persons that come into the facility or the regulatory environment. So we'll get into some of that and then talk about some of the other industries that NSF works with and then an alien concept, standards and codes. So we as NSF are very familiar with this it's really how we got started many years ago but we'll talk about that a little bit today and then again we'll be question-answer session later. But beyond that we'll give some examples of some of the detailed technical requirements in other NSF standards and then show you how to find things on the NSF website if you have other questions and see listings for products. So I mentioned that NSF's been involved in standards writing. Really we got started in 1944. We were hatched by the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Different public health officials were working in other parts of the country and finding this common recurring problem of products not being able to be accepted in a certain jurisdiction, city, county or state. Or maybe it would be accepted in Chicago and then not accepted in San Francisco. So it created problems for everyone. The facility operators, the public health officials, the manufacturers that are trying to make the products and those are not the headaches that anyone needs. So what we are trying to do is use our history working with the different entities to help make life better for all by developing these standards, conducting the facility inspections and testing and certifying products. So NSF's got facilities in a number of countries and a number of different staff. For instance, in our interactions we've developed a number of different standards for different industries. So over 72 different what we'll call ANSI consensus standards. So it's not just an NSF standard but we've had our standards process accredited by the American National Standards Institute. And really what helps us do that is our history and our relationship with the government as trying to meet their needs but also being sensitive to the needs of the facility operators, the product users and the manufacturers of course. So we also collaborate with the World Health Organization for the last 25 years and then we work with companies in a large number of countries. This is just kind of a little timeline, gives a little bit of a background from when we were hatched in the 40s to really the first few industries we worked with. And you can kind of see it as the food service industry, plastic piping industry, pool and spa industry. Once people in different trade associations and industries heard about the type of work that we do and how we operate, they thought it would be a good idea to align with NSF to help them legitimize their industry and also in a way police it and monitor it for the protection of all parties involved. So this type of process really continued out throughout the 70s and 80s. And then just recently really culminating in some work with the flotation industry. So NSF's background was always in creating standards. And I'll get into some detail a little later about the difference between standard or a law and a code. But the idea is that a standard has technical criteria for evaluating some product, some widget, some system. Other things we're doing, of course, the testing and certification to a standard or some other criteria. And then concepts of training and education. So we offer classes to teach about the standards and certification process. These are things that might help manufacturers who are trying to make a product or design a product. And then other things that we're involved in are systems registrations, which is almost like that ISO 9000, 14000 and on and on. So all these management systems where you're not evaluating a product, but really the process by which a manufacturer operates their business. It deals with change, really the change that they might make in bringing on a new product to market. So we do all of this in these areas of food and water safety and environment. And that's one of the reasons I'm here today is really just kind of that area of water and then environmental impact for the individuals that would use a flotation system. So I mentioned the World Health Organization tie in a bit earlier. And really what that is is World Health Organization is singled us out as an entity that's competent in the areas of these food and water safety and recreational water safety areas. Some of that's really due to the relationship that we built up over the decades working with manufacturers and public health officials. So it's not me, I'm not a smart guy. But the people at NSF are working with these smart people in the industry. And together there's a collaborative information sharing and knowledge gained. But beyond that we also again have these ties with different governmental entities. And it really depends, you know, and I'll mention CDC. So in the area of pool and spa safety the Center for Disease Control and Prevention CDC is very active. And to a degree the EPA Environmental Protection Association is active in testing or registering disinfectants for use at a recreational water facility. You're familiar with USDA and all these other entities as well. So I mentioned earlier this concept of standards and certification. So NSF isn't just making this stuff up by itself. What we have is a process by which we are accredited by the American National Standards Institute for writing standards and producing documents by which we would evaluate products. And beyond that NSF has its certification programs certified in accordance with an ISO 1705 document for the certification program. Then all of our laboratory testing is accredited in accordance with 1705. Basically any competent laboratory would have those type of accreditation. But what you'll find if you actually dig into this is most people don't. They say they comply but they don't actually have, you know, the independent corroboration of their abilities. I mentioned earlier that NSF has staff in different locations and we work with clients or companies in different countries. We currently have offices in a number of different countries but it's really a total of 2,500 different staff throughout the world and about 700 of those at our world headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And again we were hatched from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. We never really got too far away. We're just 5 or 10 miles out of town from the University. And most of the personnel are involved either as people like me like a paper pusher or they actually do real work in laboratories. But through that collaboration we get things done to address concerns and help validate systems and products. You probably remember this old advertisement from BASF years ago where they had a kid on a snowboard and he's cresting some large jump and doing death-defying moves and the tagline for BASF was we don't make the products you buy, we make them better. That struck a chord with me a long time ago but anyway so I still kind of play off that and just say NSF we don't make the products that you buy and use. What we're really trying to do is make sure that they're safe or safer. And what we're trying to do is then make sure that those products work and comply with some criteria that has been developed and agreed upon by the industry. And by the industry I don't just mean manufacturers only or just public health officials. It's really trying to get everyone to agree on a strong, reasonable and robust set of criteria that can be used to test and evaluate a system and after that has been done it can help with acceptance of that product. So in the end we're really just trying to help protect the consumer, the public health which is all of us and the environment. So a good visual for that interaction is really this kind of three-part visual where NSF is in the middle and we're almost like the secretary. Kind of taking notes, managing chaos or herding kittens, however you want to look at it. But you have all these different individuals that represent different segments of the industry, whether it's the public health officials, the engineers, the builders, the operators. Everyone has their own dog in the fight. They all have something they want to get done and maybe some other stuff that they don't want to see get done. Well, we got to work together and work through issues and that's really what we try to help foster at NSF. Again, we don't have all the answers. What we're trying to do is draw the answers out from different people, get the logic behind their decision making process or why they love something or hate something and get past those big issues but come to an agreeable level of criteria that we can work with. You know, here's an example of like some of the different industries that we work with. I mentioned a little bit earlier the whole food equipment or the manufacturers industry. We also work with major league baseball players associations like, okay, well, they don't really make a product. They're putting on entertainment. Well, sometimes we find that an industry contacts us after the proverbial brown stuff has hit the fan and that's too late. That's kind of bad. You want to work things out before that happens. And that's really what's happened in the case of some industries. They will contact NSF to try to help them work through issues and develop a foundation for evaluating products to help protect themselves, to protect their industry, to protect their image so that something more severe doesn't happen like someone creates some laws that really tightly regulate things. We find that if we can work with industries and develop standards and codes, everything works a lot better. Standards and codes can be much more dynamic than laws. But these are just some examples, whether it's automotive industry, nutritional supplement industry. NSF has different standards and protocols and criteria that we use to evaluate a whole host of products for these different industries. And in the case of some of the professional players' associations, we're evaluating the nutrient supplements that they take to make sure there's not banned substances present in the supplements. Or we're making sure that there are certain ingredients present in the products or in the materials. Really, the design of some of these criteria gets quite detailed, but I just wanted to mention those concepts. And then also mention that some of them like marketers or wholesalers of products will require that things be certified. And really, they're trying to do that to make sure that they don't have the infrastructure or the capacity to test and evaluate certain products. But they can have someone like NSF do that work because we independently do this type of confidential work. And then if the product complies, they can use the NSF mark to show compliance with the standard or criteria. We just had a little conference at NSF a couple weeks ago and kind of see some examples of products from different industries. It was more focused on almost like what Target Walmart or Costco would have on the shelf at their store, some type of products for either water treatment or nutraceuticals and things of that nature. So there's also some different vitamins and things of that nature. In this case, it's actually cooking implements. So those are products that NSF would test and certify to some criteria. There's a whole host of consensus standards than other criteria that might not have yet gone through the ANSI process. But the idea is we're trying to help the industry and help the manufacturers and help the public health officials, help the distributors by acting in this unusual middle point between all these other entities. And again, so these are to some alien concepts, but not to these guys. They're familiar with these concepts. This is, you know, I guess the first alien concept we'll talk about is this issue of the standards and the codes. And again, some aliens you meet are a little friendlier than others. Got to watch out for all of them that you never know. So you get to know them, I guess. But we'll talk about is the concept of standards and codes and things like national model codes. As Ashkahn indicated earlier, NSF has been working for decades with the pool and spa industry. And beyond that, there's an already an existing infrastructure for that industry, one that was developed over time. And for the float industry, you're really in kind of the ground level of legitimization of the industry and codes just getting set and developed. And so what you want to watch out for is something that's too restrictive or too flimsy and insufficiently protective. Because both of those can be bad things. So you want to work in an area where you can develop those criteria with input from all parties and all stakeholders. And that's really what NSF tries to help and facilitate. So I'll give you some examples of some other code documents. But this issue of why are there codes? Why are there standards? I've kind of alluded to it earlier and that's that laws are kind of tough to work with because laws tend to be either national or local. And codes and standards have a different level of content. But they also have the ability to be modified over time as you gain new information. So code typically has this what I'll call high level general type of information about a facility design or construction of the facility and its operation. And the codes can reference standards. So right there's the first level of tie in. And then within those standards, those have methods for evaluation of a product. So they might have different minimums or limits or maximums of what something must achieve. So the code can give you some consistency and how you either evaluate a facility or a design or the installation of products. And then for a standard, you know, why would you actually need a standard? And again, that's usually where the detail, the kind of nitty gritty stuff, the pass fail criteria in the standard. So that gives you that technical criteria to evaluate the product, to make sure it meets some criteria. And again, that product standard is referenced in the code. So the two reference each other in a way. So you have the test method or the referee method is in the standard. And you can get into a lot of details or have stratification of the pass fail criteria and standards. So the different states, counties and cities, they all have codes for different things. But when I was first looking into this industry around 2011, I found very little code language, found a little bit in Vegas and Southern Nevada Health District. I think there's a little bit in North Carolina and in Florida and New York. But what we tried to do at NSF was, you know, be sensitive to those issues. And then find a way to create something that would actually get people talking in a productive fashion as opposed to a lot of conjecture and vagaries that don't really advance the discussion and get us to the endpoint we all want to achieve. So in the area of the pool and spa industry, standard 50 has always been the criteria. When we first started with the industry in the late fifties, it was actually individual standards for different product types like a precoat filter or a valve or a chemical feeder. And then in the 1970s, those were all amalgamated into standard 50. So right now that standard, if you saw it outside that door on a desk, it's got 20 chapters each chapters for different product type. But that gives you all the criteria to evaluate or build and design the product and then evaluate its conformance with the standard. And so there's all sorts of details in there about material safety and durability and things of that nature. But really why should the float industry work to do the same thing to create the standards and the codes? And I think the real benefit there is if you're able to do that, you can hopefully eliminate these cumbersome delays and costs when there are not certified products available because the public health officials are tasked with protecting. But they don't necessarily know a lot about float industry. And you might have some tribal knowledge in one area of the country, one city, one state. But it becomes difficult for product manufacturers or even facility operators to open in different parts of the country where they do not have the same requirements set. So through NSF, what we're trying to do is see if we can help facilitate creating an even playing field for the manufacturers, for the facility operators and for the public health officials as well to know what is reasonable and prudent for them to require. So this is definitely a process that's a given take in the development of the criteria. But this little visual and kind of flowchart gives some examples if there are not standards, if there's not codes. The health department might identify something as being substandard or not compliant with whatever is in their code. And I don't know how many people here have gone through like code approval and variances and fun stuff like that. Do you have a show of hands of people that have endured? Now, there have been success stories of getting through the gauntlet. Yeah. Okay. And so you know we're used to that with other industries. So it's not an alien concept for us. But that for you and this industry you know the same thing happens in the wastewater treatment industry and the drinkwater treatment industry and so many others. But by developing some standards and codes and utilizing those it can really help grease the skids, get everyone to get what we want to say they're bought into it. They understand it, they respect it and they'll work with it. Because if not then sometimes you have to remove certain equipment from a facility to get an approval from the health department. You may have to make other times of design changes or modifications to be approved. Or again have some products tested and certified to help grease the skids of acceptance because then they'll know and it's almost like an implied liability issue where if the person at the public health office is making a decision they might almost be paralyzed and not sure what the right decision is and they're almost fumbling for justification or approval from some other entity. But we try to bring that out of the back room and do it in a very open setting to develop the criteria because then it meets with greater acceptance from everybody. Some examples of codes. There's three major pool and spa codes currently in North America. These are like model codes. So strange concept, alien concept. A model code isn't a code that's in this particular city, state or country. It's almost like someone wrote code language and said you can take this, you can copy it in part, you can copy it in its entirety and you can use it in your state, your city, your county. So that's what a model code is. It's not actual code language that's enforced in one particular place but it could be incorporated. So there's three major model codes and then there's also a variety of different state codes for things like drinking water regulations, pool and spa regulations. There's also some international guidelines and of course other countries have their own regulations. Some are very detailed, some are very vague and hazy. You can drive a truck sideways through the criteria. They really don't mean much. The regulations generally in North America are very concrete or very coherent. Some more so in certain states than others. But again I mentioned those two World Health Organization guidelines. The first general code I wanted to mention is something promulgated by the International Code Council. It's the International Swing Pool and Spa Code. It was just issued in 2012. So it's a fairly new model code and the intent there was really to help the code agencies and the builders and operators have similar language. But I just mentioned there's three different model codes you could pick from. So in a way those three codes are competing for buyers and people to incorporate their language. Within all the codes they have some references to NSF standards for different equipments for pool and spa use. So in this case they require the use of NSF standard 50 components or standard 14 piping. Like if you've gone into your home and you have a newer home that was built in the last 50 years, if you have any plastic piping you probably have little NSF PW, NSF potable water piping. That means we've tested for performance and health effects. You see DWV, it's drain waste and vent, test for performance. Don't drink out of that type of product. So also with all the pool and spa equipment there's different references in the model codes. So another model code is promulgated by a company in Southern California. They're really well known in the plumbing industry because they write some really good code about gas venting and other things like that. So their pool and spa code really didn't have a lot of value or teeth in it as far as helping you design a good pool or a good spa or a good water park, a good spray pad. But it did have great information for the heating system and the ventilation system. So there's pros and cons to each of these different model codes. But each of these are getting revised. So this, even this code will be reissued again soon and there's just more NSF references in it. Beyond that is one that was promulgated by the, I mentioned a little earlier, the CDC and NSF are working. So we have personnel from Center for Disease Control and Prevention on the NSF Standard 50 board. And we also participate in the development of their code. So this code should be released in about a month. They've been working on it for 10 years. Wow. And they actually had like seed funding to develop the code. But still, they tried to do a very detailed code for design and operation of every kind of recreational water facility except flotation facilities. So they have a lot of details in their code language. And I'll just kind of zip through this. Their intent was to take a lot of the old studies and make sure that they were developing code language, not just based on opinion, but trying to have a data driver for everything. And they wanted to make sure that once they develop the code, it would be have open meetings every two years to revise it if necessary. So again, good processes and very similar to the NSF process for how we develop standards. Again, the standard or their code, I should say, has not been released yet. It should be released in about a month. But there's just an example here that in that lower part, the components will spread into other codes. So the idea is that once this model code is issued, the local states and cities and counties could adopt a part of it or the entire document for different aspects of facility design or operation and maintenance. But as an example, once the CDC published a document for what something sometimes happens in the pool, if you guys see Caddyshack, remember the baby Ruth scene? I was going to play a video and I thought I shouldn't do that. We won't do that. So anyway, the issue is when there's an outbreak or a release in a facility, you have to deal with that just because there's certain microorganisms that are not susceptible to chlorine or ozone or UV. Some of the major technologies, it's like it's really hard even for them to kill certain microorganisms. So they released a special process by which you would treat the pool and spa water. Well, it's taken about almost 10 years for that to be adopted throughout the country. So I mentioned this to you only to give you a sense for how even something that's really important can take a while to truly get into all the state codes, even if it came from a national governmental organization. So these things don't happen that quickly. It's almost like you have to get lucky and have a lot of groundswell of support to have things go fast. So there's other issues of the code and usually it's again public health officials or building code inspectors that will be the ones who will either write it or enforce the criteria. In general, you're not wanting to reinvent the wheel you're trying to incorporate all the existing criteria that are out there from the different entities and put those together in a code that can be accepted in a given jurisdiction. So there's 12 different modules for this model aquatic health code. And I think this is probably the most detailed and impressive of all the model codes. It's also the one that hasn't been published yet. So they have in their model code different modules that get into things like training of the operators. A great idea. We should train and make sure the people at the facility know what they're doing and have a test for that. I know the test doesn't ensure that people will do a great job but it's showing that you're trying to establish a baseline. Beyond that, issues like ventilation and air quality presented earlier today mentioned this issue that's not just a water quality issue. It's an air quality issue as well. Then just general concept of risk management and safety. Facility design construction. These are obvious issues. But then the concepts of the recirculation system filtration or really getting into this whole contaminant hygiene or disinfection. There's really three different modules just on what's essentially the same issue. But trying to make sure that you're treating and killing or removing those organisms that can do harm to us. Beyond that, there's some other issues of once you got to design, you built the facility, everybody's happy, the system's been approved. Well, how do you know it still works over time? With pools and spas, they're a little luckier in some ways that they can just do some simple chlorine tests to make sure that, yes, I've got residual disinfectant here and if I have it at this level that should be fairly protective. They also have other water chemistry tests that are fairly easy to run and onsite so that if you build it with a bunch of tested and listed equipment and you build it to the code and you operate it and still get these residual values in the water, that should be a good protective system. So again, it's not perfectly analogous to this industry, but it's a great model to try to emulate. And again, this code is going to be a really comprehensive detailed code that puts you to sleep first thing if you try to read it. But it has a lot of value in it if you wanted to look at a kind of a bogey or a target to emulate. There's some other details in here about facility administration and maintenance. And then of course, lifeguarding or bather supervision. These are other concepts that don't perfectly overlay into the float industry. But then the monitoring and testing definitely does. Okay, beyond that, I wanted to touch on the NSF 50 standard. Again, alien concept standards and codes. So standard 50 requirements, there's sometimes this reference to NSF standard 50 in the codes. And these are some examples from different states like like Texas, they might say all filters or something like that shall be independently tested certified to standard 50 or other criteria deemed acceptable. So what they want to do is they want to leave opportunity for them to make a decision if for some reason some component in the system isn't certified already, they can do a variance. So that's typical code language that we see. And the next one, hey, anyone that's going to be doing the testing or certification, they should be competent. You know, they should actually have the credentials and be accredited to do this type of work, typically to 1702, I'm sorry, 17065 as a certifier. And then 17025 as a test lab. So NSF has both those criteria. And that's just what we would consider the minimum criteria for any entity to be competent in this space. But beyond that, you'll also see code language where a state might require that, hey, if you're going to do an update or replace some equipment, just make sure you're using certified stuff, you're not just buying something off the internet that hasn't actually been checked out to work. And that's really to protect the facility operators, of course, and the users at the facility. But you're trying to assure some level of performance and functionality for the products. And then the other thing we've seen that's kind of neat in Florida and New York code, again, this more kind of the pool, spa, water park side, they will actually say that, hey, if a standard doesn't exist for a certain product, just work with a nationally recognized standards writer and certification company to develop the criteria. And so that's a common role for us. We do this all the time, help manufacturers of new product types that aren't currently in the standard to develop those criteria with public health official input and others. So I thought I'd give an example of, you know, the NSF website and how you can go to see things like the current public health codes for pool and spa equipment. This is an example of just some of the criteria within the California state code that was last updated in 2012. They might require the use of, you know, certified filters or ozone UV systems, things of that nature. So it's just an example of sections in their state code currently that if you're running a facility in California, you might be asked to comply with these criteria for certain components in the float system. So beyond that, really this whole issue of the codes and standards is trying to establish these what I'll call economies of scale to avoid incorrect overlap or duplications of codes. And the intent is to have the code refer to the standard. And the code still has greater control because again, the standard tells you how to evaluate a product, but a code can tell you about, you know, how much capacity the product has to have or what kind of level of performance it has to have. And you'll see that in some of the different state codes that already exist. So again, the standards used to evaluate the product, the codes used to really help build the facility, run the facility, permit the facility. And this is just a little visual about how these things interact, if you will, between the product standard and the code. So again, you might have the detailed features and functions can be covered in the actual code language. The performance testing or disinfection testing or energy efficiency testing that's normally dictated by the standard and referenced in the codes. And then the installation, operation, product markings, two degrees, some of those are put into the standards and some of those are put into the code language. So with NSF, you've got a history of NSF working with the industry through the joint committee. It's this concept of three different groups, the public health official, kind of the governmental side of the business. And then the manufacturers, the engineering firms, and then the facility operator staff would all be in these equal voting membership groups. So NSF has one vote on the NSF joint committee. And then there'll be, let's see, I think it's 11 voters currently in public health like persons from CDC in different state public health officials, different manufacturers of products and systems, and then the designers of engineering firms of facilities, facility operators would have the other 11 votes. And the idea is that the joint committee really votes on the final yes, no, what goes into the standard. But the real heavy lifting happens at the task group level. So the task group could be all the people in this room, could be on the float task group under NSF standard 50 to develop the criteria. Well, I love some of these images. And I, this is what can happen when you don't have codes and standards. Things are really kind of up in the air, wild, wild west, you're not really sure what to expect. Maybe over here things are accepted and over here they're not. Just what the founders of NSF found back in the 1940s in the food equipment industry. The same thing happens all the time until you really get that infrastructure of evaluation and criteria. You can still have some wild and crazy things that will happen. You never know really what kind of an interpretation you're going to get from the officials. And then it makes life very difficult for manufacturers and facility operators, of course. So we definitely don't like to see things go to court or law. Those are always much more expensive. If you think dealing with the health department is expensive, stay out of court. So federal laws, not what you want to see governing your industry. You want that to definitely happen on a lower level of anxiety, cost, and stress. So there's been some laws that impacted the pool and spa industry. And really just in the last decade. So this Virginia Graham Baker Act, which some of you probably have heard about the suction fittings, there was an issue where the industry didn't really do a good job of policing itself, as far as certain safety products that prevent entrapment in a pool or spa due to the little suction fittings that are taking the water from the pool or spa, drawing it back to the treatment system, and then returning the water. Well, if the suction fitting is either broken, damaged, or not a good design, are you over pumping, drawing too much water through the system, you can create an vacuum entrapment hazard. And unfortunately, it took someone very famous to lose a family member to then spurn some legislation that really turned the industry upside down for several years. But it did help to create a safer environment. There's no doubt about it. But it was a horrific thing that happened. And then a very painful issue for the industry to deal with. Again, you don't want to have that happen to your industry. You want to deal with things before the stuff hits the fan. Other issues were the civil rights law. And that was a very good intent to make sure that facilities are accessible by all Americans, not just those that are finding it easy to walk around. But that really got into things like accessibility and changes that they might have to make at a pool or a spa. You've probably seen chairlifts now at pools and spas. Those are fully compliant with the requirements and enforced by the Department of Justice. So there's actually people that go out and do site inspections to make sure they comply, otherwise they get heavy fines. And again, you don't want that to happen. You'd rather kind of take these issues on and not have to have it federally mandated. So this is really just another example of the American Disability Act and some of the requirements that you'll see, whether it's the accessibility or the low strength requirements of the handholds and things of that nature. Just again, another example of that, you'll see my legal disclaimer at the bottom. Consult with your legal counsel and state jurisdiction for interpretation. And again, these are probably alien concepts to you. But here's another one. This concept of not just the standards and codes, but the testing, auditing and certification. So again, standards are used to evaluate the products. You test those products and conduct a facility audit to make sure that, yes, this product we tested is actually what you're making at the production site or the engineering site. And then you can issue a certification that shows conformance. So once the system's been tested and certified, if you've developed good criteria that's acceptable to the public health officials, to the manufacturers and facility operators, we've just eliminated a whole lot of extra need to get variances and to go through those delays in time and cost. So this concept of certification is really kind of a simple concept, but there can be some complexity to it, of course, in the actual product testing based on the requirements and the standards. The general process is manufacturer tells certifier about their product. Certifier confirms the criteria or standard. We conduct a technical review and then determine what design or specific components need to be tested. Then there's also the facility inspection to make sure, yes, you really do make this stuff here or engineer it in this way. Then after the testing's completed, if everything's passing and then we have really the paper trail documentation to prove it, we're able to certify the product. You're able to use the certifiers mark and show conformance with the standard. And hopefully the standards referenced in the code and that just helps everything move very smoothly. Again, similar concepts here, but there's also this other criteria that NSF created, not standard 50, but this component cert specification. So the component certification specification was designed for the float industry and it goes beyond what's in standard 50 currently but does incorporate it. So again, there's the standard and there's really the three-part group that designed it. The standard 50 has this equal voting membership and we're really using that group to develop the float requirements. So we're going to do this technical evaluation of the criteria and develop a criteria just for the floatation industry. So this is just an example of some of the product types that are covered under standard 50 currently and things that you might be utilizing in your floatation systems. Whether it's the pumps, the chemical treatment systems, the ozone, the UV systems, those are all covered by standard 50. There's a whole array of products and this is just a good visual of some of those and what does just make this presentation available to everyone so it's easy to look at this later in more detail. But really what NSF is trying to do is help usher in a new technology or a new system to be easily accepted throughout the country. And what we're doing is creating criteria for floatation systems and getting input from the industry, from manufacturers, from public health officials to make sure that once it's all done it can be easily accepted by all. So the floatation system criteria does have material safety requirements, some design and construction requirements. It also includes requirements to evaluate the tub, the tank, or the liner. There's performance testing on the pumps that are used and disinfection efficacy tests. So that's a really critical one but not just disinfection efficacy tests when the product is new but after the system has been used. So after it's actually been cycled on and off for simulating a lifetime of use of the product. And then beyond that other details for the durability and life testing. So this is just a little picture if you will of the overview of the criteria. But what I can do is also make this available to everyone. It's actually on the NSF website and I'll show you where you can find that. But there's again these different tests for things like even slip resistance. So if you have a float system and you can stand in or walk in, you want to make sure that the surface for that person to walk is resistant to slip and fall because if the water is only so deep and someone walks and slips they can hit their head on something inside the tank. So we're trying to have certain common sense requirements like that that we have for swim spas and other other criteria in this criteria for the floatation industry. And that's really how NSF worked with public health officials and manufacturers to develop this initial stage of product criteria. Another critical aspect is the disinfection test. So we actually inoculate the systems, you know, purposely put nasty bugs into the system to make sure that the treatment system can actually kill all the organisms. There's also the simulated life test of 3,000 hours or cycling through a long period of time to make sure that that disinfection system when you turn on and off on and off and use it that it still works not just when it's brand new fresh from the factory but after a simulated period of time. So that's another aspect that creates a very durable and protective set of criteria. Beyond that there's other types of tests for contaminant removal. Filtration testing is a really important thing because there's certain things that would just create other contaminants in the water and you want to be able to catch those through your filtration system so we have testing for that as well. There's some other details about let's say even the handholds. You know, just to make sure you've seen door handles and things like that on the different structures here part of the NSF process is incorporating the ADA requirements for the strength of the handholds and testing that. It's really common sense stuff. These are already requirements in the industry. We just roll them all into the certification vehicle if you will, the component certification specification 12804 for the evaluation of flotation systems. And if you're trying to find certified products you can kind of look here. So you can't really see the website link but what I want to do is at least just give you a visual of it and then you can see it in more detail. So if you were just to do like a www.nsf.org you'd see this. You can click on the little orange thing a little tag up there in the upper right hand corner and that'll take you to a long laundry list of different industries that we work with. You can just scroll down to the recreational water tab and when you get there you'll see this page and then from this page on the left side there's a little link that says see certified products and when you go there you then have an option to search by a trade name by a product type by a production location by a company name. Those are the main ones and this is an example of all the different kinds of product types but the one I highlighted here was the certified floatation or sensory deprivation systems. So if you were to click that and then hit search you'd see a listing for float lab which is currently the only company that's gone through the process that happened last year. So they're the only one who's gone through to have their system certified. That's not to say that other products couldn't comply it's just they haven't completed the process. And there's some details here that describe the testing and certification program so I kind of tried to give you an overview of the criteria and the certification spec and then also here is a summation if you will of the different types of tests and evaluation that were conducted looking at things like the airflow not just the water treatment but also the air handling system. So again very robust criteria we think this is going to help the industry by showing that they are taking an active role to meet the needs of the users the public health community and of course facility operators. So I guess the end point here would be that there's currently no national standard if you will or code but all those that are out there the what I'll call the model codes they'll reference standard 50 for the different products that are used at the facility. So currently all those codes relying on NSF and the standard 50 criteria to evaluate the products that are used and standard 50 covers every type of product that's used except float systems there currently isn't a chapter in there but it's essentially there's a draft chapter being worked on by that joint committee. And then the standards are a voluntary consensus document and essentially what that means is there's not a governmental regulation that requires you to comply in other words it's not a law but there's a code and a standard and that's basically a more flexible way of meeting the same intent without the legal force of you shall comply or you will be fined you will be put in jail if you don't do this basically you don't want necessarily a law for this type of a system maybe after there's codes and standards you might want to have a law produced but laws are very difficult to change and very expensive to work with so again what we find for all of our clients manufacturers and others that we work with that standards and codes are such an easier way to go to get things done without having extreme cost burden that comes from working within the law framework so the other thing we're trying to do is help legitimize the industry through this process of standards codes and the industry self working to develop those codes and standards and then to have their products tested and certified to show that they've had an independent assessment of their products not just them and their word oh trust us the stuff's all safe and good but they've actually worked hard with the industry and the other stakeholders to develop criteria so Congress has passed some laws those are challenging but again they were done for good causes in those cases but the NSF website is free and available for looking at those products that have been tested and certified which can help you when you're building a facility or your own float system so basically with NSF we're trying to help get the work done for you so both myself and Sung are here today from NSF and we have a little booth right outside the door but I want to thank you very much for being patient and working through this long-winded presentation