Some people are just naturally inclined to entrepreneurship. Take Greg Price, CEO and founder of Advanced Laser Restoration, as a prime example. Before most folks have figured out what they’re having for lunch, Price has not only devised his next big idea, he’s thought about how to execute on it and is preemptively problem-solving all of its potential hurdles.
By the age of 27, Price had already saved $50,000 to start his first business, a kitchen and bathroom showroom, and by the age of 40, he had sold that business, launched another business (a major LED lighting company backed by a personal patent) and then sold that business, too.
With the proceeds, Price could have retired to a beach in the South Pacific, but that’s not what entrepreneurs do. Instead, he founded what might just be his biggest ventures yet: Advanced Laser Restoration (ALR) and ALR Equipment LLC, a franchise service business and equipment manufacturing company, respectively, both focused on using advanced laser cleaning technologies to restore the finish of everything from residential woodwork and stone facades to historic monuments and statues. The companies also use and produce proprietary equipment to remove rust, paint and other debris from a host of metal surfaces.
ALR’s laser cleaning equipment is affordable, easy and safe to use, portable and adaptable to automation, as seen in Universal Robots’ booth at Fabtech 2024. And it’s all the result of Price’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Industrious ways
In 2001, Price moved to Elgin, Ill., where he met his wife while working as a carpenter for a custom homebuilder. After hearing his coworkers describe constant pain in their backs and knees and beyond, he decided he needed to do something different.
“I grew up super poor on food stamps, but I am very industrious,” he says. “I’ve always been able to turn lemons into lemonade – if I put enough work into it. I had already been saving some money, but I got serious and started saving even more. When you grow up poor, you don’t want to be poor again, so you value every penny.”
By 2005, Price had saved enough to open his own kitchen and bath showroom. He’s the first to admit that it was a rough start, though, as, “I didn’t have a single sale for four months.” But after finally landing his first job, one referral turned into another, eventually leading to nearly $1 million per year in revenue.
Thanks to his tenacity and solid customer base, Price weathered the 2008 downturn and by the end of 2011, he launched an under-cabinet lighting business to expand his kitchen and bath showroom. He hired a sales rep and within no time, his lighting was featured in major Chicago showrooms.
“I also got my product into Lowe’s and Home Depot,” he explains. “From there, I developed a couple of product lines; earned a patent on tunable white LED lighting; and got into Sephora, Airstream and other large businesses for their lighting controls.”
Soon thereafter, Price was approached by a private equity firm interested in buying his lighting business as well as his patent. It was 2018, and while he stayed with the new owner for a few years to help with the transition, he was already itching to do something different.
The right formula
“I had an idea for a new business,” Price says, “but Covid hit, and I basically had to put it on the back burner. At the same time, I was dabbling in laser engraving and realized that a laser engraver is essentially the same as a laser cleaning machine.”
A laser cleaning machine uses different software and leverages much more power than an engraving machine, but “is the same basic technology,” Price explains. And while there were a few companies already selling a laser cleaning product, they all came with a big price tag.
“It was the same thing when I got into the LED lighting game,” he adds. “Everybody that came in first was really high-priced, but I figured out a formula to drastically reduce the cost but still remain highly profitable. So that’s what I did with this industry.”
Thanks to Price’s experience manufacturing and developing patents, molds and machining for his lighting business, “launching this venture was a lot less painful,” he says. So he started developing the product and differentiating it with a slew of unique features.
“We’ve built an amazing customer base under our laser cleaning service business with large customers like Toyota, John Deere, BMW, UPS, Siemens Energy and Western Global,” Price says. “I was in Jeff Bezos’ house this year for laser cleaning and was just blown away. Recently, we’ve expanded into the U.K., Canada, Dubai and most recently, France. From September 2022 when I launched, it’s taken off big time.”
The equipment Price developed is the XR pulsed laser cleaning machine, which is sold under the ALR Equipment LLC brand. Available in five different models, the 200 XR, 300 XR, 500 XR, 1000 XR and 2000 XR, customers can choose the power level they need for the job at hand. All machines run on pulsed laser technology versus continuous wave laser technology, which Price describes as a fire hose, “that has one setting that is just pumping out continuous water.
“Pulsed laser technology is more like a sprinkler head that has a bunch of different settings,” he says. “In terms of the laser source, I co-developed it with a laser source manufacturer, recognizing that it was a lot like LED lighting that could be tuned. With continuous wave laser, the only thing you can tune is the power up and down, how intense it is, and maybe the pulse width spacing.
“Pulsed laser can be modulated, but it wasn’t as highly controllable as I thought it could be, so I co-developed a software program that runs on an Android app that is fine-tunable,” he explains. “The software allows users to control the individual pulse to whatever they want, including the duration, width, frequency power, hatch spacing and diameter.”
Product design
Price developed the equipment as a 24-in.-by-12-in.-by-30-in. standalone, portable machine. He also designed it to be two-wire compatible to integrate with any robot. In fact, every component of the XR pulsed laser cleaning machine is designed in-house in a way that doesn’t nickel and dime customers.
“We include everything a customer might want in the cost of the machine,” Price says. “When people ask, ‘how much extra is XYZ component?’ I say ‘Free. 99.’ It makes the equipment easier to use and then customers have it when they need it. For me, I view it as good customer service.”
The machine resembles a rugged suitcase on four heavy-duty tri-wheel casters designed for climbing stairs with a handle that allows users to tip it back when moving it. And, of course, it features LED lighting to keep the workpiece clearly visible even in poor lighting. It also has a small tool tray and built-in USB ports for additional user convenience.
“Our laser head is also very unique in that it’s ultra lightweight,” Price says. “For comparison, one of our competitor’s heads on their 1,000-W laser weighs 12 lbs., but our head only weighs 2 lbs. Ours has the same amount of power, but a quarter of the weight. The XR also has a location to mount the head when it’s outside, so you don’t have to set it on the ground or on a table.”
Also included is a tablet replete with ALR’s powerful proprietary software. The touchscreen indicates to users the laser head’s distance off the surface and gives a readout of the optimal work zone. A light turns green when the laser head is at the correct distance from the workpiece, red when it’s too far away and yellow if it’s too close.
“All of our units use the same exact tablet and software, and if you have an Android device, you can download our app,” he says. “Within the software and app, you will find smart settings, optics calculators and laser monitoring features. And everything is connected via high-power Bluetooth, which allows the app or tablet to be at least 100 ft. away from the machine and still be connected.”
The app also allows users to create and edit cleaning parameters with editing made simple thanks to undo and redo buttons, which essentially give users the ability to rewind or fast-forward through the various iterations they’ve made to a setting. Once a parameter is set, it can be locked to keep unauthorized users from making changes.
Understanding the power of data, Price made sure that ALR’s software gathers simple machine data that users can analyze for operational insight. Users can see how many hours a machine has been running and even where it’s been running thanks to an integrated GPS tracking feature.
“Maintenance is another big thing I thought about when designing the XR,” Price says. “If the protective lens becomes contaminated, it can damage the laser, and compared to other processes, laser cleaning is where the lens is going to get contaminated the most. You’re dealing with so many things: spattering grease, oil, rust particles, paint and dust.”
Therefore, the XR’s laser head has culminating and protective lenses built in. The entire head can also be rebuilt by users in under 30 min.
A safe solution
“Compared to continuous wave laser technology, ALR’s pulsed laser technology is an inherently safer process,” Price explains. “Continuous wave is the same laser technology used in a laser cutting machine, but if you aimed it across a parking lot, you could hurt somebody.”
Conversely, ALR’s pulsed laser technology can control the focal length of the laser, so that it only functions from a set distance, about 1 in., from the surface of the material being cleaned. And, for every machine sold, new users must go through a mandatory laser safety officer training and certification course that is available online.
“We also launched a location-based laser safety program that we integrated into our AI model,” he says. “If you’re in New York City or Omaha, Neb., the avatar will tell you what the local requirements are for the laser equipment you’re using. We’re very proud to be able to take the state and local state regulations and integrate them into AI to provide machine users the requirements they need to follow. For example, in Florida, you’re required to register your machine, so we’ll be able to inform customers where and how to do so.”
The program was built with the help of ANSI and OSHA with both organizations being integral throughout the entire development process. Price says their involvement was critical in his pursuit of creating a safe solution that anyone could use.
“When I really think about laser cleaning, I realize that it’s simply just one thing: it does the job that everybody hates to do,” Price concludes. “It eliminates the hard manual labor, the chemicals, the backbreaking scrubbing and grinding and all of that. You’re using light energy to do the job no one wants to do while making it fun and satisfying.”
