Biography
While carbon monoxide monitoring standards started in the United States in 1989, many other countries still have looser, often non-mandatory, regulations that can lead to frequent accidents. While Europe has some carbon monoxide detector regulations for private dwellings, Australia has none.
With more than 40 years of experience in marine and boating, MTI Industries Vice President of International Sales Bob Rudolph works every day to extend the detector and alarm company’s international territory.
“I educate the rest of the world as to why you should use a detector that is stringently made, instead of using a $5 carbon monoxide detector,” Rudolph said.
Most states in America require private dwellings to have carbon monoxide detectors and alarms. Per national requirements, MTI’s first round of alarm approval testing is for the home standard.
“To be in an RV unit, there is another whole battery of tests on top of being a home unit,” Rudolph said about second-round vibration, shock and temperature checks the company’s RV products must pass.
Rudolph is on a Project Technical Committee for the American Boat and Yacht Council, which sets U.S. boating standards. He is also a U.S. representative on International Organization for Standardization committees. The organization writes UL Standard rules that many other countries base their own regulations on.
Before travelling the world, Rudolph started his career as a service writer in 1990 at a New Jersey marine yard. In 1997, he moved to Florida and, for 13 years, worked for manufacturers’ representative agency ComMar Sales, where one of his clients was MTI Industries.
Rudolph ran Intellian Techologies, a satellite communications systems company, for four years, bringing the Seoul, South Korea-based supplier into the United States. He was then sales director for Tecnoseal Marine Anodes USA. Though the Italian products had a small U.S. customer base when Rudolph started in 2013, three years later, he said he increased the company’s U.S. sales by 840 percent.
Rudolph started doing travel runs with MTI Founder Tom Wisniewski in 1997, after meeting him while working at ComMar. For years, the two worked together for a few days at a time, making appointments with manufacturers to meet their engineers and purchasing heads. In 2016, Rudolph became MTI’s vice president of sales and brought with him distributors and OEM suppliers from around the world.
“Company wise, we are the most integrated, largest company in the LP/carbon monoxide detector market,” Rudolph said of MTI. As vice president of sales, Rudolph handles the U.S. marine market, but is most proud of expanding MTI’s global reach. In more than 20 countries, Rudolph talks with hundreds of distributors and OEMs in the marine and RV industries.
