Pro - Team Professional Vacuums

Shared Top Border

Left Border

Click here to learn more about these professional vacuums

Cleaning for Health

In the competitive world of vacuum cleaner sales, some companies are refreshingly different. In 1987, when ProTeam CEO Larry Shideler introduced the first successful backpack vacuum to the commercial marketplace, ProTeam faced overwhelming odds. First, the price point of the backpack vacuum was three times more than the single motor upright vacuums it was designed to replace. Second, wearing a vacuum cleaner on one’s back was a foreign concept to custodians. Third, few people believed backpack vacuums could clean as well as traditional machines. Finding distributors for the product was an uphill battle. Shideler’s answer? Education.

Larry’s long experience as a professional contract cleaner had taught him a few things about vacuuming. First, he realized pushing or dragging a vacuum around on the floor was doing things the slow, hard way. Labor cost rather than unit price was a key issue. Second, he understood powerful suction and airflow rather than a beater bar/brush were most important to removing soil from low-pile commercial carpet quickly and effectively. Third, he believed the vacuum’s filters needed to trap more particles than typical vacuums-and be easy to empty/clean/replace for sustained airflow-to prevent dust from being blown back into the room, inhaled by operators and occupants, and resettling on furnishings driving up labor costs for removal.

Knowing he had the right answers for vacuuming in commercial applications, Larry developed an extensive education program designed to first inform cleaning consultants and building operations managers across the country about the benefits of backpack technology. By educating the educators, or training the trainers, Shideler began to get word of the vacuum’s benefits to his prospects.

Among those benefits:

More productivity. Backpacks were proven by the International Sanitary
Supply Association (ISSA) to double the speed of cleaning versus standard
upright vacuums.

Better cleaning. Greater airflow and static lift at the tool head removed
more soil from surfaces as demonstrated by extensive lab tests and field
studies.

Better filtration. ProTeam trademarked its Four-level Filtration ™
supported by a battery of independent studies demonstrating greater fine dust
capture than typical machines. This also led to Shideler’s trademarking of the term, Cleaning for Health®.

Since 1987, ProTeam has directly or indirectly published hundreds of articles, plus some research papers, outlining the operational and Cleaning for Health benefits of its backpack vacuum technology.

ProTeam’s success in the commercial cleaning industry, driven largely
by its resolve to educate the marketplace, effectively positioned it within the last several years to expand its products to embrace a full line of vacuums—including hip-style, upright, canister and other vacuums currently in the works. ProTeam recently adopted the new identity and tagline: “The Vacuum Company”.

ProTeam continues to market its products through education, and believes in promoting systems of cleaning such as Team Cleaning™ to help customers do more with less while enhancing health and safety.