HALIFAX- Relaxing after retirement isn’t what retired RCMP officer Glenn Cox had in mind. Cox started a new career as an entrepreneur shortly after his retirement from the RCMP, and got right to work on a brand new invention that he showed off this weekend at the annual Halifax International Boat Show.
Cox who is now the President and CEO of his own company, Rupture Seal, says that it all started when he witnessed a fuel spill, while serving as an RCMP officer. He said he would never forget what he saw that day as he watched a gas leak stopped in a tanker by a makeshift solution.
Years later, as he set off in his new career, it is that experience that got his idea wheel turning. Cox began by working on an invention to seal large ruptures, until he found out that 95 per cent of holes in boats and fuel containers are less than 2 inches deep. It was then that he came up with another idea, one requiring a squishy ball, tie wrap, a coffee can and water–and it worked like a charm.
“Cut the squishy ball in half, put a pin through the zip tie, took a paint cap from a spray can, put a slit in it, put it all together, pulled the tape off the coffee can, inserted it in, and it worked perfectly,” says Cox. Cox didn’t stop there. He then went on to invent the product he showed off this weekend called Rupture Seal, which will completely seal off a leak.
“The rupture seal is the only leak-sealing device in the marine market that mechanically fastens to the rupture,” he said, “so essentially what that means is when you insert this into the rupture, the pin flips and you pull on it and it will lock it in place, so you can actually deploy it either inside or outside the rupture.”
The product has only been on the market for three years, but is already being sold across the globe in more than 30 countries.
Last Fall, Cox won the Ernest C. Manning Award for Rupture Seal.
“Very proud of that,” said Cox. “There’s only three each year that are given for sort of different types of innovation, and we won it in the category, for best innovation in Canada.” Even the Royal Canadian Navy uses Cox’s invention, and others.
“We’ve sold product here to the Coast Guard in Atlantic Canada and on the West coast,” he said.
The product is available locally at most marine companies. “It’s definitely an innovative safety product that we believe should be in everybody’s safety kit, just like a life jacket or flares,” said Ron Savidant, General Manager of Mermaid Marine Products in Charlottetown, PEI.
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