Our Story
Frio was founded in 2016 to commercialize energy-efficient snow melt control systems. Over the first few years of the company’s existence, we focused on large custom snow melting projects, leveraging and expanding upon control techniques developed in the ice labs at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Realizing that our energy-efficient control techniques could be applied across the broader heat trace market, we developed a brand new IoT capable heat trace controller to bring energy efficiency to more heat tracing systems. This controller forms the core of our present business, along with our project and consulting division.
We have expanded our product offering to include a modular version of our proprietary sensing systems better suited to larger multi-circuit heat trace systems. We continue to offer our expertise on projects of all sizes, working with engineers to make their heat tracing systems energy efficient from the design stage.
We are proud to be part of the clean technology movement, improving how users interact with energy enabling them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are based in Brooklyn, NY, with all of our products manufactured in New York State.
Leadership Team
Travis Kuster - Founder & CEO
Travis began working on heating systems as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. After completing a BE in mechanical engineering, he spent a brief stint in strategy consulting. He then returned to Dartmouth, completing an MS in Material Science while working to continue the development of new heater control methods, establishing Frio in 2016. Travis focuses on business development, key partnerships, projects, and sales.
Alex Brown - Co-Founder & CTO
Alex worked with Travis on several projects while completing a BE in mechanical engineering at Dartmouth. While in school, he worked in a biomedical lab developing algorithms to aggregate and utilize sensor data from smart implants, and co-owned and operated a campus furniture startup. He joined Travis to found Frio and head up the development of Frio’s cloud-based control systems. He manages the product vertical, from the physical controller to the cloud platform.
Kevin Clark - COO
Kevin joins Frio having held leadership roles at a number of growth-stage technology companies across real estate, industrials and finance. Prior to that, Kevin worked in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he helped advise some of the world’s largest industrial companies on M&A transactions and capital raises. Kevin completed his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth, where he first met Travis and Alex.
At Frio, Kevin focuses on all things related to sales, service and operations, ensuring that all of Frio’s users and partners get the most out of Frio.