Kurt Avery: From Idea to Impact—Changing the World Through Water

Kurt Avery is the founder and president of Sawyer Products, a company at the forefront of innovation in outdoor protection and humanitarian aid. With a background in marketing for Fortune 500 companies and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, he launched Sawyer with a mission to develop practical, life-saving solutions—particularly in water filtration and insect repellents. Under his leadership, the company has grown into a global force, serving both outdoor enthusiasts and vulnerable communities around the world.

Since 2008, Sawyer has donated more than 90% of its profits annually, partnering with over 140 nonprofits across 80+ countries and improving the lives of more than 40 million people. Its clean-water initiatives have significantly reduced waterborne diseases and enhanced health outcomes in underserved regions worldwide. Kurt’s approach to business is grounded in purpose, faith, and impact—a philosophy he shares in his book Sawyer Think: How a Small Company Disrupts Markets and Changes the World.

Kurt and his work have been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, Yahoo Finance, and Newsbreak. Known for blending innovation with mission-driven leadership, he continues to champion sustainable solutions that create lasting global change.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

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SPEAKER_00 0:51

Well, thank you for letting us uh be here. It's uh it's our honor, not yours.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah, you know, it's it's definitely one of those topics that perked my ear up because when you hear that people, you know, that somebody created a product and you donate 90% of your profits annually to causes for philanthropy. I mean, you you couldn't make this up. So not only does it help people, but you're so generous on the back end.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Um yeah, actually we do more than 90% because we have a model we don't we don't make profits. Um I'm we own 100%, I own 100% of the company, sub-best, so I'm able to write a lot of stuff off. We liken it to um if we made cupcakes, we'd have to sell the cupcakes, make the profits, pay the taxes, and have some money left over to give away. Because we make the very thing that people need the water filters and the malarial treatments. I don't have to make a profit. Nobody says I have to make a profit. Bank loves what we're doing. I make all my payments. We never miss bills, we pay everybody. So what do I need a profit for? So there's no U-holes in heaven, so I'm not going to take it with me. So why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, I mean, that's that's amazing. I I that almost sounds like kind of like the antithesis of doing something, right? On paper. Certainly, your cause is your cause, but how does that resonate with people when you tell them that?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Well, most of them don't believe it anyways, but you think you're nuts. Well, I probably should be locked up, but that being you know what what is like you only go around life once, right? So you know, I have what I call the rocking chair. You get to the rocking chair theory, what do you wish you had done? We we save hundreds of thousands of babies' lives every year. We save millions of lives total. We've we've done some 40 million people now. How do you not do that? I mean, you're talking about look at the life we live, you know, and I'm fine. You know, uh shirt's ten years old and still work, so what? That's awesome. Um I do get a new truck every four years, though.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

But um It's tough to take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I have zero mechanical skills, so I have to get into it. But other than that, what what do you need the money for? I mean, we got we live in a nice place and whatever. So when you're dealing with lives, how do you not change those lives for the good? I mean, you we'll take you on something. You ever want to come on one of our trips, we'll take you, and you see what we where we work. It's totally life-changing to these people. I I'll give you one example that it'll tell you why we have to do it. Guy goes to Uganda, he notices after a week there that they don't name their kids till they're three years old. Well, why is that? Well, because if they make it to three, they're gonna live, but you know, they're gonna lose a third of their kids before they get to three years old. He goes back, puts in two, it's a smaller village, putting in 250 filters, you know, all of like$2,000,$3,000 worth of filters. Goes back a year later, all kids are named at birth because they've never lost another child. That's absolutely amazing. So how do you not do that? Absolutely amazing. You you gotta do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

That's absolutely I don't think the average person really realizes the sometimes when you just turn on a faucet or you have your you know your filter in the fridge or you go to your local grocery store, supermarket, and you can just get clean water, right? And it's something that you know I it's so matter-of-fact and easy to do that, but it's so precious for somebody else, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Oh, absolutely. I I have plenty of stories that make you cry. There'll be some of them on the thing, but with the change to them, we've got it down now to where just a one-time investment of 30 cents can give somebody 10 years to clean water. Just th for 30 cents. That's 30 cents, that's it. And we're the only ones that can do that. We have the only filter that doesn't allow you to get sick and also can never wear out. You just keep cleaning it. So no other point of it's called point of use because it's the last thing you do before the water comes through. And we don't we don't care if the cows poop in it or whatever, we'll make it safe to drink.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

That's that's that's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

It is amazing. So, how do you not do that when you have that? You know, I I mean, God gave us this tool and he didn't give it to us just to live luxuriously. I mean, I we live just fine. I'm an old country boy, I got everything I need. How do you how do you not do that?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Or, you know, we with the new one that was just published in New England Journals of Medicine, and all this data, by the way, is published in medical journals.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

I saw that. I saw that on your company website.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, you know, we do a lot, put a lot in the research to prove it because you wouldn't believe these statements if I couldn't prove them. Right. I mean, they're they're absurd.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I mean, you know, I think that's important too, because it's backed by scientific, you know, breakthroughs with all due respect.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Well, and we needed to know, because um, see, we're not just giving them the filter, we're changing their life. So we're changing behavior. So we, you know, we give women three hours a day, they don't have to boil water to drink because now you can just filter it. And so what's she going to do with those three hours? Now now she's got water clean enough that she can start a business. She can actually cook food because the water she has is clean enough to do baking. And kids can go to school, parents go to work, their brains are alive because they can drink all the water they need to be hydrated. We save them 10 to 15 percent of their annual income. We cut down 50 percent the amount of fossil fuels that are used to boil water. I mean, it's hundreds of trees a year are saved by one twenty dollar filter. So it's the impact is staggering, just staggering. But we had to prove it because if I just said that, you wouldn't believe me.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I think it's very important because you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's uh the facts you know matter when it comes to something like that. How receptive, you know, are the are the governments in the local um the local governments institutions for you to be able to implement this?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Oh, they love it, obviously. We we can go into, I mean, we literally wipe out uh waterborne sickness. We do it we're right now we've done all the suburbs around are doing uh the suburbs around Nairobi, some of the biggest slums in the country. So think of a vill uh uh a slum that has 400,000 people and 76 toilets. Are you are you serious? Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

76 toilets for 400,000 people?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

That's the correct thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So they they create what they call a flying toilet, which is they use a paper, a plastic bag and throw it. But um, they're closing the medical clinics, they're consolidating, they don't have enough sick people anymore. Right, right. I mean that so the governments know that and they love it. Um course they always want to use somebody else's money. You know, they they don't want to pay for it, but they love it when we show up. So we're we're in 140 different charities doing this in 80 different countries. I mean, so everyone, we're North Korea, you know, all the worst places. Seriously? Yeah. 80 countries. You said North Korea. Oh yeah, North Korea. They love it. Well, look at we solved their water problem. They didn't have to do anything. This is free. I mean, think of it. You know, it's free water basically, and it's clean. They didn't have to do it. You don't they don't need to build water treatment plants. Just whatever water they have, it's good. So, I mean, we're you can't name a uh a part of the world that we've been in Gaza from the very beginning. I mean, we're we're everywhere. You know, and so simple. I mean, the thing is smaller than a Coke can. It's half the size of a Coke can. And it never wears out.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Can I ask you how what's your background to create such an innovative and life-saving product?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Oh, I have none. I can't spell science without spell check. Really? Really. I always get those IEs and EIs all mixed up. But I'm a marketer, so um I I liken it to I I have a pretty good marketer. And you know, that's why if you we do go off tangent, the book, Sawyer Think, is written for your entrepreneurs to make their businesses better. It's I've had a pretty prestigious career. Um, so my skills were marketing. So here's what happens in the real world. You have customers and they have problems. They don't know what their problems are. I I always use the story Ford said if I asked them what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. They didn't know what problem they wanted to solve. And then you have engineers who are problem solvers, but they don't know how to talk to a consumer. One, they don't know how to figure out what the consumer really wants. And two, they think they've got a solution and the consumer should figure it out. The marketers are the in-between. We're the interpreters. We're the ones that go back and forth. We can figure out what the consumers really want and solve that problem, and then get the engineer to design it. Or if the engineer has a great idea, we can help the consumer understand what that idea was. So I'm in the middle, and I all these ideas, I told my kids, you have one asset in life, don't ever lose it, and that's your integrity. So we've been very, very zealously de uh defending our our integrity. And as a result, people come to us with the ideas. Somebody else is going to invent it, but they need to take it to market, and that's where they come to us. So we're the we're the go-between. But yes, every product we make is absolutely the state-of-the-art best thing on the market. And we won't change from that. And that's why we're not as big as people think we are, because we're not just going for we're going for the techie stuff. Military uses us on the clothes and on the skin, and that's it. They won't use anybody else but us because we we're the highest technology. And we don't soak them for the price. Because I, you know, right. If soldiers duck bullets, I'm not gonna rip them off.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

There was a very horrible story about a uh Teflon maker a long time ago that circumvented how safe the bullets, I think it was during the 2003 to 2005 era. I don't know if you remember that story where basically the vests were supposed to be ballistic proof and then it turns out they weren't. And I mean, you can't even I mean, to describe the absolute horror of actually faking something like that, is it's hard to put into words.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, no, no, no. We we're very connected with the military. You know, they they keep us free. I'm I can't rip them off. Uh tell you stories oh, we we sell so much lower price than they could get anywhere else, but that's just that's just our our commitment back to them. But overall, our prices are reasonable. So when you do get any of our products, we do send it overseas. I mean, we it's just this is absolutely I'm stunned.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And you don't see commercials about companies like this, right? Like something that's life-changing, and I say that respectfully, right? Because this is something that if I didn't have the the show, I would never have had the opportunity to talk to you about something like this. And I'd probably walk past it a thousand times inside of my local sporting goods store when you know you go towards the the the hunting section or the outdoor section.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Well, I I put a lid on it. I I have a very good marketing team, so it it's not me. Don't don't give me credit for I I got there's a whole bunch of Sawyer things behind me, and and you know, I I get the recognition, but it it trust me, it's a lot more than that. I would not tell the story because I I'm I have a biblical background and I don't believe of standing on the corner shouting about how great we are, you know. We wouldn't be here without God's blessings, and I'm not gonna take his credit. So I wouldn't do it. I would not. I mean, people, you know, buy a shoe, give a shoe, buy a song, give us all that. I said, No, I'm not going there. Then one day I listened to one of our competitors just brag and brag and brag about all they're doing. I mean, they put one filter in place and they give a great big PR thing. I said, All right, that's it, we're over. Go ahead and tell people what we're doing. So the marketing team has gotten the story out. Um, and so people are joining us, and that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

But that's wonderful, beautiful thing. So the name itself, you know, Sawyer, I have to ask. Tom Sawyer. I figu you know, I didn't want to say the obvious, right? Because everybody in the, you know, anybody who's never read that book didn't go through elementary school. It's like impossible. And I was like, it seemed like a layup, but I was like, uh, I'll figure out ask because maybe it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Well, I'm I'm I'll tell you how smart I am in marketing, not so much really. Um I originally named it Safida, S-A-F-F-E-T-A, because we started with a snake bike kit. All this started with a snake bike kit. Yeah. And that was where Paul was written on the island of Malta, and he was, you know, you're a God, no, I'm not a God. And so I can't, it's from Acts 28, 4, 5, and 6 backwards. That's the only thing I could find in the Bible about a snake bike kit.

unknown 12:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I'm so smart, right? So I go to the first trade show. I go to the first trade show and it's Buy America. Buy America, 1984. Well, that didn't sound very American. So I took all our packaging back to the studio and I said, okay, we're not going there. It can be the name of the company, but the brand name's got to be the most all-American name you can come up with. And so we literally created Sawyer products with Sawyer, literally Tom Sawyer running through the woods with a backpack was the original logo.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

So even marketers have to learn.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah. Yeah, simple is better, right? And so, you know, it's funny, and it may not resonate with the audience that you're trying to, you know, cultivate and everything like that. And so it that's that's crazy. I figured it was that, but it just seemed too obvious. So when you first started, like what was that sparkle light? What was the inspiration for your product?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Well, it it's interesting. I had a very storied business career, worked for some of the big names that you would know. Two of my bosses were on the cover of Forbes one time. I get I I get outside and I'm I'm a layer down below that, and I'm listening to the my boss take total credit for everything I ever did.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

It'll be enough to make your blood boil.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Can't even throw me a bone. So I said, I see how this game's gonna work. So now I'm going out on my own. Um, now I had along the way, I was very fortunate to connect with Gail Sears, the football player. Yeah, he he was kind of waiting for the franchise, so he I he was kind of assigned to work with me, so we got to be good friends. So I said, okay, it's time to go. So we came across this product from Pasteur Institute, actually. It's a suction.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Louis Pasteur Institute in France?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, that's where they invented this. It's called the Extractor. It's still in Walmart today.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Um it's a it, you know, it's for bee snakes and snake bites. And so I said, that's a pretty good idea. So we started the company on that and uh immediately crashed, forgot to throttle back from corporate marketing to guerrilla marketing. Oh wow. Uh so I always say we um we lost money 23 of the first 25 years till we became an overnight success.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Oh, jeez. I saw that.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So we we slugged it through, and it was the internet that really uh because we always had good stuff. When the internet took off and you had influencers like yourself, and particularly in the backpacking camping industry, you have influencers. They have to talk about us. We had all the best products. And we had reinvented water filtration from clunky old things to low-cost things from kidney dialysis to clean blood to clean water. So we totally disrupted the whole market. They put us on the map because you you couldn't you couldn't be an influencer and not talk about the best stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And so that's when we really took off, just absolutely took off as a company. So that's when we became an overnight success after 23 years.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

23 years in the making. Yeah, that's 25 years. So uh how do you decide and discern which organizations to partner with?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Um we we do the whole spectrum. Uh I mean, you know, we're with NGOs, freedom NGOs. We often we donate a lot each year, but we also sell at cost. Um they all want us. So we we're the whole spectrum. I I will sell everybody. We sell the Red Crescent, we sell the Red Cross, we sell Smaritan's Purse. Smearrint's Purse keeps two plane loads of our filters, so whenever there's a hurricane, boom, they're in there. So we're now people go in ahead of a hurricane and hunker down. Remember in Puerto Rico when they had all that water rotten on the tarmac? Oh my god. Got there too late. We were there before the hurricanes hit. We could take one duffel bag and do 20,000, 30,000 people. So um Helene, remember we had Helene in Tennessee. We sent 100,000 filters up there with the Red Cross and with private people. We flew them in day two. We we have a hiking community. The hikers took it up to where helicopters and and people couldn't get to, they were hiking to the remote people so they could drink the river the water they were standing in. Um, so we're everywhere. Whenever there's a hurt any natural disaster, we're there. Uh Haiti put us on the map 2010. A couple hundred thousand filters went down there. Um pretty much that's all they were drinking. And and all the charities knew that at the end this was the one that worked. There were 19 other water solutions, and at the end of the day, they asked them what do you use personally? And they all used our filters personally. So, and it was so easy. These things are so cheap and they never wear out. So we we have filters in their 15th year still working every day.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

So this is absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Yeah, it it's you know, we pinched ourselves. I mean, it's mind-blowing. Uh, you know, why us, you know, you know, could you couldn't you have picked somebody else? No, he picked us.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So what's the procurement pro and development process? I'm not asking obviously for you to give away anything proprietary, but what's the science behind actually making sure that this is effective? The engineering process, the teams, like how did it get to the point where it was this good of a product?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, and that is really a key point because we we adapted it from kidney dialysis, this water filter that we blood you can clean water. But there's a lot this technology has been around for a long time, but you have to pick and choose. So we hooked up with a company that your your hair is is 17 microns diameter. Bacteria is a lot smaller. So our largest hole is 0.1 microns, which is 170 times smaller than the diameter of your hair. That's the largest hole, if you can imagine it. And it kind of works like um, you know, those hoses that you lay out on the lawn and the water squirts out in the middle of the hose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so think of it going the opposite way. The water will go into the hose and come out the end, but the holes are so small the things that make you sick can't get through. Now, there's viruses, but they're not in the water, they're airborne and body food. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

So viruses and bacteria are two different things, people, just so people are aware.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, right. So when you hear the word purifier, it says mean you get viruses. But we don't have to worry about them, they're not there, and I I can't get into how we do it because the EPA would get mad at me, but we probably get them anyways, uh, because of the very nature of the of the viruses. We that we can't prove because of the way the technology proves it. But anyways, so uh other people uh say they have 0.1 microns, but they don't, they do, but they also have 0.2, 0.5, whatever. We're the ones we guarantee that no filter, no hole is greater than the one that will stop everything. And so when we manufacture it, we test it, we throw things backwards, and if anything can get through that's bigger than 0.1, we throw that one away. Wow. Then when we assemble it, we air test it two more times to make sure the seal has worked, the the casing and the o-rings are in place. Nobody does that. So I mean we spend a lot of money because we we can't go into Africa and say, you know what, 90% of you people are gonna be okay, the other ten, you're still going to get sick.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

No question. Nobody's collateral damage.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, no, you gotta go in and say nobody can get sick from this filter. And but we, you know, we pay for it. But then again, you know, they make 10 or 15,000, 50,000 of these things, we make millions. So we get it back in the economies to scale. And, you know, again, since we're not trying to make money on it, um we can keep that cost very, very and it lasts for 10 years. So when you average it out, you win one filter, do 200 gallons a day for 10 years, that comes out, you round it off to the decimal, and it's zero. You know, it's just nothing. The water is free.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Right. How how did you get into North Korea? I I I I I'm circling back to how does North Korea find your product? Obviously, the the the leadership of the country has access to outside information. How does that process even work?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

You go into the churches bring it in. There's a lot of people that cross the border and bring in Bibles and start churches. Um, I I'll give you an example of um in Vietnam. We first put it in there, and the guy was a missionary and he was brought the filters with him, and they would beat him up and you know, because he was preaching, whatever. But then he started passing out the filters and said, Okay, okay, you can have a home church, but you can't go outside. You can't be, it's all gotta be in. And he kept giving out the filters, and then he said, Okay, okay, you can you can you can have a thing in the park right here, you know, but you can't go anywhere else, you know. And it kept getting more and more and more. And finally he had lunch with the um the mayor and whatnot, and he said, you know, two years ago you put me in prison and beat me the daylights out of me. Now you're letting me do everything. It was all because of the filters. You know, how how do you you know we can go in? We're we're hoping that within two to three years, within Guatemala, nobody ever be sick again. We we can do that. It's not 30 cents a person. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah, it it it almost seems too re it almost seems too easy that people wouldn't have this access worldwide. Do you have any resistance to your products as you try to you know say that this is the language, culture barriers politically speaking?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Um you do. First of all, the government say it's great, but they don't want to put a penny into it, even though they're gonna save money. You know, I say, well, what happens if nobody gets sick and we can grow your country by 10% GDP? But they're they they have that old plantation mentality. And and there really is a divide between the people in power and the and the n the rest of us. You get into a lot of these countries and the people in power, you know, I don't care what it doesn't matter whether it's Central America, Africa, or Asia. A lot of the people in power don't really want to give it up. We do get that resistance. Usually in the form of customs. They nail us for the price of phase one time. We we have uh, you know, so say the filter's worth$15 or whatever, and they want to collect$30 in taxes on it. We just walk we have to walk away from it. We just leave it. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

So that resistance, but no, I think we're about to what we're what we're the model now is we go in through the schools, and yes, it is donated, or we have people that partner with us. So the teachers, we have it at the school, so all the water you want is at the school for for the kids, and the community can come in and get all the water they want. So then they they teach the kids about it, and then they bring the parent in, they teach the parent, then they send a filter home with them. And typical home will the one filter will do 10 to 20 people. They do their relatives and their neighbors because it's so fast. That's amazing. So that's the model. We're now going, we're we've connected with two big organizations, Child Hope, which has 900 schools throughout Central South America. It's so simple. I mean, they love it. And and the schools or the churches, why why wouldn't you give out free water and let people come and visit you every day? And then we use OAS, Organization of American States. They they're in every one of the 37 members from the Caribbean to South and Central America. Um, they're funded by the U.S. government, State Department funds them. So we're working out programs now, we're we're pretty far up into the government now, um, trying to say, you know, j just think if we went into El Salvador in a year from now, nobody was sick. Or just think if we went into Guatemala and two years from now, nobody's sick. That that has a lot of foreign policy implications.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Well, a lot of the uh uh contrary to popular opinion, I this certainly isn't a political show, but a lot of conflicts arise from lack of food and water.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Well absolutely. Well, here's another thing. And and we we we we're for everybody, okay? Even though Christians do 80% of the work, we we work with everybody. You know, we're in Egypt with Red Crescent and all that kind of stuff. Um go back to the one we finished that 400,000 people with uh 76 toilets at Kabira in Nairobi. If you four years ago before we started, if you tried to walk down that street, you you would really want to bring a SEAL team six with you. You you it was so dangerous. There were eight gangs warring all the time, kidnapping. You can walk down the street all by yourself right now, middle of the day, it makes no difference. Right, because people are gangs have stopped fighting.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Right, right, right. Because those things, you know, resources and accessity to food, water, clean, and sanitation. I mean, I mean, you live in a normal, you know, I want to say normal, you live in a in a in a more advanced technological area. You're not thinking about maybe your next meal or your neck or turning on the sink or washing your clothes. And sometimes, you know, it's not just drinking water, you have to take a bath. You know, you have to wash your vegetables, you know. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So it it's gotta look to learn how to get rid of your fecal matter. Oh my god. We we are behavior change. All of our filters come with a QR code on them, yeah, and we can measure it. And so you want us to participate. We know within six inches where that filter is. And so we go back and we go back and back. But we we have uh animations in 18 languages. So if you and they all have smartphones. I mean, they all have food, but they got smartphones. So you go right to the help desk in your language, learn how to clean it if you got issues. We're not just a filter, we're a behavior change company. And and we have WhatsApp, so we can now communicate. You can ask us, we go there. So it's it's far more than just say here's a filter. It it's the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah, because sometimes you'll see those commercials, right? And it's kind of like it's kind of pretty up, like, oh, get your best glass of water, and then you know, they have the beautiful hand showing, and you know, somebody's drinking a cup in a kitchen, and it's more of a an aesthetically pleasing, the freshest, purest water, when in reality this is life and death, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Well, for to the rest of the world. Over here, we're just taking out tastes. By the way, we do have microplastics in our water, even out of our tap, and this will take out microplastics. Unbelievable. So no, it's a game changer. And it's gonna be the same thing with the baby wraps. You know, we treat those things. Uh six percent of all the babies die from malaria. Um, and we're just gonna stop it. We we stopped it. And even those who don't die, if they get malaria, end up with some kind of cognitive restrictions for the rest of their life. So it's very simple. Just cost a buck thirty a treatment, last six months. You just treat the wrap that the mom carries the baby in, and the mosquitoes stay away. Yeah, and now we'll I think if we treat the mom's dress as well, we're gonna pretty well wipe it out.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

This is one of the most inspirational stories that I've ever heard on this show, and I've had the pleasure of talking to numerous guests because this is this is about life, right? And you've straddled the line between you know, you could really take advantage of a very delicate situation, you know, with the product that you have, and you haven't done that. And that's very commendable. And I want to personally say thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Well, it it obviously it's fun, uh, it's very rewarding, but but there is the burden that goes with it. You know, we it it started the urgency started many years ago, 2006 or 7, whatever it was. We put a filters in the village and the grandma just crying her eyes out saying, if you were here two weeks ago, my grandson would still be alive. So you get you get you have that sense of urgency. Yeah. And and you know, and then I look at it, you know, it's the God thing. You know, God, why now is he ready to take bacteria out of water so nobody dies? I mean, how many you know how many people die of waterborne diseases every year? And we can stop it. And it's not just the death, it's the sickness. Right. You know, there's no diapers over there, folks. You know, there's no toilets, you get diarrhea. I mean, most places, even the adults get diarrhea once a month.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Just think of that, just think if you never had it again.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Right, right. It's it's kind of you know, it it stops you in your tracks because you know, it I mean, where I live at, and I say this very respectfully, there's a running joke in my house. Like the water sanitation system is it's far enough away that I don't have to smell it. But when you go like five minutes, ten minutes from my house, you know, you kind of have to gag in your car a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

That's the sewage treatment plant, not the water treatment treatment.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yes, yes, right. Yeah, no, they're nasty. Oh man. And so but to your point, like I don't have to be around that all day. Like, that's not something I walk around and you know have to dodge and duck and see people have to defecate in the streets and things like that. Right. So, you know, you you don't realize how precious that's still a self-contained system unto itself, and they have you know health regulations and safety protocols. Yeah, it sucks to drive past it, but once you drive past it for two minutes, it's it's gone, the whiff is gone. It's not something that's my normal everyday life. Yeah, and and that kind of even makes me think twice before that, you know, think you know, be complaining about that because I'm 10 minutes away from that.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Oh, I I tell you what, they would love to have the water we wash our cars and water our lawns with.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

That's amazing. That's amazing. I would love to be able to pick your brain, you know, for hours on end, because I'd always believe that when topics like this they aren't worthy of a 30-minute discussion. But in the service of your time and the respect that I have to make sure that we encompass this and your schedule, I obviously I'd love to have a part two. Where can people find uh Sawyer products, Kurt Avery, just for the purpose of this show, not because you need me?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

No, it you just go to Sawyer.com. Um you can reach me that way. We have the foundation, it's called the Sawyer Foundation. So I've got to set up that when I lose my skills mentally, physically, whatever, company literally goes to the foundation. Like Hershey owns Hershey Chocolate. Well, Sawyer Foundation will and Sawyer. I can sell this thing. I get offers once, twice a week. So we're not gonna let it go because they it's not about the money, it's about the mission. So they can go to Sawyerfoundation.org. It's a 501c3. If they want to donate, every dollar that's donated will go overseas. No overhead coverage, whatever. Sawyer does that. Or if you buy our products, you know, all the profits are heading over there anyway. So um come join us. Um again, I would you you your audience is entrepreneurs. They should take a look at getting the book Sawyer Think. It's very cheap, very inexpensive. Um, you can get Amazon, obviously. It's how to make your business better. I got 25 tips that I've learned along the way. And remember, I got my MBA at Northwestern Marketing, which is the best school in the country, and I worked for some very good companies. It's amazing. 25 tips to make your business better. And if you make if we help you make it better, now you can be more philanthropic yourself. With whatever you're at, everybody's got a skill set. The world needs your skill set somehow. So we we want to help you join us.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

I certainly think that if it wasn't for the show, that I would never have the opportunity to learn about you know products or talk to people such as yourself and be able to tap into that level of curiosity. See, because sometimes, you know, some things are just manifested from my personal curiosity. But sometimes you can meet somebody who's changing lives and actually dealing with the matters of life and death. And in this particular episode, you know, had me pumped in a number of different ways because the idea that you could that water, you know, something that we literally play with as a game, for somebody it it doesn't even resonate as an everyday, it's a struggle to get access to it. And so it always kind of brings you down a notch that you're grateful to be able to have the technology at our disposal on this side of the globe. Some people don't on this side of the globe too, to not take that for granted. So and that's all not even touching the malaria and the other infectious diseases that you stop. So thank you for changing lives and making the global impact that you have.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Well, it it's our honor, but we really appreciate you giving us a voice. So that's that many more people are gonna know what the uh possibilities are.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I just get to talk to people who do it. So, like I, you know, I'm I'm I've kind of found my niche, so to speak. I've always said to all my guests that create wonderful things. I'm certainly not smart enough to do what you all do, but I I have at least a fraction of the ability to ask about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah. Well, they're welcome to join us. They can either participate and fund it, or you know, we'll take people with us. I mean, we I have 140 charities, their arms are open. Come with us, walk beside us, see what we do.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

I hope somebody listening certainly reaches out to you, and I certainly have, you know, when the camera stops rolling, some people that I think that you would that would benefit from your services as well too. So this is Rashad Woods on the Randomist of Nothing podcast. You know, it's not often that I get to talk to somebody that that saves lives, but I want to thank Kurt Avery, Sawyer products for all the wonderful services that you do globally. And uh this one's up here when it comes to what my experience was being able to interview on this show. And I'm very grateful.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Well, we're grateful you gave us a chance. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

God bless. God bless you. That's amazing.