The Road to Prosperity
Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt of a talk delivered by the author at the 15th Constructal Law Conference, Design in Nature and Society, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, November 5, 2025. The constructal law, stated by Duke University’s Adrian Bejan in 1996, is the law of physics that accounts for the phenomenon of evolution (configuration, form, design) throughout nature, inanimate flow systems, and animate systems together.
Fifty years ago, I founded CaptiveAire with big ideas but no capital. Today, our team has proven the best ideas & thinking are more valuable than money. It was a slow process but in 25 years, CaptiveAire became the dominate producer of Commercial Cooking Ventilation in the America.
Our first principles include:
- Contra Mundum — against the world & conventional wisdom.
- Relentless Truth Seeking to gain Wisdom.
- Kaizen-continuous/Innovation — rare but imperative
- The Constructal Law — simplify — Single Source Integration
- Cooperation — to achieve common goals is imperative but challenging.
Freedom is God given but denied for most of mankind by tyrants, dictators, and regulators. Thankfully, our founders protected freedom in the American Constitution.
Codes and regulations define stasis and impede the improvement of technologies.
American Exceptionalism followed and is based on freedom and individual contributions. However, market inertia and legacy ideas continue to restrict and discourage new thinking and innovative solutions in most industries. CaptiveAire is defined by continuous alertness, learning, debating & experimenting.
Constructal Law
Freedom and evolution, defined by Dr. Adrian Bejan PhD, Duke University, supports rapid improvement and market disruption. At CaptiveAire every member of the engineering team continuously challenges conventional technologies and thinking.
We established new standards and technologies for commercial kitchen ventilation, fire suppression of grease fires, and now total building integration (TBI) of commercial Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC).
For example, our CORE fire suppression systems use water and surfactant to extinguish major restaurant grease fires. Conventional wisdom says you cannot put water on a grease fire, but this conventional wisdom is wrong based on the nozzles we use to deliver the water. This is a working example of our first principle of “rejection of conventional wisdom”.
Codes and regulations define stasis and impede the improvement of technologies.
In 1980 we had the National Fire Protection Code (NFPA96), which turned out to be wrong on many important issues, including mandated minimum exhaust flow rates, wasting enormous amounts of energy. The energy wasted was estimated at two billion annually and most commercial kitchens operated under negative pressure, which is also a health hazard.
The challenge is to invent technologies not easily restrained by current codes.
The physics of kitchen hoods are partially defined by Henry Coanda 1910 based on the principle that air follows nearby surfaces. Commercial kitchen hoods are simple devices that operate similar to fireplaces.
The challenge in commercial kitchens is dynamic effects, primarily created by the Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC).
Low-velocity laminar flow of make-up air supports the Coanda effect by eliminating turbulence caused by HVAC systems.
Laminar flow make-up air allows for a large reduction in exhaust flow rates. In 1970 Joe Knapp at McDonalds designed the HVAC based on these principles.
Exhaust flow rates were reduced from 1985 — 400 Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) per linear foot of hood to about 200 CFM today, with full capture and containment of effluents.
Additionally, in HVAC we are reducing air flow from 400 CFM to 300 CFM per ton of HVAC based on DOAS technology using a low due point of 53 Degrees.
Experimentation and Testing Have Always Defined our Growth
Our internal testing is replicated and listed by testing agencies such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and Environmental Testing Laboratories (ETL).
Beta testing of all products and systems is imperative because it helps identify any weak areas in the technology, under harsh operating conditions, including abuse and misuse.
Innovation: The use of innovative sheet metal equipment allows scalability, safety and consistent quality, including lasers, automated benders, right angle sheers, and punches on high speed turrets.
In 2013, this process led to the adoption of Dedicated Outside Air Systems (DOAS), a specific type of HVAC unit theorized by Dr. Stanley Mumma of Penn State University and Dr. William Coad, former President of ASHRAE.
The primary advantage of this new approach to HVAC stems from technology advancements, allowing the equipment to process up to 100 percent of outside air and achieve temperature and humidity set points.
Outside air dilutes viruses and can achieve indoor CO2 levels of 600 parts per million or less vs. the industry standard of 1,000 PPM.
Even after twelve years of testing, study and use, we continue to improve performance and robustness.
This year we began to password protect the sequence of operations (SOO), to insure sustainable outcomes.
Conventional HVAC mostly recirculate stagnant air within buildings and often has CO2 levels exceeding 1,000 PPM, enough to affect cognitive function.
Paragon HVAC integrates large DX coils, up to HEPA filtration, modulating compressors, dehumidification, low velocity duct systems, controls, and algorithms delivering precise outcomes — which are continuously monitored by our servers.
Our goal five years out is to resolve 80 percent of problems remotely.
Ironically, the DOAS theory is 20 years old but not adopted by many of the major Roof Top Package HVAC manufacturers.
Major producers often ignore disruptors because of their belief in current technology — stasis, documented by Clayton Christensen, Ph.D. Harvard.
Philosophy of Business
Constructual Law
- Decentralized management allows for immediate decisions by the responsible leader. This is known as the principle of subsidiarity.
- Lean management afforded the opportunity to grow debt-free and generate, not consume, cash.
- Generating cash for an expanding manufacturer is rare but possible.
- We consolidated traditional processes such as estimating, production planning, important engineering decisions, and capital allocation, all executed by the three senior leaders.
- The goal is to minimize process, reduce cost and time, and focus on outcomes.
- Focusing on results, based on repeatable testing and building pre-production product models for quality and scalability.
- CaptiveAire’s designs and codes selection, engineering and operational software, and uses Microsoft- Enterprise Resource Planning Software (ERP).
- Our selection software is crucial to quality (restricting choices) and provides rapid transmission of data from specifying Engineers to the factory floor.
- Education is profoundly important to mankind.
- But, too often, education creates apologists for the status quo rather than thinkers and creators.
William Buckley, at age 25, refused to conform to lack of intellectual freedom at Yale and instead encouraged the public to seek the truth in his 1951 book God and Man at Yale, a best seller that went through several reprints.
Seeking Wisdom — The Road to Prosperity
- Freedom is God given for the purpose of servant leadership, improving mankind.
- Human freedom, ingenuity, and spirit can solve all problems over time, paraphrasing Julian Simon, Economist.
- Cicero provides a cautionary message: Power Corrupts. This is also true of industries and why they fail or fall behind.
- Individuals with the highest discipline also have the most freedom.
Morality, Character Formation, Humility
- Humility (humilia-ground) is the foundation and paramount to continuous discovery.
- Ancient philosopher (41) Socrates stated that integrity must be absolute. Any violation of this principle leads to trouble.
- Stated another way, trust is imperative to science and relationships.
- Continuous learning is imperative but lacking in America.
Relentless Truth-Seeking
- Relativism (equivocation) exaggeration creates confusion and is not truthful.
- Soren Kierkegaard’s white paper states, “The Crowd is untruth.”
- All human progress comes from the individual, not the group.
- We do not participate in peer review articles, which allows us to communicate important testing information directly to specifying engineers.
Emotional Intelligence
- Critical to gaining the best outcome from humans.
- Human dignity, in simple — treat everyone with respect and kindness.
- We all have emotions and biases, but they must be kept in check.
- Finesse and kindness win friends and supporters.
Mentors
- Help from and improve our thinking and careers,
- Asking insightful questions not only helps to clarify information but also demonstrates interest and opens the door for candid responses.
- Seek out individuals who can teach and help shape your life.
Philosophy Is How We Make Decisions
- Decisions should be made from Virtuous-Philosophy, not from spreadsheets and themes, such as climate change.
- CaptiveAire did not shut down and did not require the vaccine during COVID. Luddy Schools (9,000 students) operated.
Execution
- Alertness, sparking (Bejan) thinking, making excellent decisions, and execution.
- Failure often occurs from poor execution, not lack of know-how.
- At Fort Bragg, during infantry training, the drill instructor provided sage advice, there are two kinds of soldiers, “The Quick and the Dead.”
Virtuous Leadership
- Servant-Leadership is hard and must not be shirked.
- We live longer and should work longer; our greatest contributions are possible at a senior age.
- Learning and science is a low process to achieve mastery in Constructal law. Senior age is when our flow channels have reached their largest size.
Entrepreneurship
- Creativity, and Innovation are necessary to improve the Human Condition.
- Kaizen is daily improvement, personal improvement must continue during one’s lifetime.
- Disruptions and innovations are hard and rare but imperative.
- Solving complex problems with the best solutions is a slow but vitally important process.
- Risk-taking, changing standards: in 1988, I introduced lighter metal gauge and adopted 430 stainless steel for commercial kitchen hoods, which saved 40 percent of the material cost.
Servant leaders, engineers, and scientists are fulfilled by life-improving outcomes.
Think of Rudolph Diesel, the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, and Adrian Bejan as wise servant leaders.
Thank you for improving the human condition with your God given talents and your understanding of the natural order, defined by the Constructal Law.
Bob Luddy is the founder and CEO of CaptiveAire Systems and an education entrepreneur.
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