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at death- he had 5 grandchildren- Kelly, Katherine, Richard, Carter and Jenkins Dwight- who are their fathers? jkh
Richard Coles Dwight Jr. | Visit Guest Book
Richard Coles Dwight, Jr. SUMTER, SC - Richard Coles Dwight Jr., 80, died Sunday, January 9, 2011, at the Tuomey Regional Medical Center. Born in Sumter, he was a son of the late Richard Coles Dwight, Sr., and Eleanor Mitchell Dwight. Mr. Dwight was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, Church of the Holy Cross and Trinity Episcopal Church in Edisto Island. He was a graduate of Clemson College; a U. S. Air Force veteran, and founder of Carolina Filters, Inc. He was also a member of the Sumter Rotary Club and the High Hills of the Santee. Surviving are two sons, Coles Dwight and wife Susanne, Arthur Dwight and wife Jennifer all of Sumter; five grandchildren, Kelly, Katherine, Richard, Carter, and Jenkins Dwight; three nephews, Mike, Dickie and Dwight Mitchell; and one niece, Mary Boyce. Memorial Services will be held at 12 noon, Wednesday, at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter with Rev. Dr. John Barr officiating. Private family burial will be in the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross Cemetery at Stateburg. The family will receive friends following the memorial services at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter. Memorials may be made to the Richard Dwight IV Trust Fund c/o First Citizens Bank, 683 Bultman Drive, Sumter, SC 29150. On-line condolences may be sent to www.sumterfunerals.com. ELMORE HILL MCCREIGHT FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY, 221 Broad Street, Sumter, is in charge of the arrangements (803) 775-9386. Visit our guestbook at www.postandcourier.com/ deaths
Published in Charleston Post & Courier on January 11, 2011
Richard Coles Dwight: 1931-2011
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Posted: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:00 am | Updated: 7:32 pm, Tue Jan 11, 2011.
By Corey Davis cdavis@theitem.com
The Sumter business community is mourning the loss of one its longtime successful entrepreneurs.
Richard Coles Dwight Jr., 80, died Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011, at Tuomey Regional Medical Center. Dwight, a native of Sumter, was the founder of Carolina Filters Inc. He started the family-owned business in 1981, originally calling it Industrial Filters. Dwight was the co-founder and general manager of Air Filter Service Co. for nearly 13 years, before setting out on his own and starting Carolina Filters Inc.
According to the company's website, Dwight recognized the forthcoming trend of "outside contracting" for industrial services. He developed a staff of technicians and engineers to furnish air filters and provided service for air filter systems in plants throughout the Southeast. Granddaughter Kelly Dwight said in a letter that her grandfather's business has served the community with quality, integrity and dependability.
Employees Steve Stafford and Leroy Blackwell expressed their appreciation of working for Dwight.
"I had the pleasure of working for Mr. Dwight for the past 18 years," Stafford said. "He epitomizes the entrepreneurial spirit and had a genuine concern for all of his employees and their well-being."
"I worked with Mr. Dwight since 1985, and he was a very hard-working individual and someone that I had a deep appreciation for," Blackwell said.
Susie Reynolds described her time working with Dwight as an ongoing learning experience.
"He was a master entrepreneur, always thinking about new ideas and how to do things," she said, adding he was the ultimate "customer service" person, always thinking about how to better serve his customers."
Dwight devoted much of his time and energy securing the future of Carolina Filters, having successfully handed down first the management and then the ownership of his company to his sons, Coles and Arthur. Coles, 49, chief executive officer of Carolina Filters, said his dad instilled in his children the need to have their priorities in order.
"Dad said the most important thing in life is relationships," Coles said. "It starts with your relationship with the Lord, which is the most important thing, and carries over to the relationship you have with your family, your friends, your customers and your co-workers."
Dwight was an active member of the Sumter community and a member of the Sumter Rotary Club and the High Hills of the Santee. He was a faithful member of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter in Sumter, an associate member of the Church of the Holy Cross in Statesburg and an associate member of Trinity Episcopal Church at Edisto Beach. He graduated from Clemson University in 1952, where he played football under coach Frank Howard. Dwight participated in three bowl games, including the Gator Bowl in 1948 and the Orange Bowl in 1950, both won by Clemson.
Posted in News, Local news on Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sumter filter expert develops cooling unit cleaning system
RICK CARPENTER / THE SUMTER ITEM
Arthur Dwight of Carolina Filters Inc. displays a cross section of coils that cool the air tempertature as air blows over the fins that surround the coils. When the fins fill with debris, air cannot flow over the cooling coils. Dwight says his company has developed a technology, Coil Flow Max, to clean coils as deep as 16 inches. The jars in the photo are samples of debris cleaned from the coils and fins.
Posted Sunday, October 2, 2016 6:00 am
BY RICK CARPENTER RICK@THEITEM.COM
For more than 20 years, Arthur Dwight visited industrial and health care facilities to see the inner workings of their local air-conditioning units. With an undergraduate engineering degree and architectural experience, the intricate and often unique systems amazed him. From the first time he replaced and cleaned filters in air-conditioning units, he realized that the great service he provided extended the lifeblood of the units - coils that fed coolant through a series of thin fins that air blew through to provide cool air.
Now, after years of trial and error, he may have solved a major issue with cleaning larger units with deeper coils that will extend the life of those coil and fin systems, too.
Dwight's filter work initially focused on how to clean the air that circulated through the large industrial and hospital systems while they also sucked in fresh air from outdoors.
Changing filters to improve the length of service of those units became routine maintenance because those filters kept fine debris from hitting the large HVAC coils that are surrounded by thin layers of fins that when filled with debris quit allowing air to flow over the coils.
Even with a two-filter system at most large locations - the first filter catches most large particle debris and the second one, the most important one in the system, catches smaller and more fine debris - some debris still finds its way to the fins surrounding the coils. Filters protect the longevity of the fin and coil system. For home units, those coils typically run 1 to 2 inches deep, while industrial units range from 8 to 16 inches deep. And larger industrial buildings and hospitals may have multiple units.
When the units build up too much debris, they quit working. Most coils last between 15 and 20 years depending on how often the filters are changed.
"Maintenance and engineering departments and contractors have been challenging the standard coil-cleaning technologies and procedures for years," Dwight said through a news release. "We have found that many of these 'new' procedures, including steam cleaning, can do more harm than good. The most common unwanted results are the damaging of coil fins and the driving of contaminants further into coils, actually making coil performance worse and making the job of successfully cleaning coils harder."
Current cleaning methods only allow cleaning coils as deep as 4 inches. Coils larger in depth often require total replacement, meaning industrial production downtime, construction costs, temporary cooling units and other factors totaling as much as $250,000.
"I have been in the air filtration business for industrial and health facilities my whole career and had seen so many coils having to be replaced because there was no way to clean them, I knew there was a need there," Dwight said.
Dwight tried to figure out how to reach deeper into the crevices of the coils to thoroughly clean them without damaging the sensitive fins, often as many as 14 fins per inch. And cleaning the coils could serve as another income stream for the business that his father, Richard Dwight, started as Carolina Filters Inc. in 1968 and he and his brother, Coles Dwight, purchased from him.
Arthur Dwight said he and Coles Dwight both completed engineering degrees in college and had gone on to careers in architecture and construction, respectively.
When they discussed the company's succession plan with their father, he told them bluntly that the only way they were going to put in the hours necessary to make the company run successfully would be to own it.
Coles Dwight jumped in first in 1988 and realized he needed his brother's full-time commitment to it as well. Arthur Dwight joined his brother in 1989, and the two took over the company in the mid-1990s.
By cutting up pieces of the coils with fins in them, Arthur Dwight and Rudy Singleton and Dave Spencer, employees who were also trying to solve the coil-cleaning problem, experimented with new cleaning methods. They finally developed a system that they say can clean the coils as deep as 16 inches. That's four times deeper than the previous technology.
Arthur Dwight, Singleton and Spencer spent six weeks starting last November finalizing a method for removing the hard-to-reach areas of the thick coils. In the meantime, they tested their method on more than 20 units. Arthur Dwight said the method worked 95 percent of the time, and they're analyzing the one 30-year-old unit that couldn't be cleaned.
The method has been sent to the U.S. Patent Office to get patented before Arthur Dwight feels comfortable speaking about methods used in the process. But he said the new method, called Coil Flow Max, will use technology and equipment designed and built in-house in Sumter.
"The cost to have one of these cleaning systems built by an engineering group would be extremely high due to its complexity," Arthur Dwight said. "The current plan is to keep the design and manufacturing of this equipment in-house."
Arthur said he will disclose the method once the patent has been approved, but for now, he's confident Coil Flow Max will breathe fresh air into the industry.
For more information about Coil Flow Max, go to www.coilflowmax.com. [1, 5, 6] |
1930 - 2011 (80 years)
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