Specialty Fabrics Review June 2021 - 20

[ PERSPECTIVE ]
Generations of innovation
For more than half a century, ASATI's Fraioli family has advanced
air-supported structure technology.
T
Donato Fraioli
TECHNICAL SALES AND
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
SPECIALIST
Air Structures American
Technologies Inc. (ASATI)
Rye Brook, N.Y.
www.asati.com
IFAI member since 1989
Most valued benefit
Networking to help grow
ASATI's business
Written by
Darcy Maulsby
Photography by
John O'Boyle Photography
A new class of buildings
For more than 50 years, ASATI has patented, designed, engineered and built
more than 5,000 air-supported structures. Just don't call them " bubbles. "
" Bubbles are inadequately engineered, " Fraioli says. " We're raising the bar
with air-supported structures that function like conventional buildings. They
can serve as a replacement for brick-and-mortar structures. "
Dan Fraioli pioneered this new class of buildings. The son of a bread baker,
he had a mind for engineering from a young age. He built his first air-supported
structure over a tennis court in 1963. " A group of doctors asked him to design and
build this dome near what is now Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., " Donato
Fraioli says. " He took a gigantic leap of faith, but that's how you grow yourself in life. "
This success launched Dan Fraioli into a new business opportunity. By 1968,
his company, ASATI, introduced a cable net system to cover a track-and-field
facility at Harvard University. Since then, ASATI has improved upon the original
coaxial/low bias cabling system and brought to market the full-bias cable net,
which has been applied to hundreds of recreational and commercial
air-supported structures.
20 SPECIALTY FABRICS REVIEW / June 2021
he news headlines were alarming. Just before Christmas 2003, the
U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that a case of deadly mad
cow disease had been reported in Washington state.
Halfway across the country, animal disease scientists working in
Ames, Iowa, faced a double whammy. Not only were they needing to fast-track
research related to mad cow disease, but the " bubble " where they were working
collapsed during a snowstorm.
" They were panicked when they called us, " says Donato Fraioli, technical
sales and product development specialist at Air Structures American
Technologies Inc. (ASATI). " Their bubble hadn't lasted six months. When
they asked how fast a replacement could be built, we told them 30 days, not
six months like some of the competition. "
ASATI delivered on its promise. Solving big challenges is nothing new for
this third-generation, family-owned company based in Rye Brook, N.Y. " That's
what's so exciting about this business, " Fraioli says. " We love telling clients yes. "
When Fraioli's grandfather Dan Fraioli established ASATI in the 1960s, he created
a whole new category of buildings with his innovative air-supported structures.
The Fraioli family continues to advance the latest technology in this niche.
" There's no school or textbook where you can learn this stuff, " says Donato
Fraioli, whose family holds 27 patents related to air-supported structures.
" We believe that out of every challenge comes a solution. "

http://www.asati.com

Specialty Fabrics Review June 2021

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