Thomas Cole
Background
I'm Thomas Cole, a builder, licensed California General Contractor, developer, designer, patented inventor and long time Montecito resident. Over my 40+ year career I've specialized in foundation and drain projects, fire prevention designs and installing hundreds of surface and subsurface drain and pumping systems. I've drained apartment complexes, golf course and even a municipal airport. I've drawn hundreds of my own plans for permits on foundation and drainage projects all over CA.
Patents & Degrees- I hold several patents/pending for stormwater gathering devices, a police used tear gas dispersing device and other pending devices. Somehow I found time to earn a Juris Doctorate at night school, graduating SB Institute of Law in 2000.
My grandfather invented safety glass with the wire inside and my uncle worked at NASA designing Lasers for the Mariner programn, so I have an invention bone or two.
Fire Suppression- After we were evacuated from Montecito for the fourth time in 2009 I designed an automated wild fire suppression system and have been spreading this information ever since. The system uses all Cal Fire tested and approved existing equipment. After extensive research of matching pumps with generating systems, triggering systems to actuator systems, the present design emerged as a stand alone solution. I offer talks on these systems, their construction, operation and results.
Early Life- My own background in creating and building begins at early youth when at six I started building simple radios, then at eight started building actual Geiger counters that detected clicks from the radium dials on clocks hands and samples of uranium ore I obtained. Spent several years building and flying remote control gliders, rockets too. Then around age ten I was building ham radio transmitters from kits and working on a ham radio license. Soon I was building stereo amplifiers from kits and this eventually worked into a career of sorts in the music industry in Los Angeles designing several recording studios and live recording of music acts.
My wife and I enjoy travel to Europe each year, where it rains a lot and yes I take lots of pictures of Medieval drain systems, swail, moats, aqueducts artesian wells, cisterns and the like, all used in the early days of our European ancestors.
Best regards, Thomas
