Image from a CleanSpray promotional video.
This article was originally published by Searchlight New Mexico
and was reported in collaboration with the Institute of American Indian Arts’ journalism program. It is republished here by permission.
When the college baseball season opened last February, the New Mexico Lobos were having one of their best years ever. Then COVID-19 hit. “We had a really good team and we were winning and then it just stopped — everything just turned off like it never happened,” said Ray Birmingham, the baseball coach at the University of New Mexico.
A few months later, Birmingham was in Dallas when he heard about a new business, CleanSpray Technologies, that boasted that it could disinfect an area in 90 seconds or less with a safe and environmentally sustainable liquid system. Birmingham jumped at the opportunity to install the system at UNM and get the Lobos back on the field. “I thought it was a great chance to help,” he said.