ESCA Tech was founded February 1, 1979 by Dan Askin to assist lead processors in meeting the OSHA lead standard issued in November, 1978. Mr. Askin provided consulting services to the major battery manufacturers, battery recyclers, lead chemical producers, their contractors and other companies in the business of processing lead. In his consulting work, Dan wrote and implemented many of the first lead compliance plans in industry. He taught respiratory protection, quantitative respirator fit testing, personal hygiene and designed plant ventilation systems, employee facilities and did pioneering work in the recirculation of industrial exhaust air.

In 1983, despite all of the improvements in personal hygiene, respiratory protection, protective clothing and plant ventilation, it was apparent that blood lead levels had hit a plateau and were not continuing the initial downward trend that was predicted by the air-blood lead model OSHA used to set the lower limits. Then one day, in 1983, while Dan was doing a combination plant ventilation audit and blood lead reduction program at a battery plant in South Carolina, he went to the washroom to clean up because he had gotten a lot of lead on his hands. He noticed that the soap would not remove the lead. He then proceeded from washroom to washroom to try every soap in the building to clean off the lead. No luck. Finally after a trip to the lab for some dilute acetic acid, Dan had lunch. This experience made Dan realize that lead remaining on the skin after washing was the most likely reason that worker's blood lead levels were not continuing to go down.

In late 1983, ESCA Tech first offered Lead-Out as an improved skin cleaner for lead. This original formula used a high level of EDTA (a strong chelating agent) as the active ingredient. While it was a significant improvement in both lead removal and at reducing blood lead levels over other commercial soaps available at the time, the EDTA interfered with waste water treatment and was slightly irritating to the skin.

Continued research and testing lead to the development of the D-Lead® formula, without the use of any chelating agents. Original D-Lead® Hand Soap was first available in October, 1989. This breakthrough in mildness and waste water friendliness led to the development of the entire family of D-Lead® products, which you can see on the following web pages. In the first quarter of 2002, we reviewed and improved all of the D-Lead® formulas. We increased the lead removal capacity of all our products, improved the mildness of our skin cleaners and relocated production to FDA inspected and certified facilities. We are now proud to say all D-Lead® Cleaners, D-Wipe® Towels, Q-wink™ Ink Removers, VGS™ Cleaners and Camp Towels™ are produced in FDA inspected facilities.

ESCA Tech's success in reducing blood lead levels and lead contamination led to requests from other industries to develop products for other special needs, including Q-wink™ Ink Removers, VGS™ Cleaners for the metal processing industries and Camp Towels™ to clean up when you are working or playing in the great outdoors.