“We need to hear from you – your thoughts,” CSE president Scott Shearer told a crowd of industry professionals, many of whom he acknowledged are the primary customers for the rescuers – the operators.

“We consider ourselves partners … call it cliché … but we’re in this together.”

He said that, much like the industry itself, the company has also endured a difficult year and took the chance to address items that may have been on the minds of many upon learning that the rescuers used by the miners during the West Virginia explosion may not have worked correctly.

“We’ve got ourselves a PR issue,” he said of the reaction many took in light of that information. “We’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking,” he added, and told the crowd the company has been “re-evaluating, re-examining” its units’ technologies and design, but insists that the product does indeed work.

Shearer also explained that the company stood in the shadows after the West Virginia incident for one reason: respect. “We were quiet after Sago. We thought it inappropriate [to speak out] … out of respect, CSE chose not to spotlight [issues] or put out contradicting information.”

However, he acknowledged that the company’s silence may have affected others in the mining community: “If we made your life more difficult, that was not our intent.”

After the signing of the MINER Act of 2006, the company has ramped up production of its SCSRs from 1000 units per month up to 3000 monthly, and plans to hit a monthly record of 5000 units in order to keep pace with its current unit order backlog of 10 months, Shearer explained.

Additionally, CSE intends to catch up and ship all of its orders for the new live training device, the SRT, by the end of February. The recently released unit boasts the ability for trainees to feel the authentic sensations of using an SCSR in an emergency, including the heating of the pack.

While units will be leaving CSE’s Pennsylvania facility in record numbers, Shearer said that quality control is absolutely not an issue: the company has upped its manpower and QC measures to ensure all of its units – which he noted are constructed manually – are ready for use if and when needed.

Shearer said the company would continue to stand by its products acknowledging the importance of rescuers to miner safety. “We have enormous confidence that our product works. We will vigorously defend our product … [and] are working closely with industry at every turn.”