ThermApparel empowers people to take back control of their lives. Our mission is to provide our customers with cooling products that embody dignity and comfort while safely mitigating their risk from heat. We utilize cutting edge science that improves the quality of our customers lives allowing them to be happier and healthier. It's our vision to get people back to life’s small pleasures like backyard bbq’s, graduations, sports, and hobbies. All the things that make life great, because Now You Can.
About this Program
How ThermApparel Began
It was simple insight that led to the creation of ThermApparel and the UnderCool Cooling Vest. As industrial design graduate students at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, Kurtis Kracke and Brad Dunn participated in an access technology initiative with the Rochester chapter of the National MS Society.
Poor attendance at a hot July meeting revealed that people living with MS are very constrained in hot weather due to their heat sensitivity. To Brad and Kurtis this was a challenge to which they could apply their design talents and they started investigating.
It quickly became apparent that while there are cooling products on the market, none of them meet the critical criteria for people with heat sensitivity caused from health conditions – concealable, lightweight, and comfort. After more than 200 customer discovery interviews, and more than 50 prototypes, the Undercool Cooling Vest was born.
With its concealable, lightweight, and comfortable design, UnderCool empowers people to get back outdoors, safely exercise and enjoy life’s simple pleasures. Our customers tell us "Now I Can exercise, spend time with my grandchildren, mow the lawn" and more. They can get back to living life normally, and enjoying simple pleasures. Life with UnderCool is “like living life pre-MS”.
After that meeting ThermApparel’s mission was born. We decided that no one should be stuck indoors all summer and kept from living a happy, healthy life full of fun, family, exercise, adventure and dignity. ThermApparel’s products have made life-changing differences for people around the world. (all 50 states and 20+ countries and counting!) Today, Kurtis and Brad continue to use their creative design skills and input from their wide base of involved customers to conceive new cooling products.
