Kaivac- June 2026

BCFA is pleased to introduce you to…

 

Mr. Bob Robinson, Sr.

FOUNDER 

Bob Robinson, Sr. founded Kaivac in 1998 after joining his wife’s, Carlene Robinson, family janitorial supply business in Hamilton. Convinced the cleaning industry needed better tools, not better janitors, he combined a pressure washer, chemical injector, and wet vacuum into a single machine, innovating the No-Touch Cleaning® system and an entirely new product category. Today every Kaivac innovation in the world is still built in Hamilton.

 

Mr. Bob Robinson, Jr.

PRESIDENT

Bob Robinson, Jr. has been with Kaivac since its earliest days, working his way from sales rep to VP of Sales to Chief Growth Officer before being promoted to President in 2023 - his 25th year with the company. He built the distributor network across North America, landed landmark accounts with Walmart, Target, and Kroger, and helped hit ambitious corporate revenue goals.

Kaivac makes advanced cleaning systems designed to remove the risk, strain, and guesswork from one of the most important—but often overlooked—jobs in any facility: keeping spaces clean and safe. Our flagship innovation is the No-Touch Cleaning® system, which combines chemical application, high-pressure rinsing, and wet vacuuming into a single, easy-to-operate machine. Instead of getting down on hands and knees with a rag and a bucket, custodial workers can now deep-clean restrooms, kitchens, locker rooms, and other high-traffic areas without ever touching a contaminated surface. We also manufacture the OmniFlex™ crossover cleaning system, the UniVac® floor cleaner, and a full line of complementary cleaning solutions. The impact on everyday life is real: every time you walk into a clean restroom at a national grocery store, a restaurant, a school, or an airport, there’s a good chance a Kaivac machine made that experience possible. Our systems help protect public health by removing up to 99.9% of harmful pathogens from surfaces and they do it faster and more consistently than traditional methods.

Most people would be surprised to learn that every single Kaivac machine in the world is built right here in Hamilton, Ohio. Our engineering, prototyping, manufacturing, and quality testing all happen right here at our corporate campus in the Lindenwald neighborhood of Hamilton in Butler Country. What started as a family operation in 1998 has grown into a team of over 150 employees, and in 2022 we acquired Eger Products, a rotational-molding manufacturer that had been making our plastic body components for years. That acquisition, now operating as Expert Roto Molding, a Division of Kaivac, brought even more of our supply chain in-house, giving us tighter quality control and faster turnaround. People also tend to be surprised by how the original idea came about: our founder, Bob Robinson Sr., was a mechanical engineer and after reading a trade survey that identified dirty restrooms as the number one problem in the cleaning industry, he started experimenting in his shop and that homegrown prototype became the foundation for an entirely new product category: No-Touch Cleaning!

Kaivac didn’t just choose Butler County—we grew out of it. Our founder, Bob Robinson Sr., joined his wife’s family business, Valley Janitor Supply Co., right here in Hamilton. When he and his wife eventually took over that company, Bob applied his mechanical engineering background to reimagine how cleaning gets done, and Kaivac was born. Hamilton’s deep manufacturing heritage made it a natural fit: this is a community that knows how to build things and takes pride in the work. As we’ve grown from a small startup to a multi-building corporate campus that more than doubled our footprint in 2017, Butler County has grown with us. We’ve found a skilled, dedicated workforce here, strong partnerships with local suppliers and institutions, and a business environment that genuinely supports manufacturers. Being located in Butler County means a lot of our employees live in the same community they serve, and that connection matters. We’re proud that every Kaivac machine shipped to customers around the world carries a “Made in Hamilton, Ohio” story behind it.