Alumni Spotlight - Bill Barna

Four years ago, Bill Barna was at Howland Middle School in Trumbull County, leading a full-fledged active shooter training scenario for local police, teachers, principals and students.

There were guns firing blanks. Students running the halls. Victims. And even fake blood.

That’s when Barna, a 30-year veteran officer of the Howland Police Department, noticed something alarming: the doors.

Doors leading into classrooms could be locked, but the locked doors could be easily broken into, leaving children and teachers vulnerable.

“We needed to do something more to shore-up the doors and keep the bad guys from getting in,” said Barna, who earned an associate’s degree in Community Health in 2003 and a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from YSU in 2005.

After a few months of brainstorming, drafting, re-engineering and testing, Barna came up with a device he believes could revolutionize door safety in schools nationwide.

Four years later, the Bolo Stick has been installed in 23 school districts across Ohio, as well as one church and on the doors at the Ohio Department of Taxation in Columbus. And the word is getting out. Now, school districts as far away as Montana are considering installing the device on their classroom doors.

“The greatest feature about this device – it’s simple,” Barna said. “It’s just too simple not to use.”

The patented device, which meets all Ohio building standards, includes a 5 1/4-inch steel pin that slips through a steel mount attached to the bottom of the door and then into a steel anchor drilled into the floor surface. Made of construction-grade, 1045 steel, the device is engineered to resist forces in excess of 4,200 pounds to deny unwanted entry.

“I’ve kicked in a lot of doors in my years as a police officer; no one is going to kick in this door,” he said.

When an emergency arises and a lockdown is ordered, all the teacher needs to do is shut the door and shove the pin through the anchor and into the ground.

“In a high stress situation, people get myopic, adrenaline surges and sometimes fine motor skills are not as sharp as they otherwise would be,” he said. “That’s why it’s important to have a system that does not require multiple, complex steps. The simpler, the better.”

Barna, who credits the Ohio Small Business Development Center at YSU for helping him develop the product for market, said his next steps are to better advertise the device. He plans to retire from police work within a year and devote more time and energy to getting the word out, and maybe even acquire a couple employees to help expand sales. He is already planning to hire a YSU student as an intern this summer.

“But, you know, I don’t need to make a million dollars; that’s not why I’m into this,” said Barna, who also has been an instructor at the YSU Police Academy for 15 years and is a certified substitute teacher.

“I saw a need. I just want schools to have every tool available to them to make sure our children are as safe as they can be.”

Barna’s wife, Debbie, earned a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from YSU in 2010 and is currently housing services administrator at the Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority. Their youngest son is a freshman in the Honors College on campus.

For more information on the Bolo Stick, visit www.bolostick.com; for more information on the SBDC at YSU, contact Pat Veisz, pkveisz@ysu.edu.

(Editor’s note: Wondering why Barna named his invention Bolo? It’s a law enforcement term for “Be on the lookout.”)

Profile by Ron Cole