Neil Austenbrufer and Markus Arlech came to America in 1945, leaving their positions as mechanical engineers with the German government to come work at Safety-Flo. Over the years, they collaborated on numerous projects, including mechanical lighting methods and lift propulsion systems for armored submarines. Their early toaster work paved the way for the Safety-Flo F10, part of the company’s current product line.

In the early 1970’s, watching the development of ARPANET, the prototypical computing network, both had the same thought: its dependence on electrical signals was a weakness. They proposed that Safety-Flo develop a parallel project that functioned by mechanical means, arguing that the intrinsic reliability of mechanical movement would outweigh any illusory gains in speed afforded by an electrically connected network. This project would eventually become Safety-Flo’s most ambitious project ever: Airnet.