By Josh Mitchell/Informer Publisher

Columbia resident Michael Brown can transform household items, such as kitchen timers and cell phones, into devices that kill.

Fortunately, Brown has only used his knowledge of bomb making to benefit the human race. “I work for the good guys,” he said.

Brown, owner of Columbia-based Nitro Exchange Inc., became interested in bombs when he joined the Air Force after graduating vocational school as an industrial electrician. Being a young man at the time, the danger of working with bombs appealed to Brown, and he also liked the idea that he was “doing something that actually mattered” by working in explosive ordinance disposal.

“Most things in the military involve destroying something,” he said. “In explosive ordinance disposal you can actually save lives on a massive scale. One person can change the outcome of huge events.”

His Columbia company builds fake bombs that are used as training aides, and he takes pride in the fact that his decoy explosives look and feel like the real thing. American companies that provide training to bomb squads overseas get their decoy explosives from Brown. SWAT teams, the Department of State as well as cities, counties and states have also purchased fake bombs from Brown for a “real world” training experience.

He said his most “harrowing” bomb experience occurred in the military in Germany. A suspected stolen vehicle was on his base with a suitcase under the gas tank, and “all things indicated it was probably an IED (improvised explosive device).” Brown was chosen to work on the situation, and the suspect suitcase was so large that if it was a bomb it could have “taken out a large portion of the area,” he said.

While inspecting the situation, the Autobahn had to be shut down, but in the end it turned out that there was no bomb. However, when it comes to inspecting a potential bomb, one must assume it is the real thing, he said.

Working with bombs is the most rewarding career, Brown said, because it involves saving lives, but not everyone is cut out for the field. He noted that bomb squad orientation videos show burned faces, “entrails hanging out and chunks of meat.” Bomb work can involve working in claustrophobic situations while wearing a chemical suit.

In his career, Brown had dealt with more than 100 bombs, and he remembers a car bomb that killed two soldiers at his Air Force base in Germany. In fact, he was almost injured as shrapnel from the explosion just missed him.

Despite the destruction that bombs can cause, explosives are necessary for mining and dam building, Brown said, noting, “We couldn’t live without explosives.”

In the Air Force he was stationed in Germany for three years and trained fellow bomb squad members in disarming nuclear, biological, conventional and chemical explosives. “I had a real flair for it,” said Brown. Brown helped clean up an old World War II land mine factory in Illinois and was also an instructor for the Department of State in Baton Rouge, La. teaching foreign police agents how to be bomb squad technicians. He built fake bombs that U.S. allied countries, such as Bangladesh, Trinidad, Greece and Tanzania, used in training.

He laughs when he thinks of the bombs on movies, saying, “That’s Hollywood. That’s not real.”