Meet the Airow maker

Devon Romney, 40, is neither an avid archer nor an ardent paintball gamer.

But the Spokane Valley machinist’s ingenuity is giving enthusiasts from both sports a new archery tool to try.

About three years ago, Romney developed the Airow Gun after more than a year of trial and error. He has a bucket of prototype models to prove it.

“I’ve learned a lot about both sports in the past five years,” he said from his shop at Romney Motion in Otis Orchards, where he has a target box set up for firing paintballs against a wall to demonstrate the latest refinements in the product.

“My day job is manufacturing aerospace parts and aftermarket components for guns and other products,” he said.

After learning that other manufacturers had tried unsuccessfully to develop an archery paintball device, Romney became intrigued with the idea based on his few experiences in paintball games.

“I looked at it as a challenge,” he said.

The future of his product is now in the hands of a distributor.

“I was very involved in the development process and made seven trips to China,” he said. “Now we’ll see where it goes.”