Jarom Hlebasko is a master of maps.
By day he’s a geographic information systems manager who leads his team in mapping projects in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. His specialties include mapping for utilities, transportation systems and cemeteries, as well as facility management.
But in 2025, Jarom and his brother, Jacob, took on a new challenge: How to apply technology to help wheelchair riders, especially those at high risk for pressure injuries or with a pressure injury history, map out new ways to protect and heal their skin.
Last year, the Hlebasko family became the new owners of Aquila Corporation, manufacturer of wheelchair seat cushions designed to offload weight, redistribute pressure, and actively heal existing pressure injuries since 1999.
The Hlebaskos’ new mission starts with a personal story.
Discovering Aquila Corp.
Jarom was 18 when he sustained a spinal cord injury at the C5 level. “It’s been 26 years since my accident,” he told Mobility Management. “I have limited use of my arms. The triceps aren’t there; biceps are. I’m using [power-assist] wheels to help with that.”
He described himself as “a skinny guy: I’m 6’3”, probably a buck 50 soaking wet, so I’m pretty bony in those areas, especially after atrophy.” Add in a very active lifestyle — he said he’s typically in his ultralightweight wheelchair 16 to 18 hours a day — and pressure injuries became distressingly frequent.
“I’ve gone through several different brands, several different cushions, and they would work a little bit,” Jarom said. “And then all of a sudden, I would get a sore somewhere else. And after so many different surgeries — I’ve had five different flap surgeries — [there’s] not much left to do.”
He started researching cushions and discovered Aquila Corp., owned by Steve and Justin Kohlman. Jarom reached out to the Kohlmans and shared his story. “They said, ‘The reason none of the other ones are working is because you don’t have offloaded areas to relieve the pressure.’ That makes perfect sense because when I am going into wound clinic and I’m going to all these different therapy sessions, they said, ‘You need to offload these areas.’”
Jarom started with the Aquila Airpulse PK2 cushion with its external controller, a forerunner of the current SofTech cushion that has a self-contained design.
“I was starting to develop a sore on my right trochanter area, and I got on the cushion,” he recalled. “I told [Steve] where my offloads are. I said I have a tailbone that’s very susceptible to pressure sores, and right now I’m experiencing some [problems] on my right side. He’s like OK, let’s measure those. Let’s get those measurements and then we’ll offload those areas.”
Healing outcomes
Given his pressure injury history, Jarom had established a routine when trying new seating.
“I’m pretty vigilant in doing pressure reliefs just from all the things that I’ve been through with sores,” he said. “I started getting into [the Aquila cushion] gradually. I didn’t want to spend 24 hours in it all at once. I didn’t know what it’s going to do for me.”
His wife, Leslie, does Jarom’s skin checks. “We started checking the integrity [while using the Airpulse PK2], and wow, a lot of the pinkish-reddish areas are kind of fading. This is looking great.” Before long, Leslie reported that the pressure injury was healing: “’There’s a fresh layer of skin over it,’” Jarom remembered Leslie saying. “Fast forward 10 years, and I haven’t had a pressure sore since.”
Jarom and Leslie have three daughters, one of whom plays college soccer. “I take my SofTech cushion with me because I can sit on it on an airplane,” he said. “I can sit on it wherever I need, and it just does the job. It does the work, and I am living proof of it.”
But when Jarom contacted Aquila Corp. for a replacement cushion, he discovered the company had closed down. The technology that had become an integral part of his life for a decade was out of reach.
Reintroducing Aquila
Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. Jarom eventually connected with the Kohlmans, and he and Jacob purchased Aquila Corp., which restarted operations in May 2025. Today, Jarom said, Jacob “takes care of the building of the cushions, as well as the tech side of things, the repairs. I’m doing the communications side of things.”
Aquila is still re-emerging after its hiatus in an industry where any delay in finding the right product can have critical, rippling effects. “It’s been a little complicated because the corporation was shut down for about six months,” Jarom said. “So a lot of users that used to use [Aquila products] are trying different methods.”
Wheelchair riders who hadn’t been able to find a suitable replacement, though, send messages of appreciation.
“I’m still getting emails saying, ‘I am so glad you guys are back in business. I am so glad that we found you again. We were just hoping that Aquila was back again,’” Jarom said. “And this is a year later. It breaks my heart that they haven’t been able to find relief for a whole year.”
Jarom said providers who want to work with Aquila can start the process by visiting the company website: “There’s a dealer page specifically for you. Fill out the information. We have a great dealer program that went into effect July 1 of this year.”
And for clinicians, Jarom pointed out the features that make Aquila’s SofTech cushion stand out: “It’s because of our unique system of offloading. And every therapist will know what that means. Every ATP [assistive technology professional] should know what that means. If you don’t have upward pressure, you don’t get pressure sores. Well, in my circumstance, I’ve got two spots that need to be offloaded, and they’re offloaded now. And there’s no other cushion that can do that.
“So if you want a system that works for your particular client who has a stage four injury — in our client experience and my experience, there definitely has been improvement in those areas, especially if you have it in conjunction with a wound VAC [vacuum-assisted closure].”
Jarom emphasized that he and his brother aren’t physicians, despite their real-life experiences. “You need to do the due diligence on your end to get those measurements to us,” he said of seating teams, “and there are different ways that we can go over on how to acquire those measurements. We understand [pressure injury] undermining. We understand that the surface area might be a lot smaller than actually what’s going on underneath. And so the nurses know those measurements in centimeters, and we can use those measurements and offload those areas.”
To the seating industry, wheelchair riders and their families, Jarom added, “We offer a 30-day return policy. We want to work with you. We want to work with you to better the quality of life for those that are in this situation. That’s our goal.”
Custom made every time
Because he knows the impact of waiting for the right seating to arrive — “I myself have laid down in bed for about a week because I’m not going to chance it” when he doesn’t have the optimal seat cushion — Jarom said Aquila prioritizes repairs such as dead batteries or malfunctioning battery chargers, as well as degrading foam.
Aquila also works with consumers and providers to help them maintain older cushions as backups.
As for ordering new cushions, Jarom said Aquila’s patented technology means “We don’t keep anything in stock because it doesn’t make any sense to do that. Everything is custom. There’s not one individual who is the same [as anyone else]. Not one injury is the same; not one cushion is the same. It can’t be, right?”
That process enables Aquila to build cushions for wheelchair riders with complex presentations, including limb loss and windswept postures.
Asked if he gets those kinds of phone calls — for example, to build a cushion to offload pressure on one side due to an asymmetrical posture — Jarom nodded.
“Absolutely. We had several instances of that already. We work with VA [Veterans Affairs] clinics around the country. The ATPs that are involved with our veterans are awesome. There have been amputees: There have been cushions where the left side is a little longer, two or three inches longer than the right side of the cushion. You can’t do that with a cookie cutter cushion. You’ve got to do that by talking with us, giving us real-world measurements, and understanding where your pressure sores or your hot zones are located. Those areas can be offloaded.
“We build air bladders around the offloaded areas, and the air bladders alternate every 60 seconds or more. If you think about a cushion and spread out the air bladders like a checkerboard: You have your blacks and your whites. In cycle A, the blacks fill up like a checkerboard, and the whites deflate, and then 60 seconds later, it alternates. You’re not only preventing pressure in the areas that are offloaded, you’re stimulating the circulation around the offloaded areas, which stimulates healing. That’s the difference with what we do, and I can attest to it. My sore started healing not because I was laying down in bed. It was healing because it was offloaded, and circulation was being promoted in that area of injury.”
Jarom added that Steve Kohlman continues to serve as a consultant after being “very involved with our quality control” for the first six to eight months after Aquila reopened.
“We need to make sure that we’re doing things right and appropriately, the way that his vision was,” Jarom added. “He’s a great resource for us with difficult cases. He and Justine have been fantastic. They want this to blossom, because they know.”
And with Aquila 2.0, the Hlebasko brothers want to keep alive the technology and outcomes that Jarom first experienced more than a decade ago.
“I’m not a salesman per trade,” he said. “But I can relate to people that have been through exactly what I’ve been through and give them some
