NATCHEZ — In the often oppressive summer heat and humidity of the Miss-Lou, a portable air conditioner would come in handy.

And that’s just what Bonnie Floyd is selling.

The Vidalia native is president and CEO of Comfort Innovations, LLC, which invented and is now distributing the GoCool portable cooler air conditioner.

“The unit was actually invented to make it more comfortable for the wife of one of my friends, because he wanted her to enjoy their time on the boat more,” Floyd said. “We have redesigned the prototype he built and are now able to sell it to the public.”

The GoCool uses ice and a small amount of cold water to cool air before pushing it out through a fan, without adding humidity to the air, Floyd said.

“Other types of units work great in Arizona where they have a dry heat, but were useless in this area because we already had so much humidity in the air,” she said. “The GoCool actually pulls humidity out of the air.”

Packaged as a single piece, the bottom portion of the unit resembles a traditional wheeled-cooler with the fan attachment and working parts in the hinged cooler top.

It includes a car adapter and a wall plug for operation and a rechargeable battery pack can be purchased as an accessory.

The temperature and fan speed are fully adjustable on a key panel on the front of the unit.

Floyd said the unit requires no Freon and can be used in small, enclosed spaces because there is no exhaust.

“Every piece of this unit was designed, tested and in some cases redesigned with simplicity and safety in mind,” she said. “The fan is enclose so it isn’t dangerous to children; the fan, wiring and keypad are completely waterproof, there was so much research that went into it, but we wanted to make sure we were putting out a product that is of the highest quality.”

The cooler holds four 1-gallon jugs or nine 2-liter bottles of frozen water or 40 pounds of bagged ice and needs as little as four cups of water to begin cooling.

“All of our tests were done with hard frozen bagged ice,” she said. “We have gotten a temperature drop of more than 30 degrees in a small space, but typically you can expect a 15 to 20 degree temperature drop.”

But not wanting to just spout off test results when pitching the product, Floyd tested a unit by sleeping two nights in the cab of an 18-wheeler.

She said since many states have no-idle laws for truck drivers, the unit is ideal for their sleeping cabs.

“I actually had to get up and turn the fan off because it got so cold in there,” she said.

She also tested the unit by sleeping overnight in a camping tent with similar results.

But those, Floyd said, are just two of the uses for the unit.

“I started doing research and realized how many markets there were for this type of technology,” she said. “Tailgating, small aircrafts, animals transport, boating, outdoor workers, families during hurricane season — there are just so many uses for the unit that I didn’t even originally think about.”

Floyd, who has a background in health and physical education was attracted to the idea behind the unit because of its ability to cool people, particularly athletes, quickly in hot environments.

“We hear every year about athletes that die from heat stroke and suffer from heat exhaustion,” she said. “The key is to recognize the signs and then be able to cool them off quickly.

“We have a cape attachment that funnels the cold air directly into the cape and surrounds the person, cooling them down very fast. I think this is something every school should look into having at least one of for those hot practice days.”

Currently the units sale for $495 — on sale for $469 through May — and are available directly from Comfort Innovations but are also being sold in retail pet supply stores, outdoors stores and boating stores.

For more information visit www.getgocool.com or call Comfort Innovations in Baton Rouge at 225-766-7719.