Evolution of an Inventor: Year One
In the final month of my Senior year of high school I missed the bus for what was to be an all day physics field trip. I would have never thought missing that bus would have a direct impact on what today has become my professional career. With my new found day off I decided to spend my time applying for a summer job. There was Bed Bath & Beyond opening a new store a few minutes from my home in Ann Arbor, MI. I had never worked in retail before, but the proximity from my home seemed to make the job an ideal choice for summer employment.

I worked my first summer out of high school at Bed Bath & Beyond and at the end of the summer started another journey with total life impact I could not from the beginning have fathomed - Architecture School, at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT.

While completing my Freshman year of college I found that I loved Architecture even more than I thought I would. The only problem was that the lifestyle was ridiculous. Putting in week after week with 100 hours a week going to the Architecture curriculum I started to wonder in my non-delirious hours how I could beat the system. Could I beat Architecture? Frank Lloyd Wright had three wives and so did my professor, was this the only standard available for successful Architects?

I began to kid with myself (this would have been while talking to myself during the delirious hours of building my Architecture models) that if only I could invent something, I could patent it, become financially free, and then do as much or as little Architecture as I wanted.

Year Two:
Back to Bed Bath & Beyond. I worked at the store for a total of three summers before interning at Overland Partners Architects - Bozeman. During the three summers at Bed Bath & Beyond, I could tell that things were very different for me compared to the other employees. I saw things differently, the combination of my desire to invent something and attain financial freedom mixed with my ever compounding knowledge of Architectural education - things just weren't the same.

In the stock room I "saw" space. On the sales floor I witnessed pattern and repetition of the human condition drawing consumers to all different products, but for all the same reasons. Back in shipping/receiving while unloading merchandise I again saw more pattern and repetition, but this time in package design. So many different products, all adhering to the same design imperatives.

And then it hit me...

The RTA (Ready-to-Assemble) Bookshelf.

The RTA furniture industry is annually a two billion dollar industry.

At the Bed Bath & Beyond in Ann Arbor, they did a much larger than average amount of sales during the back-to-school season due to the multiple colleges and universities in the area and one item that we sold in extreme abundance, in multiple styles and colors, was the RTA bookshelf.

I recall the bestseller, you've probably seen it before. It was the bookshelf which sides flipped out, so that the shelves could drop down, and then let the sides fold back in so that...this is the best part...so that you could store the bookshelf underneath your bed! Because that's precisely where you need your bookshelf - underneath your bed! I couldn't believe it, here was a bookshelf whose top selling features were in direct contradiction to what was the functional point! And yet people loved it, I still can hear the crowds clamoring about what a great idea it was.

At this point I realized something very important. People do not buy products solely on what they need, they buy products based on need AND an emotional response produced when viewing the product.

I next decided that I could do it better, I could build a better bookshelf. However, before I began my design quest I knew I had a tall order to fill, because I knew that a great product could not just be great for the end consumer, it had to be great for the manufacturer making it as well as the store that was selling it.

I established my crazy criteria to be the following, I decided that if I could design a bookshelf that could be put together no tools required, assembled in two minutes, disassembled in 30 seconds and when disassembled be in one geometric shape - that would be an invention worth pursuing!

Why?

Because a bookshelf that could be assembled no tools required would be a big draw to a consumer. No screws, no cams, literally no tools required. For a manufacturer they would no longer have to produce, package, or ship hardware while using the same amount of raw bookshelf material, and for a store they would want the unassembled geometric shape.

The reason is that in any store if there is a hot seller they want it out on the main aisle, however the contents of many products is often a different shape than that of its packaging. This in turn when the items are stacked on top of one another causes them to sag and eventually fall over...on a little child...and stores hate lawsuits related to their merchandise smothering small children.

With the unassembled bookshelf being one geometric shape that would mean the packaging could fit completely around it meaning the unassembled bookshelf could be stacked infinite units high without concern for tipping. This favored advantage is not only sought on the sales floor it is additionally sought out in the stock room.

Employees routinely stack merchandise together and then climb on top of it in order to get other merchandise off of a shelf in the stock room. This common practice often ends up destroying the merchandise, but if a store manager knows your product won't get beat up or fall over while in the stock room they will consistently order more of your product early and often!

At this point in my life I was no longer working at Bed Bath & Beyond. I was an intern at Overland Partners Architects - Bozeman. I worked for them 8-5 and then at the same desk in the same chair worked for me 5-12. I was close, I knew I was close, I could taste that I was close, and then something happened that my brain still has trouble wrapping itself around today. Not only did I officially crack the code on the bookshelf, I simultaneously developed a no tools required joint system for ANY quadrilateral - that's right - any four sided object I can put it together no tools required!

However, this was still only the beginning of what would become a true revelation in calling. My mind free from the constraints of the furniture joint system started spurting out invention after invention. All the patterns and repetitions kept applying and I couldn't keep up with the documentation of my ideas. To this day I still have an incessant flow of ideas, the hard part is deciding which ones to pursue next!

Year Four - Present Day:
With my ideas always in overdrive I felt compelled to get working on them immediately. Thus, while still in college I started my own company to pursue my inventions. It wasn't easy carrying the double load as well as leading the double life, but I got through it. I graduated with my degree and have been loving life ever since. I beat Architecture, I'm now a full time inventor running one project after the next. They say it takes an average of 8-10 years to get any invention from conceptualization thorough market penetration, lucky for me I have no shortage of ideas to hold me through the interim.