By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
TRAVERSE CITY -- Back when they were students at Bertha Vos Elementary, Keith Nielson, Kevin Vann and Tom Hills liked to take things apart to see how they worked.
Now the friends are designing and manufacturing their own products through their fledgling company, Foresight Design Group.
"It's something we've done in our spare time," said Nielson, 29, a mechanical engineer who put his career on hold to work for his family's property management company. "We've had these ideas for products but because of a full-time job, marriage and kids, it's been really hard to find time to work on them."
Friends since grade school, the men reconnected in Traverse City about three years ago after scattering across the state to attend college and start families. That's when they began getting together to work on Nielson's 1941 Chevy truck in a pole barn on his family's property.
Soon the Thursday night gatherings morphed into informal meetings to brainstorm ideas for products like the Sticky Flag, a plastic safety flag that can be stuck to any material and stay put until easily removed. Eventually the idea for establishing a company to help each other develop their concepts was born.
"The poor truck has been sitting there all this time," said Nielson, the principle partner. "It's still in pieces."
So far the group's most successful invention -- and first full pending patent -- is the Caution Clip, a heavy-duty plastic clamp with mesh safety flag and marker light. The clip helps keep drivers legal and safe when hauling extended loads.
"It's the 'American dream' kind of story: three of us getting together in someone's garage," said Vann, 29, a former marine engineer who handles business management and relations for the company.
Though the inventors occasionally walk store aisles to see what's already on the market and what could be improved, Vann said most ideas for products come from daily life.
For instance, the Baby Blow-Out Blocker, a disposable diaper attachment that helps contain messes and serves as a barrier between babies and their clothing, was created in response to "blow-outs" by Vann's then 3-month-old son. The Sqooshi, a bath loofah with an integrated reservoir that dispenses body wash, came about during a shower and the realization that two products could be combined to save time and space.
"A lot of times for me it happens when being the consumer," Nielson said. "I'm trying to utilize something and I'll say, 'Man, this is frustrating. There has to be an easier way to do things.'"
"You hardly ever wake up in the middle of the night and a lightbulb comes on," added Vann.
Regardless of when or how an idea comes, it's important to leave a paper trail as you develop it, said Nielson, who keeps a notebook of ideas "verified" by others.
"It all comes down to documentation," he said. "In this country, it's not the first to file for a patent, it's the first to invent it" who has the right to patent a product.
Nielson said the group's goal is to license its concepts to other companies for the manufacture and marketing of products. Failing that, the three must decide whether to manufacture a product themselves or drop the whole idea and go on to another.
"Ideally, I'd love to have someone come to us with something they need and we would invent it," he said.
