STEVENSVILLE – On New Year’s Eve 1999, Bob Bartley made a resolution: In 2000, he would achieve a breakthrough with one of his inventions and see it to fruition.
The 38-year-old stone fabricator with Alpine Granite of Hamilton was born with an inventive nature.
His uncle holds several patents on sports equipment, and Bartley himself regularly conjures up creative ideas.
“I can’t stand fighting with objects,” he said. “To fight with something that has no brain or intelligence … and then to lose? I always try to do things that save time or make life easier.”
He rattled off a few previous ideas, as he pulled a small plastic taco holder from a cupboard. Besides the handy kitchen contrivance, he said he’s crafted caulk adapters, a form of Christmas track lighting and several other gadgets, only to see them peddled a year or two later by someone who came up with a similar concept and pursued the patent quicker.
But 2000 proved to be Bartley’s year.
Eleven days after that New Year’s resolution, an idea sprang to mind as he pulled a pizza stone full of hot snacks from the oven.
“I imagined being able to just grab the pizza stone from the oven,” he said.
Bartley hollered for his wife, Barb, to come to the kitchen.
“He comes up with them once a week,” she said, with a smile.
But this time Barb knew this one was different.
“It got a reaction,” Bartley said.
Patent No. 6,205,997 describes Bartley’s invention as an oven rack with a notch – 3- to 7-inches-wide and 3- to 7-inches-deep. Items placed in the oven, on the rack with an edge extending over that notch can be easily removed without having to slide the rack out of the oven, reducing risk of injury and loss of heat.
Flat baking tools such as pizza stones or pans have no edge or lip to grab. Without the notch, a baker must pull the rack out of the oven, reach behind the stone or pan and push its edge over the lip of the oven rack to take it out.
“I knew this was such a good idea. If it were patented, we would have it already,” Bartley said. “There is no reason why there shouldn’t be one of these in every stove.”
So with the help of his brother-in-law Greg Mason, a New Jersey businessman, Bartley began a journey through the maze of patent application and product promotion.
They made a prototype, and got a patent attorney, Jean Kyle of Hamilton. After a patent search failed to find anything similar, they applied for a patent in spring 2000.
By March 2001, Bartley acquired nine patents, which cover variations of the product’s function and design.
“Usually it takes at least a year and a half before you hear from the patent office,” said Kyle. Bartley’s application was approved in 10 months.
While waiting for patent approval, Bartley visited Vann’s in Missoula and sought the opinion of sales manager Brent Kelly.
Kelly liked the concept and provided Bartley appliance industry information. He also agreed to help with a customer survey at Super 1 Foods in Stevensville.
Kelly brought two brand new stoves to the site: one equipped with the new oven rack, the other with a traditional rack. Out of the 204 customers surveyed, all but three preferred Bartley’s rack.
“I think that spurred him to stay inspired and push the envelope to get someone to look more closely at it,” said Kelly.
They wouldn’t burn themselves anymore, several customers commented.
One woman, who suffered from arthritis, said the modified rack would make it easier for her to grab ahold of things.
The survey also indicated people would be willing to pay $10 more for a new stove equipped with Bartley’s oven rack.
Armed with the new information, Mason prepared a PowerPoint presentation that he and Bartley used later when they approached the nation’s top appliance manufacturers.
The presentation outlined the appliance market and its lack of product differentiation. It suggested consumers want options and choices, and are willing to pay for product advantages. It asserted Bartley’s rack is safer and easier and more convenient to use every day.
At a home show in Chicago, Bartley and Mason showed their product to one of the three top manufacturers. Upon seeing it, the woman asked, “Does anybody have this?”
She proceeded to provide Bartley with names and telephone numbers of people to contact.
“We were told earlier that we’d have an extremely hard time getting in the door with these people,” Bartley said.
Withing two days, Mason and Bartley gave presentations at the headquarters of each of the major manufacturers. (In 2000, the industry sold 7.2 million stove/ovens in the United States. About 85 percent were made by three companies: General Electric, Whirlpool and Maytag.)
Everybody liked it, but no one was willing to sign a multimillion-dollar contract to use it.
“We asked for a lot of money. We were a little naive,” Bartley said. “We learned a lot along the way.”
They returned to Maytag Corp. and suggested “a more realistic” payment in which the pair receive a royalty for every rack made. Early in 2003, Maytag agreed and began testing the product last spring.
Meantime, Bartley and Mason licensed the manufacturing rights to one of the leading contractors who makes oven racks for the appliance industry.
“That way whoever wants it, can use it,” Bartley said.
If the product takes off, he hopes to quit his day job, pursue more inventions and golf a lot more.
Maytag gave them an advance for 50,000 racks and projected the company would use about 150,000 this year.
In September, Amana’s EasyRack made its debut in appliance stores across the country, including western Montana and Vann’s in Missoula, where Kelly marvels at how one man’s idea came to fruition.
“The cool thing has been watching this whole process go from beginning to now when it is actually appearing in Maytag and Amana products,” Kelly said.
Customers have responded with positive feedback, he said.
“The product makes a lot of sense,” Kelly said.
From missoulian.com