In 2002, A.C. Wilson, a contractor from Tennessee, heard his brother-in-law complain about being ticketed in New Jersey under the new “idling” law. The recent legislation is intended to reduce pollution from trucks that idle on the side of the road, by making the practice illegal. Truckers are in the habit of leaving the engine running while they sleep, in order to keep the heat or air conditioning on inside their cabs, but this contributes to pollution and wastes millions of gallons of diesel fuel each year.
Wilson has a knack for working with electricity, and soon he came up with an idea for a portable power pack to help truckers stay comfortable while the engine is shut down. He shared his idea with his brother-in-law, who used the first unit on his own rig. Today Wilson is the CEO of IdleAire Technologies Corporation, a company poised to revolutionize the trucking industry by renting and selling the alternative power units. Truck fleets, travel plazas, and government environmental and highway safety agencies are buying the invention like hot cakes. Wilson’s award-winning idea has already saved millions of gallons of diesel fuel and is helping to improve air quality nationwide.
Meanwhile, building contractor Rob Moody of Black Mountain, North Carolina has been filling the tank on his diesel powered pickup truck with fuel made from recycled cooking oil. When fast food restaurants are ready to throw away the oil they use to fry fish and French fries, Moody shows up and collects it from them. Then he converts it into “bio diesel”. While fuel costs are rising in town, he is driving around on free grease. Soon his brand of fuel may be available at the pump, although for the time being it is still in the early stages of development.
Moody, Wilson, and other “green inventors” around the world are working on products that could not only save our environment, but also rescue a precarious economy. But getting ideas to market can be a daunting task, especially when patents and manufacturing contracts are involved. Many significant inventions that could give the USA a needed boost will never see the light of day, as they languish under a mountain of red tape.
LeAnn Bell and her husband, a former Major League Baseball player, learned that for themselves, when they wanted to get their invention – a special seat designed to help athletes and others reduce knee and back strain – patented and sold. Although Bell has a business management degree from Pepperdine University, she didn’t have a clue how to proceed. “In college they didn’t tell us how to turn an idea into a product,” she says. Eventually, she and her husband figured out the complicated process for themselves; and now their invention is even used by Gold Medal Olympic teams.
After she and her husband got their special seat to market, Bell concentrated on writing a simple how-to guide to assist other new inventors. The booklet Make Your Idea Happen - an Easy to Understand Guide explains the nuts and bolts of prototypes, patents, manufacturing procedures, and licensing contracts. The concise but information-rich text may turn out to be one of the best inventions yet, because it explains every step in the complex process of how to transform a good idea into a great consumer product.
And who knows? One of Bell’s readers might invent the fuel of the future, so that we don’t have to worry about pollution or gas prices as we sit in an ergonomic chair and write the next bestseller.
For a review copy of the book or to set up an interview with LeAnn Bell for a story, please contact Jay Wilke at 727-443-7115, ext. 223.
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