• Popular Mechanics recognizes inventor and entrepreneur Dan Brown for the second time in five years for outstanding product design achievements
NEW YORK, NY, Nov. 3, 2009 -- LoggerHead Tools received a 2009 Breakthrough Innovation Award from Popular Mechanics magazine on October 8th at the Hearst Tower in New York City, for its newly designed Bionic Hydrant Wrench®. LoggerHead, a past Popular Mechanics Editors Choice Award winner, is an entrepreneurial startup, a multiple award winning designer, marketer, and American manufacturer of innovative problem solving tools. The new Hydrant Wrench will serve the needs of Fire Fighters, and water system personal by addressing the age-old problem of quickly opening problematic multi sized fire hydrant valves in a revolutionary new way. A breakthrough innovation, it has been heralded for its patented design, that quickly adjusts to multi-sized pentagonal nuts and provides an inventive mechanically advantaged grip when time and performance are of the essence. The awards honor new products that exemplify innovation, invention, design and engineering and the personalities behind them.
Brilliant Achievements in Science and Technology Lead to Innovative Products
Seeking to advance the promise to improve lives and expand human horizons, Popular Mechanics recognizes brilliant achievements in science and technology through the Breakthrough Awards program.> The Bionic Hydrant Wrench is the classic example of a new product innovation creating great market value. This innovative new type of tool combines the best features of the Bionic Wrench gripping technology in a new embodiment designed for first responders, by delivering a mechanical advantage unlike any other adjustable wrench because it equally distributes force around the workload. The Bionic Hydrant Wrench automatically sizes and grips the multiple sized pentagonal hydrant bolts installed over the past 100 years, eliminating the need to search for the exact size wrench or use slow adjusting hydrant wrenches when time is of the essence.
Entrepreneurial Startup Continues to Compete in the Hotly Contested Tool Market
Continually seeking to create competitive advantage, the Bionic Hydrant Wrench was designed and developed by LoggerHeads founder and Award Winning Designer, Dan Brown, who currently holds over 30 US Patents. The 2009 Breakthrough Award ads to the list of over 10 of the most prestigious International Design and Innovation Awards presented to Brown. "Popular Mechanics has been a big part of my life for many years. I have great respect for their leadership and dedication to innovation, and I have followed the Breakthrough Innovation and Editor's Choice awards with great interest and amazement at the ingenuity they celebrate. To be a recipient of both of these Awards is an awesome professional experience." Brown added that seeing the public response to the Bionic Wrench over the past four years has also been very gratifying. "I enjoy the expression of immediate amazement each time a person tries one of our products for the first time." A common element of Brown's Design work is the "wow factor." "I often hear 'Wow what a great idea, why I didn't think of that,'" Brown stated.
Innovative Design Aspires to Support Domestic Manufacturing Opportunities
Brown's passion is Design, and the practice of strategically commercializing innovation for domestically manufactured products. "My vision is to provide leadership for other designers and entrepreneurs to investigate domestic manufacturing before they consider off shoring their innovations. I am not anti-globalization, but I feel if we cannot build the new innovative everyday products in the states, what is realistically left for our industry to produce?" While this is no easy challenge, LoggerHead continues to create and pursue this vision through a higher level of design-based, value creating innovation. Brown, who is also a Professor at Northwestern's Segal Design Institute, where he teaches a course entitled Differentiation by Design®, believes that the design of value adding products creates the best potential for supporting a domestic manufacturing strategy, which is essential for the sustainability of our economy in this global marketplace. "We know that we cannot compete directly against emerging market labor, or subsidized material costs, thus we must compete by aspiring to design innovative value added domestically produced products."
Where to Buy the Bionic Wrench
The Bionic Wrench is made in the United States and guaranteed forever, is available on sale at Sears this Christmas, participating Hardware Stores, and the Garrett Wade Catalog. It is also available for $28.95 at http://www.loggerhead tools.com or by contacting 1-888-564-4374 (LOGGERHEAD). The Breakthrough Innovation Awarded Bionic Hydrant Wrench, along with square and hex-designed versions, will be shipping in early 2010 through traditional distribution channels, and priced in the $160.00 range.
About LoggerHead Tools
LoggerHead Tools LLC designs, develops and commercializes inventive, new-to-the-world tools manufactured in the United States. The company's mission is to create problem-solving innovations that provide enhanced value to its customers based on patented creative sustainable competitive advantages. More information: http://www.lhtmediakit.com/
About Dan Brown
Dan Brown founded LoggerHead Tools in 2005 to commercialize the Bionic Wrench. As a serial inventor, entrepreneur and product development consultant over the past 25 years, Dan has earned over 30 US Utility Patents, and numerous Foreign Patents for a wide range of commercial products and clients. Dan has a Masters Degree in Product Development (MPD) from Northwestern University in Evanston IL., and currently is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Northwestern, teaching "Differentiation by Design" in the Engineering, Design and Innovation (EDI) Masters Degree program at the Segal Design Institute in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering.
Dan Brown is an expert in Product Design, Entrepreneurship, Commercialization and the corresponding economic sustainability created by value creating innovation; he is often involved in interviews, panel discussions and speaking engagements on these topics.
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