“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” — Robert Goddard
Twelve seconds. That is about how long it takes a person to dry their hands using a paper towel.
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So you can understand the frustration people feel when they visit the restroom at a restaurant and it takes closer to a minute to dry their hands using a mechanical blower. And when that minute has elapsed there are the additional few seconds needed to wipe one’s hands on one’s sleeves.
It was enough of a dilemma to inspire the second largest manufacturer of those mechanical dryers to put a call in to Invent Resources, Inc., a technological think tank designed to solve other people’s problems.
With nearly 200 years experience among its four founding members and the additional experience of a new, fifth member — a surgeon from Philadelphia — Invent Resources is solving problems — and turning a profit.
Invent Resources has office space in Woburn, Mass., but the company mostly operates out of the homes of its members who keep in constant contact thanks to the luxuries of modern telecommunications. The firm’s four original principals began collaborating about six years ago. IR was incorporated three years ago.
IR’s members have a wide range of advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, material sciences, and engineering from MIT, Columbia University, Technion and the University of London.
They have authored numerous books and articles in scientific and management fields
— and more than 500 papers. They also hold awards from the high technology community,
including “12 R&D 100 Awards” from R&D Magazine.
The company’s creations include: an electronic time stamp, electronic credit card calculator, electronic checkbook calculator, active electronic jewelry, a golf club head with an expanded “sweet spot,” a line of eight different microwave appliances, advanced electronic ovens and samarium cobalt magnets.
Richard Pavelle, IR’s president, is an applied mathematician, physicist and computer scientist.
Pavelle was named “One of 50 R&D Stars to Watch” by Industry Week. Pavelle’s degrees include a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the University of London and an undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia University. He is also on the research staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Pavelle’s areas of patent interest include automotive accessories, electronic consumer devices, golf and other sports related devices and medical devices.
IR’s other founders include:
- George Freedman, an MIT trained engineer, inventor and entrepreneur who specializes
in heat transfer technology; Ze’ev Hed, schooled in solid state physics from The
Hebrew University. His areas of patent interest include cryogenics and thermoelectrics. - Sol Aisenberg, also a physicist with a Ph.D. from MIT in physical electronics.
He has been on the staff at MIT and served as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
Aisenberg’s specialties include plasma physics, high vacuum systems, thin films,
and advanced materials. - Joseph Friedberg, a thoracic surgeon out of Philadelphia.
Pavelle said the combined experiences of the company’s members allow it to tackle virtually any problem.
“The only thing we don’t do is software and drugs,” said Pavelle.
Issues surrounding pharmaceuticals, explained Pavelle, get complicated and time consuming, particularly when the federal Food and Drug Administration gets involved.
As for software, “the industry is terribly crowded,” he said.
But there are plenty of problems to solve and inventions to create somewhere in-between software and pharmaceuticals. Individuals — and companies — from all over the world are contacting IR on a weekly basis. Often, representatives travel to IR’s Woburn office to tap into all the experience that can be found there.
“Our specialty is our generality,” said Pavelle.
There may be no better example of what can be accomplished by the IR team than those hand dryers.
The problem with them has been universally identified. They’re obnoxiously loud, take too long — and don’t dry your hands very well. But no one, it seems, ever really gave it a thorough investigation.
“Hand-dryers in bathrooms — most people don’t like those,” said Freedman.
Freedman’s experience in heat transfer technology turned out to be critical to resolving the hand dryer dilemma. Freedman worked closely with the manufacturer’s engineering staff and soon designed a way to reduce the time element of the process to closer to 12 seconds.
“And it uses one-third of the electricity,” said Freedman. “We achieved that and now the units are being sold.”
Freedman expects that the newly designed units will be showing up in locations around the country by this summer. The market for them, he said, is barely tapped.
IR will receive royalties as a result – royalties that could prove profitable. Such a windfall would only add to what has been a successful “start-up” period for Invent Resources, Inc.
In fact, since its inception, the company has guided the development of more than 100 patents, formed more than 60 licensing arrangements and has over 40 patent applications in process.
Annual sales for clients resulting from this intellectual property, according to a company press release, total several hundred million dollars.
The IR team meets in Woburn every Tuesday morning. There, ideas are shared — problems are investigated. Some assignments take hours, while the resolution of others takes much longer.
“Sometimes you have a problem and you get a flash of inspiration,” said Aisenberg. “But then you spend weeks or months verifying that it is true.”
For all the different problems the IR team may face, all the ideas that get floated about there are similarities regardless of industry.
“In all of the cases, it comes down to basic physics,” said Freedman. “So there is always a commonality.”
Hed agrees with his colleague. He believes that the same thing slows most entrepreneurs.
“They don’t understand the physics behind a problem,” he said. “Our strength is that with the four of us — we can bring to bear solutions in different technologies.”
Pavelle exudes confidence, speaking for the group.
“Any problem can be solved,” said Pavelle. “The issue is whether it can be solved in a cost-effective way.”
