The Venture Center

New North Website
December 8, 2008

http://www.thenewnorth.com/media/view.asp?fn=summit/green3tootalltrucking.flv

APPLETON — Appleton's new business openings declined 10 percent in 2008, but the city is far from alone in northeastern Wisconsin.

So say the numbers from the state Department of Financial Institutions, which registers new corporations, cooperatives, limited liability corporations and limited liability partnerships.

His firm has noticed the decline, said Kent Nelson, head of QuickStart, Menasha, a company that helps small-business people start, purchase, manage and maintain their enterprises.

"We've noticed the same things, especially the last three or four months," he said. "Things have really slowed as far as startups. It's about 40 percent of our business."

WLUK - Fox 11
Reporter: Evan Perrault
January 22, 2009 

GRAND CHUTE - With spina bifida and cerebral palsy in her left arm, 20-year-old Jennifer Ulrich has trouble doing the simplest of tasks.

"I can't stand or walk unaided," said Ulrich.

Much less open up a heavy door.

"I can push, however, see, my fingers, they don't work," said Ulrich.

Even with the help of her service dog Wilson, opening up a door with the kind of hook people have been using for years was a constant struggle.

"The other hook was useless. It would fall off, slide around," said Ulrich.

So last year NorthEast Wisconsin Service Dogs president Jack Nigl came to Fox Valley Technical College's FAB LAB with a different idea.

"He came to us hoping to develop a universal style tool," said the FAB LAB's industrial design specialist Herb Goetz.

And with the help of the Lab's industrial designer, and a few bends of heavy metal, the new instrument was created and tested for the first time last week.

"We took a field trip to downtown Appleton and there wasn't a door we couldn't open with it," said Nigl.

"So I come up with this handle, I'd then hook up, and that's it, good boy, tug, do it, hold, release, alright, you did it," praises Ulrich to her dog Wilson.

And that's also what the FAB LAB - which has been around about a year - does: opens up doors for people with ideas.

"We seem to be a one stop shop for entrepreneurs and inventors," said Jim Janisse of the FAB LAB.

Post-Crescent
January 22, 2009 

GRAND CHUTE — Jennifer Ulrich pointed to a fabric strap, and with a command of "tug," a black Labrador named Wilson latched onto a handle and pulled a door open.

It was a simple motion that was never so simple before.
Ulrich, 20, of Seymour, uses a wheelchair and opening lever-style doors has always been a hassle even with the help of her service dog. A tool devised at Fox Valley Technical College will soon provide a solution.

"It was very hard," Ulrich said. "And all of a sudden there's something that can open any door."

Clients of Northeast Wisconsin Service Dogs will know the benefit of the FVTC's 2-year-old Fab Lab program. The lab developed the metal device from an idea brought in by Appleton's Jack Nigl.

The lab, one of 30 like it in the world, offered demonstrations of the tool with the help of Ulrich and Wilson on Wednesday.

Nigl, an instructor with the service dog organization, went to the lab figuring there had to be a better solution than the hooks service dogs now rely on for lever doors. Levers aren't easy for the dogs, though they're common at stores and other public places. Hooks often slip off of the handles and they don't work on every lever.

Herb Goetz, an industrial design specialist at the lab, got to work.

The lab, a concept devised at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a product fabrication laboratory, which welcomes and assists inventors in turning ideas into prototypes.

James Janisse, development manager for the FVTC lab, said it's incredibly difficult for entrepreneurs to move through the process from an idea to the marketplace. The lab's tools and experts remove barriers.

"We provide the one-stop shopping these innovators need," he said.

Nigl was impressed with the results.