From the Belleville News-Democrat in Illinois:Winfield Matsler (pictured) wants to patent something every year until he dies.
The 51-year-old Belleville inventor already is associated with seven patents, including one he owns for an aircraft and another pending for a motorcycle seat cushion.
Not bad for a dyslexic who struggled in high school and delayed going to college, Matsler said. If it weren't for his condition, he said he might have taken a traditional route and become an accountant, doctor or CEO.
He credits the dyslexia for his ability to escape the mainstream.
"With dyslexia, you see things backwards," he said. "Letters get changed around. With 'stop' you see 'spot.' It made me see things that possibly others didn't see, like a problem and a different approach to solving the problem."
To patent something once a year is "not unreasonable, it just takes money," he said. Ideas are cheap, and he said he's got plenty of those.
The key is making the ideas tangible so others can see how an invention could benefit humanity.Matsler hopes his latest invention -- an ergonomic motorcycle seat cushion that uses polyurethane and air to contour and support the rider's body -- will help fund future inventions.
The patent was pending in January.
A classmate from design school said Matsler excels at addressing "the human interface of mechanical devices."
That's what he is doing with the motorcycle cushion, which uses similar principles that wheelchair cushions use to keep tissue from dying. Matsler's intent is to keep himself and other motorcyclists comfortable.
"When you're on that motorcycle for 100 miles, 200 miles, it hurts," Matsler said. "What my invention does is allow men not to cramp their packages."
His cushion also absorbs vibrations of high frequency produced by the motor and low frequency from road noise.
"Your skeletal system is absorbing these vibrations, and they will make you tired, even fall asleep," he said.
Craig Raymon is the friend from design school and rides a cruiser. He was one of the many friends from whom Matsler sought feedback.
"I get a big grin every time I get a call from him because, even if you're busy, a few minutes later, you want to share in his discovery and his process and see his new prototype," Raymon said. "Winny's always been kind of a quirky, idealistic, eccentric designer guy."
Matsler studied philosophy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale before a friend suggested product design with an emphasis on special populations. He solidified the career switch after a summer college trip to Port Au Prince, Haiti, where he worked with a Catholic church that took care of disabled children.
"We built wheelchair accessible ramps, railing for the bathrooms, a rehabilitation tool that helped underdeveloped children take their first steps and learn to walk with the correct gait," he said.After graduation, Matsler worked for 13 years as a product designer for The ROHO Group Inc., of Belleville, and nearly six years for Star Cushion Products Inc., of
Freeburg.
Matsler's "smiling attitude" helps him get past negative feedback to make a better product, Raymon said.
"To people who want to be inventors, the obstacles will be other people," Matsler said. "They get excited about that idea, they share that idea and other people criticize it unduly."
Something Matsler learned long ago from his parents, retired educators Franklin and Lois Matsler, helps him cruise pass criticism: "If you make others succeed, that's a measure of success."
That is why whenever a young person shares an idea with Matsler, he tells them to take their passion and run with it. But sometimes it takes a mentor to discern a practical project from an unrealistic one.
Before a friend encouraged Matsler to pursue the more lucrative cushion design, Matsler dabbled with a fond idea -- the patented Rotating Buoyant-Winged Aircraft.
The aircraft -- a garlic-shaped balloon atop a black body that holds the motor and propellor -- is an unmanned aerial vehicles that isn't built for speed, but for economy and endurance.
"It reminds me of a worm that sucks on the floor of a riverbed," Matsler said. "And the funny looking balloon is the best I can do with the money and technology available to me. If I had the money to pursue the project, I'd make it into a butterfly."
The aircraft now hibernates in his basement, where motorcycle cushions eventually will be packaged and shipped to customers. Other evidence of his work reside elsewhere in the house.
A different seat cushion representing one of his designs can be found on each hard chair at the kitchen table. Sketches of prototypes line a dining room wall. Rolls of polyurethane lie near a tool bench and vacuum forming machine in his garage.
Pieces from local artists, and his older brother's original works, adorn Matsler's walls. "Art makes me happy, and I can't invent when I'm unhappy," he said.
Personal experience, like time spent on his Triumph Sprint sport bike, also inspires ideas. Ideas percolate when he's submerged in water or surrounded by people.
"When I swim, my mind's kind of resting," Matsler said. "I'm really people-dependent as far as ideas go. It takes people to define concerns that really need to be addressed."
He structures his time around swimming four miles a week, a Swansea Rotary Club meeting Thursday mornings and daily doses of news between 5:30 and 6 p.m., when he doesn't answer the phone.
The best ideas snatch him from his routine, and when they do, he boils a pot of generic Chinese tea and goes to work.
"When I get on a roll, I roll until it's done," Matsler said. "And sometimes there's a pressure for me to get something done, and pressure evokes ideas out of necessity."
At least for now, he may feel less pressure where he sits.
