Guest Host:

Mike Drummond, Editor in Chief of Inventors Digest

Having served many years with the National Security Agency (NSA) - as both a Senior Intelligence Analyst and executive in charge of Classified Technology Innovation & Program Development, Mr. Reyland has applied many of these unique skills to his work as a successful inventor. Mr. Reyland’s long list of accomplishments include Director of Classified Technology Development for a fortune 500 company, National Security Agency liaison to the Korean government, Technology and Product Inventor with 5 patents under application, and currently Founder and CEO of Obvious Ideas LLC - a Cincinnati based product development company specializing in providing fully developed products to traditional retail and the Direct Response industry.

Although Mr. Reyland often does product development consulting for other companies, most evenings you’ll find him on the phone volunteering his time mentoring new inventors through the process of developing their dreams into a reality.

Mr. Reyland’s technology inventions and retail products have been widely published in magazines and trade journals around the world.  You can often hear him as a guest lecturer at universities, corporations, and inventor forums, or read his daily Inventor blog, http://www.inventoropinion.blogspot.com/, where he posts valuable, educational information for new inventors.

Cooper is an internationally renowned expert on technology and

innovation and its impact on business and society. 

He is widely regarded as one of the leading inventors of our time and

has spent most of the past 5 decades creating some of the world’s most important business and technological concepts and offerings.

He is an activist who seeks to shape public policy in the US and globally having testified before

various committees, and been featured in national publications and news shows.  He is passionate about the revolution in health care

and commerce that wireless technology will engender when networks are finally opened and new technology adopted. Cooper is also an accomplished entrepreneur and futurist.   Martin Cooper is Chairman and Co-Founder of DYNA, LLC and Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of ArrayComm, LLC, based in San Jose, CA.  Cooper is also Co-Founder and director of GreatCall, Inc. the innovator of the Jitterbug cell phone and service. Cooper has been involved in and contributed to virtually every major innovation in personal wireless communications in his over 50-year career.  He conceived the first portable cellular phone in 1973 and is widely recognized as an innovator in spectrum management.  For 29 years, he led a number of major businesses at Motorola, including high-capacity paging, trunked mobile radio, cellular radio telephone, quartz crystals and oscillators, liquid crystal displays, piezo-electric components, Motorola A.M. Stereo technology, and various mobile and portable two-way radio product lines. Following Motorola, Cooper co-founded Cellular Business Systems, Inc., a cellular billing system company.  Cooper has numerous patents in the communications field.  He is widely published and continues to write and lecture around the world about wireless communications, technological innovation, the Internet, and R&D management.

John has responsibility of the Inventors assistance program, which includes inventor outreach and university outreach initiatives.  The USPTO has made outreach and education a high priority due to the increased interest in intellectual property both by business and education.

Prior to being named Administrator, John had been responsible for supervising as many as 25 examiners in the area of textile technology and in the area of absorbent products. He also served as Acting Director for the Office of Independent Inventor Programs. www.uspto.gov

Brendan O'Connell, Director of Web Operations for ThomasNet.com and Paul Gerbino, Publisher of ThomasNet News (formerly known as Thomas Register) will present inventors invaluable information on how to find and research potential partners for making your prototype, finding engineers, CAD drawings (3d drawings) contract manufacturers for production, anser your questions about what the differences are between distributors, manufacturers, wholesalers and even how to promote your product or services through their media channels. Our presenters will also demonstrate how to actually navigate through their website and prepare you for this part of the invention process.

With one million user sessions each month, ThomasNet.com is the world's preferred resource for building and securing supply chains that require specialized parts, materials, components, equipment and more. For inventors and entrepreneurs, it's a destination rich with information and potential partners to turn their ideas into successful businesses. Whether they want to build a prototype, find contract manufacturers, conduct market research, or create buzz on their new ventures, ThomasNet can help. Great information and resource for inventors and entrepreneurs at all levels. www.thomasnet.com

Terry Whipple is the Executive Director of Juneau County Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) and President of the 7 Rivers Region.  He has an extensive background in business development and was the founder of the Inventors & Entrepreneurs Club model which is responsible for inventor groups in over 6 states, totaling over 10,000 members attending their respective groups. Terry received the Small Business Administration’s Region Five and Wisconsin 2005 Home-Based Business Champion of the Year Award. He also received the Wisconsin 2005 Innovation Champion Award for the development of innovative new programs as well as the 2008 - 7 Rivers Region Pyramid Award. Terry recently was presented with the 2009 International Economic Development Council Award for Innovative entrepreneurial programs. 

He has served as an independent business consultant specializing in work with distressed small businesses and currently maintains his own private consulting business.  He lives in rural Tomah, WI with his wife and 3 daughters.

Just after earning his MBA in entrepreneurial finance from San Diego State University in 2001, Mr. Gantz co-founded 1-800-LAS VEGAS, a premier travel management company dedicated to the city of Las Vegas. While Mr. Gantz was the Chief Executive Officer of 1-800-LAS-VEGAS, the company recruited Mr. Las Vegas, Wayne Newton as its celebrity spokesperson and went public in 2006.  The company later changed its name to VegasNow.com.  In 2007, Mr. Gantz formed Seed Capital with partner Kevin Alan Tussy.  Seed Capital specializes in assisting entrepreneurs and small companies with raising start-up and expansion capital.  In 2009, in the midst of the most devastating credit crisis since the Great Depression, Seed Capital raised over $40 million in financing for its clients, in the process helping hundreds of new businesses and products become a reality.

Bill Adams started selling suction cups over 25 years ago. Adams Manufacturing Corporation is now the world's largest producer of suction cups, and several other product lines have since been introduced. In 1976, Bill's grandfather died, and he inherited $10,000.00 and began to work on inventions, wrote books, etc. Finally, Bill found commercial success after a couple of failures that took all his money, and began selling suction cups, driving around, peddling them to gas stations and tire stores to hang signs in their windows without leaving any of the tape residue.  Then, Bill began selling them to Hardware, Office Supply, Craft, Card, and Gift stores.  After three or four years, Bill had built up enought retail customers to sell to Ace Hardware, True Value, Do It Best, and other chains, expanding into K-Mart and Wal-Mart.  Now, Adams employs approximately 250 people, selling to nearly all major retailers in U.S. and Canada with distribution in England, South, and Central America.

Matt Nuccio is the co-owner and creative director of Design Edge inc (www.designedge.net), a multi award-winning international studio with office's in New York and Hong Kong. Design Edge is one of the leading toy and game design and inventing firms in the world, designing packaging, product, displays, advertising as well as engineering and manufacturing for hundreds of toy companies both big and small.  With over 20 years in the toy design industry, Design Edge is a laboratory for new and creative approaches. From traditional styles to the latest trends, they can help you create and maintain a strong product and line look within a fair project budget.       

  In 2008 Matt Nuccio was elected co-chairman of the TIA (Toy Industry Association) associate panel representing all designers and inventors in the toy industry. He has also written columns focusing on design, inventing, engineering and manufacturing for Toy and Family Entertainment, ToyBook, Royaltie$ and Licensing Book .

SCORE CEO Ken Yancey leads SCORE, America's premiere free & confidential business mentoring organization. Yancey represents SCORE nationally before the media, industry leaders and in Congressional testimony. He is responsible for SCORE's network of 364 offices and 12,400 volunteers. He represents SCORE before Congress in Congressional Testimony and serves as SCORE's chief liaison with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

Yancey speaks nationally on the topics of entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, small business trends and mentoring. He has presented at conferences for The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), BoardSource and panels for the SBA. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox, PBS and numerous national and regional radio programs. He has been interviewed by Susan Solovic of SBTV.com and Ken & Daria Dolans of Dolans.com on small business issues.www.score.org

Got Invention Radio presented by Inventors Digest had 4 inventors on each segment to help bring them to the next level by answering their questions live on the air! Questions were answered about patenting, marketing, manufacturing, importing, packaging, public relations, designing and much more...Cathi Reyes of www.myaquabag.com, Rick Francis of www.pocketweez.com  Diane Plumert of ttp://flirtbydiane.com/ and Matt Butler of www.rollors.net and below was our expert panel:

John Calvert, administrator of the Inventors Assistance Program for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to this, John had been responsible for supervising examiners in the area of textile technology and in the area of absorbent products. He also served as acting director for the Office of Independent Inventor Programs.

Bill McAlister, founder and president of direct response and product sourcing for Media Enterprises. Bill specializes in acquiring, developing and marketing products. He started his career at QVC and later was a vendor for the Home Shopping Network. He has helped sell more than $1 billion in consumer products..

Brian Fried is host of Got Invention Radio. As a successful, seasoned inventor, he embraces a “pay it forward” ethos. He helped found the Inventors and Entrepreneur Club of Suffolk County in New York, he holds four patents, with more pending under his company, Think Up Designs.

Mike Drummond is a Pulitzer finalist, author and award-winning editor of Inventors Digest, the nation’s longest-running Web and print publication for the inventing industry. Mike specializes in innovation, social marketing, public relations, building partnerships & identifying compelling products.

Dr. Robert N. Yonover received his Ph.D. in Geochemistry/Volcanology from the University of Hawaii with a Research Fellowship at NASA -Johnson Space Center and laboratory work at MIT. He invented the RescueStreamer® survival technology, LIFE/FLOAT™ Rescue Board, Pocket Floatation Device, Pocket DeSalinator, and the Video Search and Rescue (vSAR) technology. 

The rescueStreamer® technology is now in use by all branches of the U.S. military, including all U.S. Navy Submarines`and self-deploying Day/Night versions for US Air Force fighter jets. RescueStreamers® are credited with 4 lives saved to date. Dr. Yonover's new book is entitled "Hardcore Inventing" and he has appeared on CNN, PBS, and Discovery Channel.

Leslie Scott is the inventor of Jenga, the co-founder of Oxford Games Ltd, and the author of ‘About Jenga: The Remarkable Business of Creating a Game that Became a Household Name.’                                                                   

Born and raised in Africa, and educated in Sierra Leone, Kenya and England, Scott worked for Intel ( the inventors of the microcomputer), before embarking on a career as a professional games designer. In addition to Jenga, Scott has devised, designed and published almost forty other games. Though perhaps not as commercially successful as her first game, Jenga (which has sold in excess of 50 million units), several of Scott’s games are today considered classics; Ex Libris, Anagram, Flummoxed and Bookworm, to name a few.

Alan Beckley is an entrepreneur, inventor, and a consultant to small businesses. In 2002, tired of sitting on bulky wallets stuffed with hard to find cards, he invented the solution: a wallet laid out like a photo album that could hold twice as many cards yet remain half as thick and comfortable to sit on. Inventing the product and obtaining two patents turned out to be the easy part, the hard part was getting it into the marketplace successfully. Last year Mr. Beckley took his Savvy Caddy wallets on air at the largest home shopping network where he was able to sell more in 5 minutes than the previous 5 years. He continues to help entrepreneurs, as well as other inventors, to solve problems and move forward with their projects.

Mike Drummond is editor-in-chief of Inventors Digest, the nation's longest-running publication in the invention industry. Mike is also a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of numerous investigative and business-writing awards. His work has appeared in Wired, Salon.com, Fortune, Cnet, Business 2.0, as well as major newspapers. He's also the author of Renegades of the Empire, an inside story of Microsoft's computer-game and Internet ambitions.

Jeff Lindsay is a registered U.S. patent agent, an inventor with over 100 U.S. patents, the former Corporate Patent Strategist of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, an innovation and IP consultant, and the lead author of the new John Wiley & Sons book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success with coauthors C. Perkins and M. Karanjikar. Jeff is currently Director of Solution Development at Innovationedge.

Jeff blogs at InnovationFatigue.com (the blog that supports the book) and SharpIP.com. He’s on Twitter as @jefflindsay.

Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is chair of the Forest Bioproducts Division of AIChE, where he works with industry and academia in advancing knowledge in the engineering issues around bioproducts, including paper technology, biorefineries, and biomass engineering. 

Inspired by his daughter Cassidy’s inventions, Norm Goldstein founded BKFK to inspire, motivate and stimulate the innovative spirit within all young people. BKFK, a youth marketing and media company, cultivates, celebrates, and commercializes youth-created ideas.  Through its website (www.bkfk.com), social entrepreneurship community (Idea Locker™), online competitions, TV show (Think Big™), BKFK and corporate partners engage America’s youth and stimulate creativity, inventing thinking and problem solving.

As a well known expert on youth marketing,  Norm addressed a joint session of Congress on youth empowerment, and was recognized by Congress as a Champion Leader. Norm’s also been featured on CNN, The Big Idea, Montel, CBS News & more.  Prior to BKFK, Norm was a highly successful entrepreneur in fashion, licensing and internet businesses.

My vision is to ensure the UIA continues offering valuable educational materials and viable options for inventors to get fairly rewarded for their efforts. I also run the UIA Certification program as the industry standard for service providers.” Patrick began his career as a Strategic Planner for global brands in 1997. After obtaining his MBA in 2002, he became an independent inventor in 2005 and Founder of the Inventors Association of Manhattan in 2007. A UIA Board Member in 2007-08, he’s now Executive Director of the UIA, a regular contributor to Inventor’s Digest magazine, guest speaker and product judge at Yankee Expo and the National Hardware Show. www.uiausa.org.

Walter has been a Business Advisor with SBDC since 1998 and came to Farmingdale State College Regional SBDC in 2002. He is responsible for assisting over 1330 clients, creating or retaining 758 jobs, and achieving over $32 million in economic impact.

Jamie Herzlich writes the weekly small business column for Newsday, providing insight and tips each Monday on topics that matter most to local entrepreneurs. She has been a business writer for more than a decade covering a vast array of topics from incubators to economic development. She has worked as a reporter at both Newsday and Long Island Business News, serving as Newsday’s small business columnist for the past three plus years. Many of her columns have focused on invention and innovation and best practices for bringing products to market. She is a lifelong Long Islander and a graduate of Stony Brook University.

PSI is one of the largest independent patent search organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1974 by Mr. Ronald Brown. Prior to 1985, most of PSI’s work was done for attorneys and businesses.                                          Mr. Brown, the chief executive officer of PSI, has worked hand-in-hand with states attorneys offices throughout the country to shut down unethical inventor Rip-Off companies. Through this he saw a need to provide honest, inexpensive help to the inventor. Therefore, PSI is now offering its services to the general public.