White city
inventor designs beach cleaning hand
tool used in the Gulf.
August 9, 2010
By Ron Brown
August 9, 2010
MEDFORD, Ore. - A Rogue Valley company may prove to have the best tool for cleaning up the tons of tarballs scattered on Southeastern U.S. beaches caused by the Gulf oil spill.
While British Petroleum's Gulf oil well is no longer leaking, there is still a great deal of cleanup to be done along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Demand is growing for the Shake'n Fork, a self-sifting fork, originally intended for making the cleaning of horse stalls easier. The plastic fork was designed by White City-based Equi-Tee Manufacturing to separate road apples from straw and sawdust in horse stalls. Inventor Joseph Berto says it is perfect for cleaning beaches too. He says it will separate the tar balls and sludge from the sand.
"When the time came for BP to scale back their operation, they started to look at productivity. And they found that the contractors that were using our product were more productive. And they offered those contractors their 18 month contracts. So for the next 18 months, our products are gonna be used on the Gulf," said Joseph Berto, Sifting Fork Inventor.
Berto says it was almost impossible to get an audition to demonstrate his self-sifting fork, until one contractor saw a YouTube video and internet ad.
Now he expects the fork to gain worldwide acceptance for cleaning resort beaches of cigarette butts and other trash. For more information visit www.shakenfork.com.
This video may not open on all browsers, here is the
Today Show link.
Reporter Janice Lieberman
with the Today Show was at the L.A. Inventor Day hosted by
Telebrands president A.J. Khubani.
Shake'n Fork inventor Joseph Berto was there to pitch his smaller
Kit'n fork
version of the auto-sifting Shake'n fork. He was one of the few pitchmen that
received the approval of the judges, and Janice interviewed him
as he exited the presentation room. Hopefully we will be producing
the Kit'n Fork soon, there certainly seems to be a large consumer demand
for it.
Joseph Berto has been
driving around the western United States in a horse
trailer to market his "Shake'n Fork" - a
battery-powered pitchfork for cleaning horse
stables. He'd like to downsize it for use in cat
litter boxes.
The Windshield Wonder, the PedEgg, and the GoDuster
are just a few of the products A. J. Khubani has
marketed into household brands with relentless TV
ads. Khubani is the chief executive of Telebrands
and known as the "infomercial king." The king held
court Wednesday in Los Angeles as more than 30
inventors from across the country pitched their
concepts and creations.
A room on the 18th Floor of the LAX Marriott was
jam-packed with people convinced that their product
is the next big thing.
Michelle Reuven of Lakewood thought it was her "Hair
Therapy Wrap"
"It's a cordless heated turban, you heat it in
microwave in 90 seconds, and you put your
conditioner on your hair, so it's for deep
conditioning treatments, for scalp treatments," she
said.
Joseph Berto has been driving around the western
United States in a horse trailer to market his
"Shake'n Fork" - a battery-powered pitchfork for
cleaning horse stables. He'd like to downsize it for
use in cat litter boxes.
"It can't vibrate because the vibrations would
simply break the manure or the kitty pooh apart," he
explained. "So you had to have something that was
going to do exactly the motion that the human does,
which is to loft it in the air and as it comes back
down, it falls through the tines, and the remainder
- the pooh - is what you would throw away. Try to
say that with a straight face."
Keeping a straight face was only one of the goals
of the inventors as they entered the next room.
There, each inventor got 5 minutes to pitch their
product to Infomercial King AJ Khubani and 3 other
judges. Janet Feil of Kerman in California's Central
Valley was a little nervous as she began to sell her
"Snazzy Sun Float."
"If you're one of the 22 million Americans that
suntan yearly, then I'm sure you've experienced the
frustration of lying face down on a float," she
said, sticking to her pitch script. "You're always
turning your head from side to side to make your
neck stop hurting? Well, you won't have to do that
with the Snazzy Sun Float."
The mild-mannered Khubani offered encouragement -
and a reality check.
"There is a seasonality aspect of it because
normally people only sun tan in the summer," he
explained. "It's a bit challenging for our business
model to sell seasonal products, but it's definitely
an interesting product, and I think we're gonna
think about it."
The bell sounded and signaled the end of Janet
Feil's 5 minutes. Afterwards, she said the Snazzy
Sun Float was her first invention, born of economic
necessity.
"I've been a customer service rep for over ten
years, lost my job in October 2008, and have been
looking for work ever since," Feil said. "So
unemployment's almost done."
That's why Feil hopes she's invented the next big
thing.
JOHN BOGART WRITES ABOUT THE INVENTORS DAY
Daily Breeze reporter John Bogart wrote
a very nice
two part article about the L.A. Inventors Day. His story
captures the stress and drama that was so evident, and presents the
inventors in a way that is respectful, reflecting the dreams that we all
have for business success.
JOHN BOGERT:
Inventors present ideas to the
king of 'As Seen On TV' universe
By John Bogert Staff
Columnist
Posted: 03/03/2010 06:34:56
PM PST
It's not the TV products
- the veggie slicers, snore
stoppers and miracle cures -
that sucker me. Nor is it how I find
myself actually expecting to
pay at least twice as much
for the kind of "I didn't
know I needed that!" items
being pitched on TeleBrands
Inventors Day by what had to
be the most upbeat cast of
characters since the last
"American Idol" call. No, what never fails to
grab me is the doubt-killing
final offer that always
accompanies these products.
I'm talking the end-pitch
that comes with the "As Seen
On TV" line pioneered by the
self-made A.J. Khubani. You
know, the Doggy Steps,
Windshield Wonder, the
famous Ped Egg, the Go
Duster and the amazing
Jupiter Jack - "It turns
your car radio into a cell
phone!"That big offer, the one
that always yanks me right
in, attaches itself like
catnip to the entire range
of clever inventions that
always make me shout at that
barely contained voice-over,
"What do I get if I order
right now!?" I'll tell you what you
get: hope, happiness,
instant gratification and a
bottle of Heel Tastic dry
skin ointment (a $10 value)
absolutely free! And it all begins - this
road to riches - on an
overcast Wednesday morning
on the 18th floor of the
decidedly early-1960s LAX
Marriott, in a pair of
crowded, overly warm,
glass-walled rooms
overlooking the United Cargo
Terminal and the busy
taxiways beyond.
A.J. Khubani himself is
on hand, come west for the
first time from his usual
Fairfield, N.J., open talent calls. Jersey being the natty,
50-year-old Indian-American
entrepreneur's home state,
the place where he began his
mass marketing career while
still a student at Montclair
State University. On this day, 30 inventors
(culled from 100 applicants)
get five minutes in front of
a panel headed by the man
who invented the genre that
can be seen in drug and
household goods stores
everywhere. The process, as you might
expect, is equal parts
reality show and
get-rich-quick promise. Khubani has his own PR staff
and video team on hand and
they have somehow managed to
gather a crowd of badly
dressed reporters who, like
me, obviously have nothing
better to do. There are, of course, no
fuel cells secreted in the
bags of the inventors who
sit suited, scrunched up and
ready on rows of upright
banquet chairs. There is
nothing here to raise mpg or
mph, no nothing except some
innovative products of
somewhat questionable value.
That and some wonderfully
cheerful inventors come here
from across the land to
pitch what PR rep Andrea
Pass calls "consumer
tchothkes," mass-appeal,
solve-a-problem,
everybody-can-relate items
that practically walk off
the shelves at $10 in hard
times. "We can't afford $100
anymore, but we can afford
$10," the Jersey-based
spokesman said in the kind
of happy, for-the-camera
voice that permeates this
crowd as certainly as it
does our entire
media-sensitive society.The inventors likewise
enthuse and are so endearing
and hopeful I found myself
wishing that they all have
with them the next
30-million-selling Ped Egg. Fact is, many of these
products are already for
sale, but it's Khubani and
the thought of that
$10-times-$30-million,
dead-skin-sluffing egg that
dangles like the pole star
in these crowded rooms.
Naturally, I had
favorites, people like
Victoria Ricker and Martha
Curnow, a pair of absolutely
delightful commercial real
estate women from
Schaumburg, Ill., who met in
sixth grade and have been
best pals ever since. Together they perfected
the Perslock, a gold metal
chain with attached charms
that hooks to the handle
loop of any purse. Born of a
desire to keep handbags safe
in crowded places, the chain
can be secured around a
chair leg or ankle while
another clip holds the bag's
zipper shut. Nearby sits Russell
Smith, a drawling nuclear
power plant planner from
Sandusky, Ohio, who stood to
ask a serious question, "Are
you tired of blinding car
lights reflecting in your
outside rear-view mirrors?"
You know, I am! And it
happens that he invented a
mirror-shaped piece of
glare-reducing film that
affixes to a car's side
windows to solve yet another
pressing problem! Chad Hassell of Salt Lake
City showed up with the Cozy
Trim, a neck pillow, blanket
and double-arm sling
combination guaranteed to
make flying comfortable or
your money back. Tired of hanging pictures
unevenly? Rick Schlais of
Hallandale Beach, Fla.,
invented the Qwik Pix
Hanger, a simple flat metal
bar that finally makes easy
an always pesky task. If they gave an
enthusiasm award it would go
to the only local in the
bunch, Michelle Reuven of
Long Beach, who was pitching
TeleBrands for a third time
with a microwaveable turban
designed to enhance hair and
scalp treatments. Seriously,
if I had hair, I'd be
absolutely prepared to order
right now!
But most thoughtful was
Joseph Berto, a
helicopter-flying horse
rancher from White City,
Ore., whom you probably know
as the inventor of the
Shake'n Fork, a
battery-operated, vibrating
rake that comes in two
sizes, one for sifting cat
litter and a larger one for
cleaning horse stalls. So maybe you haven't
heard of Berto, a tall,
slender 51-year-old who
camps in a horse trailer
when he's out pitching the
12 inventions he has
patented for use on
snowmobiles, power saws and
other manly outdoor goods.
For him, inventing is an
obsession, something that
can't be turned off or left
behind even at the risk of
being ridiculed. He spent
three years on the vibrating
fork with one huge question
hovering over him the entire
time. "When do you quit trying
to sell an invention? The
fact is, unless you do this
full-time and are able to
bring at least three
inventions (as he did) to a
show like this, there really
is no chance of making it,"
he said.
Not that estimating real
chances much intrudes on a
day of wishes and dreams.
JOHN BOGERT: Part 2
By John Bogert, Staff Columnist
Posted: 03/07/2010 06:03:05 AM PST
I received a number of calls concerning last week's TeleBrands Inventors Day at the LAX Marriott. Who was selected? You didn't say," asked Sarah Janes. "I think that people who work hard to make it in this world deserve recognition." They do. And I should add that more than a few people pitching low-cost, non-seasonal, impulse-buy items to TeleBrands owner A.J. Khubani were out of work. There was, and I didn't stress this in the piece, a slight air of desperation in the place. It wasn't quite like hanging with people hoping to win the lottery with the grocery money, but it was a little sad as this supposedly over recession continues to take its toll.
Selected out of 40 entries was Joseph Berto's Shake 'N Fork, a vibrating (actually, it's an up-and-down motion) pitchfork device that comes in two sizes, one for cleaning horse stalls and a much smaller version for kitty litter boxes. Berto, of White City, Ore., is a laid-off firefighting helicopter pilot. Also selected was the only local inventor in the lot, Lakewood resident Michelle Reuven, who brought along her Hair Therapy Wrap, a microwaveable turban design that helps infuse hair products. This was Reuven's third try and I was happy to hear that someone with such boundless enthusiasm might get some reward for her efforts. Also selected was Chad Hassell's Cozy Traveler, a neck pillow, eye mask, blanket and double arm sling combo that might actually make air travel a bit less wretched.
From Salt Lake City, Hassell e-mailed this: "AJ and his team will now take these products back to NJ and discuss them with his extended team. They will make a decision on what to do in two to three weeks. Once they decide to move forward on one, none or all, they will contact us to let us know. Not sure what happens past that point."
To reader Stephanie Devlin and the 10 others who asked, the next inventors audition will take place in New Jersey in June. Contact Andrea Pass (apass@scompr) for more information.
The route to creating a mechanized pooper scooper
began, as do many inventor journeys, with another
obsession, one that was financially foolhardy, yes,
but what obsession comes cheap?
Joseph Berto is a jack-of-all-trades who has been
inventing things since he was 14. “It’s basically
what I do,” says the 51-year-old helicopter
pilot/rancher/logger/firefighter. The obsession
presented itself to him one day about 12 years ago.
He had sold his California business and moved to
Medford to start over. (“An inventor is an
optimist,” he says). One day he was driving past the
shuttered Medco sawmill. The company was formed
during the Depression out of the bankrupt
Owen-Oregon firm. One remaining artifact after the
mill was closed in the late 1980s was the elegant
“White House,” an office building built in 1927.
“I was driving by it one day and thinking about
building a house,” Berto says. Instead, he spent
$80,000 buying the old office, which was days away
from being bulldozed. “Financially, you had to have
rocks in your head,” he says.
Berto disassembled the structure and moved the
pieces to his horse ranch in White City. “I didn’t
look at it for seven more years,” Berto says. But
eventually, he started putting the building back
together.
This is where we get back to the pooperscooper.
“I had been in anguish trying to find a product
to invent to supplement our income,” Berto says. “I
wasn’t making money from my other inventions or in
piloting helicopters, and I had just started in on
this crazy house. Then I had a brilliant vision of a
better manure fork.” The brilliant vision started
with the prosaic fact that a horse produces about 30
pounds of manure a day, and mucking (de-pooping)
those stalls is a lot of work. Berto and his wife
board and train horses, and manure volume is
something he’s expert at. So Berto developed the
Shake’n Fork, which looks like a fork but has a
small motor and rechargeable battery to produce a
“unique” shaking motion that captures the solid
matter (Slogan: “It’s mucking incredible.”). Berto
has been selling the fork online for two years for
$167 and estimates he’s sold between 500 and 1,000,
or “not that many.” A YouTube video of Berto
demonstrating the fork has been viewed about 2,300
times.
Back to the obsession. Berto has taken 2,500
square feet of the 5,000-square-foot historic office
building and turned it into an office and
manufacturing area for the fork. He hopes to turn
the rest of it into a new home; he and his wife now
live in a mobile home on the property. The rehab was
helped along by former Medford Corporation CEO Bob
Higgins. Higgins was head of Medco from 1974 to
1984, when Harold Simmons acquired the company.
Higgins says he contacted Simmons, who sold the
company in the late 1990s, and Simmons “made a very
generous donation.”
But that and the current revenue from the fork
sales aren’t enough to fund the rest of the rehab,
and Berto has hopes of finding a strategic marketing
partner to take sales from 100 forks a month to a
thousand. “That requires resources that I don’t
possess,” he says. “We go to horse shows and breed
shows and hope that somebody will recognize the
goodness [of the fork].”
“Joseph’s done a great job,” says Higgins, who
spent a decade in the White House. “He’s put a lot
of time and money in that building. I hope somewhere
along the line he will get some reward out of it.”
ROBIN DOUSSARD
Helping
improve
the
quality
of
life
for
our
animals,
while
significantly
reducing
the
time
and
cost
associated
with
doing
that,
was
the
objective
in
developing
this
tool
Medford, Oregon
(PRWEB) January
12, 2010- The
inventor who
brought huge
advances into
the recreation
and power tool
industries has
done it again
with his most
recent release.
The Equi-Tee
Shake'n Fork
is aimed at
helping
caretakers in
any industry
that requires
confining
animals in
stalls or pens.
Proper care
requires that
manure be
removed daily
from an
enclosure, and
significant
amounts of waste
can occur if
excess bedding
is accidentally
removed as well.
“Helping improve
the quality of
life for our
animals, while
significantly
reducing the
time and cost
associated with
doing that, was
the objective in
developing this
tool” says
Joseph Berto,
president of
Equi-Tee
Manufacturing.
“The Shake’n
Fork mimics the
action of
manually
agitating the
tines, yet the
operator can
separate bedding
while
standing
completely still”.
This unique
stall cleaning
magic is
accomplished by
a tiny integral
reciprocating
motor powered by
Lithium Ion
batteries. The
operator holds
the fork handle
in a
conventional
fashion and by
depressing a
variable speed
trigger switch,
moves the
electrically
powered basket.
Only the tines
“shake” and
though they
agitate 30 times
faster than what
can be done
manually, there
is no vibration
into the hand
pole, making the
operation smooth
and effortless
for the user.
“Reducing the
labor required
to clean stalls
results in
savings for both
the worker and
their employers.
The wasted
motion of using
a non-powered
fork is instead
converted into
useful
productivity.
Stalls are
cleaner, animals
are healthier,
and costs
associated with
bedding
replenishment
and removal is
greatly
reduced”, said
Berto. “This is
an innovative
tool that
quickly pays for
itself”
The business of
caring for
animals has
become
increasingly
more expensive
in recent years.
Slowdowns in the
building
industry have
increased the
price and
reduced the
availability of
bedding.
The Horse
magazine reports
that facilities
are paying 70%
more than what
they had been
and bedding
suppliers such
as
Magnum Bedding
and
Permastall
have introduced
products to
address this.
“The fact that
bedding
suppliers are
promoting
alternatives
shows just how
deep the problem
is, but the
easiest way to
reduce cost is
simply to do a
better job of
picking, says
Berto”.
“Unfortunately,
if you try to
increase sifting
manually with a
conventional
fork, you simply
trade bedding
costs for labor
expense”. “The
Shake’n Fork is
the only way to
effectively
reduce the cost
of both bedding
and labor”.
The bedding of
animal pens is
not just
confined to
horses. Alpacas,
llamas swine and
many other
animals also
require the use
of bedding. The
Shake’n Fork
addresses the
needs of all of
these industries
with a
professional
quality tool
designed for
years of use.
About Equi-Tee
Farm and Fence.
Founded in 1998
as an offshoot
of Equi-Tee
Manufacturing,
the company has
already
developed other
well known horse
accessories such
as
Equi-Tee Fencing.
Inventor Joseph
Berto and his
wife operate a
horse breeding
and training
facility in
Oregon and when
it became clear
that there was a
need to improve
the cleaning
tools available,
Joseph used the
resources of the
company to
develop and test
the Shake’n
Fork. For more
than two years
it has been
successfully
marketed at
major venues
such as The
American Quarter
Horse Congress,
and at other
breed shows and
Expo’s all
across the
country. It is
manufactured and
assembled in the
USA by Equi-Tee
Manufacturing.
Purchasing a
Shake'n Fork is
easy through
their
manufacturers
direct
website.
Reporter Janice Lieberman
with the Today Show was at the L.A. Inventor Day hosted by
