Rowan Alums' Creation at X Games
Rowan Alums' Creation at X Games
January 21, 2004
Rowan University alums Pete Boyle, Matt Eberhardt and Jeff Gladnick will see their school engineering project turned business appear at the X Games in Aspen this month.
Boyle, Eberhardt and Gladnick are the creators of SnoRhino, the footrest retrofit for ski lifts that allows snowboarding enthusiasts to peacefully co-exist with skiers on chairlifts.
The team members will demonstrate their patented device at Buttermilk Mountain during the X Games. The X Games, which feature, among other events, competitions in skiing and snowboarding, run from January 24 to 27 on ESPN.
SnoRhino West Coast and East Coast salesmen Chris Kuber and Chris LaCosta contacted X Games coordinators about the product and demonstrated it to the X Games representatives and resort managers, who approved using the apparatus on the main ski lifts during the games.
?It feels great to be on ESPN,? Boyle said. ?It?s a wonderful opportunity for our company and to meet all the pro riders and show them what we have for them.? Boyle?s pleased with the ongoing support the team, which graduated in 2003, continues to receive from Rowan University. ?We did some prototyping there last week. The people at Rowan are still devoted to helping us,? he said.
The team, which operates under UpHill Enterprises and manufactures the product out of West Berlin, N.J., has appeared at several trade shows and sold SnoRhinos to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
Boyle, vice president, of Newton and Glassboro, N.J.; Eberhardt, chief financial officer, of Red Bank, N.J.; and Gladnick, president, of Newark, Del. and Glassboro, N.J. began work on SnoRhino as part of an engineering clinic in the College of Engineering at Rowan in 2001. Easy to install on existing chairlifts in under a minute and not requiring structural modifications to the chairlifts, SnoRhino features rests that are perpendicular to existing ski rests. The SnoRhino rests allow snowboarders a place to comfortably insert their snowboards without colliding with skis or leaving their snowboards dangling in the air on trips up mountains. The SnoRhino enables snowboarders or snowboarders and skiers to ride a chairlift comfortably. It also protects ski and snowboard equipment from damage due to the position snowboarders are forced to sit in on current chairlifts.
Buttermilk will keep 30 to 1000 of the SnoRhinos, Gladnick said. ?I think this is a huge opportunity and will get us national exposure,? added Gladnick, who said SnoRhinos? exposure during the X Games will let people know the product is ?the real deal.? He said he expects more calls for SnoRhinos after the X Games.
?I think that the X Games will be a great way to show the snowboarders, skiers and world our product and how beneficial it can be to winter sports,? Eberhardt added.
The team used $2,500 from Rowan Engineering?s Venture Capital Fund (contributed by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance [NCIIA]), for initial work, including purchasing a used chairlift from Jack Frost Mountain in the Poconos. The NCIIA awarded the students $8,375 to help get their product off the ground. Last year, the Rowan team showcased their invention at Boston?s Museum of Science During ?March Madness for the Mind? sponsored by the museum and NCIIA.
(NOTE TO REPORTERS: You can learn more about SnoRhino by visiting www.SnoRhino.com.)
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Boyle, Eberhardt and Gladnick are the creators of SnoRhino, the footrest retrofit for ski lifts that allows snowboarding enthusiasts to peacefully co-exist with skiers on chairlifts.
The team members will demonstrate their patented device at Buttermilk Mountain during the X Games. The X Games, which feature, among other events, competitions in skiing and snowboarding, run from January 24 to 27 on ESPN.
SnoRhino West Coast and East Coast salesmen Chris Kuber and Chris LaCosta contacted X Games coordinators about the product and demonstrated it to the X Games representatives and resort managers, who approved using the apparatus on the main ski lifts during the games.
?It feels great to be on ESPN,? Boyle said. ?It?s a wonderful opportunity for our company and to meet all the pro riders and show them what we have for them.? Boyle?s pleased with the ongoing support the team, which graduated in 2003, continues to receive from Rowan University. ?We did some prototyping there last week. The people at Rowan are still devoted to helping us,? he said.
The team, which operates under UpHill Enterprises and manufactures the product out of West Berlin, N.J., has appeared at several trade shows and sold SnoRhinos to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
Boyle, vice president, of Newton and Glassboro, N.J.; Eberhardt, chief financial officer, of Red Bank, N.J.; and Gladnick, president, of Newark, Del. and Glassboro, N.J. began work on SnoRhino as part of an engineering clinic in the College of Engineering at Rowan in 2001. Easy to install on existing chairlifts in under a minute and not requiring structural modifications to the chairlifts, SnoRhino features rests that are perpendicular to existing ski rests. The SnoRhino rests allow snowboarders a place to comfortably insert their snowboards without colliding with skis or leaving their snowboards dangling in the air on trips up mountains. The SnoRhino enables snowboarders or snowboarders and skiers to ride a chairlift comfortably. It also protects ski and snowboard equipment from damage due to the position snowboarders are forced to sit in on current chairlifts.
Buttermilk will keep 30 to 1000 of the SnoRhinos, Gladnick said. ?I think this is a huge opportunity and will get us national exposure,? added Gladnick, who said SnoRhinos? exposure during the X Games will let people know the product is ?the real deal.? He said he expects more calls for SnoRhinos after the X Games.
?I think that the X Games will be a great way to show the snowboarders, skiers and world our product and how beneficial it can be to winter sports,? Eberhardt added.
The team used $2,500 from Rowan Engineering?s Venture Capital Fund (contributed by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance [NCIIA]), for initial work, including purchasing a used chairlift from Jack Frost Mountain in the Poconos. The NCIIA awarded the students $8,375 to help get their product off the ground. Last year, the Rowan team showcased their invention at Boston?s Museum of Science During ?March Madness for the Mind? sponsored by the museum and NCIIA.
(NOTE TO REPORTERS: You can learn more about SnoRhino by visiting www.SnoRhino.com.)
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