Posted May 9, 2006
By Keith Uhlig
Wausau Daily Herald
kuhlig@wdhprint.com
It might be harder to live with an inventor than to be an inventor.
Just ask Mark and Chris Ecklund of Weston. Mark, 40, a machinist, has numerous patents. He talks a mile a minute about his innovations, which include an anti-scald, tamper-resistant faucet; a gauge that determines the right size bicycle for cyclists; a one-size-fits-all, fully-adjustable archer's bow and a hovercraft the size of a snowmobile. Mark also is designing his own internal combustion engine.
"He never quits thinking," said Mark's wife,Chris, 43. "His mind is always going. He's always trying to solve a problem. And I'm like, why can't we just sit and have a normal conversation?"
She laughs. Of course they have "normal" conversations, she says, but admits, "Some days are more trying than others."
If business leaders and innovators in north central Wisconsin have their way, more spouses may have to come to terms with their partners' inventive personalities. Two clubs -- one in Wausau and one in Mosinee -- have sprouted up, and more are developing in Marshfield and Rhinelander.
On a national level, inventing is hot, too. Economists are warning that the United States must bolster a sense of innovation to compete with rising powers such as China and India. And, of course, there's the reality television show, "American Inventor."
"There's absolutely a trend," said Fred Lane, 50, of Mosinee. Lane is a registered patent agent and owner of Lane Patents, a consulting company that helps inventors obtain patents. He's president of the Edison Club, the Wausau inventors group created to empower innovators and hook them up with the business minds and capital necessary to bring their products to market.
Lane also is a successful inventor. He has several patents and came up with a children's identification system called Safe Assured, which has grown into its own company in Wausau.
Lane and Ecklund share many similarities. Both have inventing in their blood. Lane's great-uncle was Philo Farnsworth, the man who invented television. The idea famously came to Farnsworth when he was plowing a field.
Ecklund said his grandfather and other members of his family were creative thinkers and problem solvers. "I think it gets passed from generation to generation," he said.
Both are full of energy. They talk fast about concepts that would confuse the average person on the street.
"What keeps driving me is to see if it will work," Ecklund said.Once he does that, his interest tails off.
Some of Ecklund's inventions are finished, others are almost completed and a couple are in the concept stage. He's a bundle of energy, and his thoughts and comments come at you like a semiautomatic shotgun: boom, boom, boom. He often thinks about several ideas at once.
Ecklund said he thinks by making connections from seemingly unrelated concepts. And he likes to work through the process on his own.
Although there are all kinds of thinkers who end up being successful inventors, those are common traits, Lane said. Many creative thinkers don't necessarily follow a prescribed line of logic when they're working on problems. Instead, they grab thought from here, take something from there, and put it all together in new ways.
It's like using chaos theory, Lane said, instead of using Newtonian logic.
It makes life with an inventor trying at times. Diana Lane, Fred Lane's wife, understands what Chris Ecklund goes through.
"They (inventors) wake up in the middle of the night and they talk excitedly about their ideas," Diana Lane said. "And their spouses roll their eyes, and tell them to write it down and go back to sleep."