Running with a good idea
Doreen Michalak’s passion for the outdoors led her to experiment with various devices to keep from slipping on the ice in winter. Three years ago, she hit the jackpot with what her family is marketing as “Icespike.”
Now for sale in Eastern Mountain Sports stores and on the Internet at www.icespike.net, Icespike is a Godsend, said Doreen, a Peterborough resident. She and her husband, Ron Michalak, and her in-laws, Keith Michalak and Jeri Michalak of the Florida Keys, and their son, Jonathan Michalak of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, have formed a partnership to market and sell the product.
It all began with a problem Doreen was trying to solve: finding a device that would keep her steady as she ran all winter long.
“I needed something that was secure on my foot,” she said Thursday during an interview at her home that included her in-laws.
She had tried just about everything marketed to runners, she said, and nothing lasted longer than a few runs. They either slipped off her shoe, broke or wore out too easily. Doreen said she was looking for a solution on a snowmobile Web site one day three years ago, when she found screws that can be screwed into the tread of a snowmobile. She ordered them, tried them on the bottoms of her running shoes and has been using them ever since.
“They literally go into any shoe,” she said. “I don’t slip.”
Two years ago, Doreen’s in-laws came to stay with her, while Keith convalesced after cardiac surgery in Boston. Eventually, Keith inquired about the screws in her shoes.
“He ran with the idea,” Doreen said.
Keith said, “This just struck me as being a very good concept, marketable and it works.”
Although the screws were invented in Germany for use on snowmobiles and motorcycles, Jeri said, “The whole concept for using these on shoes is new.”
They said the screws, made of hardened steel, are also useful for hikers and walkers of any age, people who ice fish and older folks worried about falling on the ice.
“You can screw them in in winter and then screw them back out,” Doreen said.
After tweaking the screws for shoe use, Keith had the product trademarked and patented.
They found a manufacturer in Michigan and a company to package and ship them too, he said.
“We put a packet together to make it very simple,” said Keith, and the cost is $24.99.
In March of 2008, the family began talking with EMS. Keith said the company was “instrumental in getting us into their stores” and also helped develop the packaging for the product. He said the family is now talking with other stores, too.
Doreen said the business is not profitable right now, but the family has high hopes that it will be one day. Keith and Jeri, who are both 62, retired eight years ago, but had a business dealing with someone who defaulted on a loan they had made to him.
“The money was going to carry us through retirement,” Keith noted, adding, “We were looking for something to help financially.”
Keith said he and Jeri have always been entrepreneurs, so getting a regular job wasn’t very appealing. He and Jeri owned a banquet facility in Chicago before they retired, so there was a lot to learn when it came to marketing and selling a product. Keith said he learned how to use the Internet and a little about Web sites too, so that they could make Icespike available worldwide.
“It’s just been a real learning experience for me,” he said. “I figured we were all through with that eight years ago.”
Asked if she’s an inventor, Doreen said she considers herself a creative, resourceful person who doesn’t give up.
“I think in my case it comes from my father,” she said. “He will go for any opportunity he sees out there. He has always said, ‘Go for it.’ I would always come up with these new ideas and say, ‘I’m going to do it,’” she said, and her father, who lives in Atlanta, Ga., always encouraged her.
Icespike paid off for Doreen when it came to running year round and she said she hopes other people will find it useful too.
“We’ve been getting only positive feedback,” she said.
She said she learned that the screws can damage soft wood floors, so she’s cautioning people about that.
Keith said, “That’s what they’re supposed to do — destroy the ice beneath you, not your floors.”
Keith and Jeri said they both use the screws too to avoid dangerous falls when they visit family in Peterborough and Calgary.
“Ice is just a dangerous thing and you want to be able to go out and enjoy life,” Jeri said. “It puts the fun back into winter.”