High on a shelf in Mario Salazar's workshop in north Colorado Springs is an empty cardboard box that used to contain a Sears Craftsman Digital Miter Gauge.
The box is a trophy of sorts, because Salazar holds the patent on this woodworking device that fits on a table saw and displays the angle of a cut within one-tenth of a degree.
Salazar collaborated on the invention with his wife, Tia, a software engineer. They received a patent in 2005, and last year Sears bought the licensing rights.
So far the Salazars have garnered more praise than revenue for their innovation--including write-ups in Woodworkers' Journal, Wood magazine and American Woodworker. In April, Popular Mechanics gave the digital miter gauge an Editor's Choice Award for most innovative product.
The August issue of Popular Mechanics also will feature Mario as an inventor in the magazine's monthly segment titled, "This is My Job." The only disappointment for Mario was learning that only he, and not the other half of Salazar Solutions Inc., would be in the photograph.
"We're husband-and-wife with a vision and a dream," Mario says. "Sadly enough, it's going to be just me in the garage with all the tools around me."
But the Salazars are used to temporary setbacks and waiting for their work to pay off. They received about $100,000 up front in the licensing arrangement with Sears and earn a royalty of 8 percent on sales of the device that Sears sells for $79.99, but that doesn't begin to cover the $300,000 or so they put up to create the prototype.
"I think the economy has hit people hard," says Mario, who also offers a fancier version of the digital miter gauge for $400 online at salazarsolutions.com. "We don't do a lot of promotion, and we haven't sold much product, mainly because we don't advertise a lot."
But Mario exudes confidence, emphasizing that he's not a "one-hit wonder." The Salazars have other ideas--some possibly patentable, others improvements of existing products--including a "tape-less tape measure" and a "digital protractor" that gives readings of angles and heights for carpenters, roofers, plumbers and other tradesmen.
They also hope to develop a digital instrument to help orthopedic surgeons perform more precise bone cuts for hip and knee replacements and are trying to line up investors.
The Salazars met several years ago at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Tia worked on NASA projects as a software engineer and Mario as a technician, building integrated circuit boards for space shuttles.
"She has a (software) engineering degree, and I've got an engineering degree from the school of hard knocks," says Mario, who attended technical school and then went to work building space-shuttle hardware. "Every job I've ever had, I've always learned one more skill."
Mario, 44, grew up in south Texas in a fatherless home, a self-described "welfare kid." Before going to work at NASA he did landscaping, roofing, trimming, plumbing, welding and electrical work. He's not above going back to any of that work until Salazar Solutions Inc. takes off. Neither is Tia, 52, who along with designing software for their fledging company also helps out with landscaping jobs to pay the bills.
"Look, if I'm not making any revenue from my invention it's time to go out and dig ditches," Mario says, dispelling the notion that earning a patent and a licensing deal brings instant wealth. "A lot of people assume these things. I'll say, 'No, I was talking to executives just a month ago, and now I'm digging ditches and planting trees for a living.' Look, you've got to do what you've got to do. Nobody cares about a crybaby."
Suspended high on a wall in the Salazars' workshop is an item that seems out of place in a room full of high-tech machinery: a simple but elegant wood chair frame that Mario designed and built. Originally he planned to launch his own line of what he calls "Frank Lloyd Wright style furniture with an Italian flare." Then a brainstorm intervened.
"The (digital) miter was born out of necessity because back in 2001 a tool didn't exist to make precision cuts," Salazar says. "The technology wasn't even around to do that. So Tia said, 'Just invent one.'"
So Mario went and did just that, with Tia adding the software to go with it.
"The rest is not history," Tia says. "We have just begun."
Mike Taylor is the managing editor of ColoradoBiz. He writes about small-business money issue and how startups are caunched. Read this and Taylor's past columns on the Web at cobizmag. com and e-mail him at matay @ cobizmag.com.
Author: Mike Taylor
