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REXBURG – When Adam Stock of Rexburg started developing his motorized strap system for truck beds and flatbed trailers, he was just addressing a need he saw among employees at the landscaping company he worked for.
But this past week, his invention earned him $25,000 at Boise Entrepreneur week's Two-Minute Drill pitch competition, which qualifies him to be a contestant on the similarly named ESPN game show.
Reeling from his win in Boise this past week, Stock tells EastIdahoNews.com everything that's happening seems unreal.
"Oh my gosh!" Stock exclaims. "It's an overwhelming excitement to see something I came up with actually come to fruition. It went from my head to paper to prototype to making sales and now here I am. It's been an awesome process and it's really cool to finally see some fruits of my labor."
Stock's electronic tie-down strap can be controlled with the push of a button and can also be disengaged when the vehicle is not running, which helps prevent theft, liability and cargo damage.
As a mechanical engineering major at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Stock says he's been coming up with ideas for new inventions for a long time. The inspiration for his electronic strap stemmed from a recurring trend he observed at the landscaping company he worked for in his hometown of Mesa, Arizona.
"Employees would leave lawnmowers (and other equipment) tied down in the back of their flatbed truck. They'd leave and go to work but when they got to work, they'd unload and leave the straps on the back of the pickup bed. When they came back, the straps were gone," Stock explains.
Driving with an unsecured load was creating a lot of challenges for the company and Stock decided to rig something up. He came up with a temporary solution but when he saw how pleased his coworkers and employers were with his device, he kept working to refine it.
He started listening to podcasts and reading self-help books for inspiration, and there was a common theme that stood out to him.
"The guy talked about, the next idea you come up with, stick with it and see it through," Stock recalls. "I really feel like it was a gift given to me, a responsibility to see it through."
He wasn't planning on entering his idea into any competition until a BYU-I graduate encouraged him to enter it into the school's IBC competition two years ago. He ended up winning and was invited to be a part of the competition in Boise.
Stock will appear on the third season of "Two-Minute Drill," which starts filming next month and will premiere in January.
While he finishes the prototype for his invention, Stock is planning to finish up his remaining two semesters of college. He's planning to use his winnings in the Boise competition to finalize his patent and purchase equipment for manufacturing his product.
"I want to be able to manufacture in-house and hire locally. I want to be able to give back to the community," he says. "A lot of people have cut me breaks and slacks in life. They've taught me skills that I shouldn't have at my age and I want to be able to give that back."
