Green : Innovation + Startup News

Local craftsman Dave Behle and his wife Deb started Spoonin’ Jewelry soon after their retirement. The couple repurposes silverware into unique rings, pendants and bracelets. At first glance, it’s hard to tell that the pieces were originally used at dinner time.

Deb Behle worked in the University of Cincinnati registrar's office, while her husband taught industrial education classes. They were prompted to expand their business by their daughter, Caitlin Behle, who is a blogger and coordinator for SpringBoard ArtWorks. With her encouragement, Spoonin' Jewlery found its identity.

After a few years of perfecting his tools and technique, Dave felt confident enough to stand behind their offerings.

“Anybody can bend a fork,” he says. “The real challenge is finding the right way.”

According to Dave, Deb is in charge of polishing the silverware before he bends and twists the metal into jewelry.

There are so many challenges associated with this practice that Dave customized his own tools to help shape and size each piece. After years of practice, he says he can craft any ring to a specific size.

From floral rings to lavish silver bracelets with insets, the pieces are in no way kitschy or whimsical. They are, however, environmentally friendly — Spoonin' Jewlery really does reduce, reuse and recycle.

“A lot of silverware ends up at the junkyard because nobody wants to polish it,” Deb says. Instead, the Behles take forgotten pieces of silverware and turn them into beautiful and practical keepsakes.

After spreading their business through craft and trade shows — their next show will be in Paducah — Spoonin’ Jewelry has also found sellers, including Spotted Magpie in Over-The-Rhine and Fabricate in Northside. The Behles also operate their own small mom-and-pop shop on Etsy. 

By Sean Peters

Another Northern Kentucky manufacturing facility is expanding. Balluff Inc., an international supplier and manufacturer of sensing devices, just broke ground on a new headquarters in Independence. It's the company's third expansion in 30 years.

The German-owned Balluff currently employes 150 people in Northern Kentucky, and expects to add 24 new jobs and invest $6 million as part of the expansion. Balluff specializes in products for industrial sensing, networking and identification devices.

Balluff's customers are manufacturers who are working to increase efficiencies through automating processes. Many are automakers, with increasing demand from emerging industries in renewable energy like solar and wind. The steadily improving strength of U.S. manufacturing is driving company growth, says Balluff President Kent Howard.

The company has been hiring on a regular basis, around 15 people per year. Balluff expanded previously in 1994 and 2001.

"Manufacturing in this country is coming back strong, and the manufacturers that are successful are the ones that are using automation to improve productivity," Howard says.

The Independence facility in Northern Kentucky Industrial Park is the final assembly, distribution and training site for Balluff in the U.S.

Balluff’s new 48,000-square-foot building is set to be finished next spring. It will include customer support, training and a sales and marketing center. The facility will include “green concepts” and worker-friendly features, such as 100 percent employee access to daylight from workspaces. Bluff’s current 60,000-square-foot space will accommodate more space for manufacturing.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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A new water quality monitoring app developed at Northern Kentucky University caught the attention of national ecologists and the United States Environmental Protection Agency for its potential to strengthen the quality of data collection at local waterways.

NKU is quickly building on that success with funding from the NKU Research Foundation. The foundation recently awarded the NKU's Center for Applied Informatics $10,000 for two students to develop field-based water quality applications.

"The NKURF board is very excited about the further development of tools like the water quality app and associated data storage," NKU Associate Provost for Research, Graduate Studies and Regional Stewardship and Chair of the NKURF, Jan Hillard, said in an announcement. "The entire process of creating and sustaining this application ties together values of undergraduate research, creativity, collaboration and community engagement."

NKU's latest mobile application, Water Quality, allows users to more efficiently log and identify water quality data from rivers, lakes and streams. It also features a digital field guide for identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates and a Pollution Tolerance Index calculator.

Water Quality was unveiled before a national audience at the Technology to Empower Citizen Scientists conference held at NKU last month. Developed by a team from NKU and the Foundation for Ohio River Education, the $4.99 app is currently available for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in the App Store.

"We are excited that this mobile technology can be used by scientists and students alike to learn about and monitor rivers, lakes and streams across our region," says Dr. Steve Kerlin, director of the NKU Center for Environmental Education.

With this new funding, students will help develop apps like Water Quality through the Center for Applied Informatics' Virtual Co-Op program. This program allows students to build their resumes through hands-on work experience that applies what they learn in the classroom.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls introduced a motion that could change the way residents and businesses pay for powering their spaces with solar energy.

She says the benefits are two-fold: increasing the demand for solar panel manufacturing and lowering the city's reliance on fossil fuels.

This plan is one of several energy-saving initiatives introduced since City Council adopted the Green Cincinnati Plan in 2008. That plan included a goal of one in every five Cincinnati buildings incorporating rooftop panels fueled by solar power by 2028.

"There's an emerging solar manufacturing sector here, and we would be creating a financing mechanism that would allow the demand to emerge for solar energy," Qualls says. "It's not a viable option for many property owners right now."

Qualls introduced a measure that directs the city to look into working with local environmental organizations like Green Umbrella, the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority to help create a Property Assisted Clean Energy, or PACE, financing program.

PACE programs is a public/private initiative that are enabled by legislatures in nearly three dozen states across the country—including Ohio—which help business and homeowners pay for energy upgrades to existing buildings. Typically, participating property owners can finance those upgrades as a property tax assessment for up to 20 years.

"It's tax neutral, promotes 'going green' and reduces our carbon footprint," Qualls says.

The city has used the property tax assessment mechanism before for property owners who have been responsible for other large fixes, Qualls says.

"It has been done to pay for costly repairs over time—that's the same principle PACE follows," she says.

Ohio passed its PACE law in 2009. In 2012, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority issued the first PACE bonds in Ohio for a project to upgrade the City of Toledo’s municipal buildings.

Cincinnati must pass its own legislation for a local PACE program. Quall's motion directs the administration to bring the legislation back to Council within 60 days.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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For URBtank, it’s all about the cycle.

Kyle McGrath, 23, and Brad Ostendorf, 22, are the brains behind URBtank, an urban aquaponics system.

The team, who both studied architecture at the University of Kentucky, worked on proposals and plans for the River Cities Project, which addresses ecological and economic conditions and tries to bring people back to the water.

McGrath and Ostendorf couldn’t stop thinking about aquaponics all summer, and soon they found themselves building a system in Ostendorf’s garage in Cold Spring, Ky.

Aquaponics uses fish to fertilize plants, typically of the edible kind and can function in any kind of climate, indoor or outdoor. 

“Fish need nutrients, we feed the fish, they excrete waste, that fish waste can be turned into nitrates, which fertilize the plants themselves, so the plants then clean the water for the fish, and it gets returned back to the fish," says McGrath. "And it’s a close-loop cycle, so the water flows throughout the whole system."

The pair is in the process of moving their system to a warehouse at 111 W. McMicken Ave. There, they have plans for massive expansion.

“There thousands upon thousands of unused acres inside of old buildings, so why not tap into that?” Ostendorf says. 
Space isn’t the only advantage. “There’s no interruption; it just keeps going. You take out the seasons, and you’re providing for the whole year."

With no plans to stop, URBtank is currently growing microgreens, mizuna and watercress. Immediate plans include growing lettuce and other leafy greens.

Both McGrath and Ostendorf are interested in fine dining, and they want to develop a community aspect to their business by allowing chefs to choose what they grow and hand-pick items for menus.

“They have complete control over what they grow," says McGrath. "If they want Asian cress or mizuna or wasabi pea chutes, we can do that for them.

For updates, follow URBtank on Twitter.

By Gina Gaetano

Last week, the City of Cincinnati was awarded one of 10 annual Audrey Nelson Community Development Awards for its contributions to the renovations of the Villages at Roll Hill, formerly called Fay Apartments. The development was in need of renovations because it had fallen into disrepair, and was known as a police hotspot.
 
“It’s a very prestigious award within the community development profession,” says Cincinnati’s Department of Community Development Director Michael Cervay. “We consider it the ‘Oscar’ of community development.”
 
The development is the largest LEED-certified renovation of affordable housing in the country. Though there are other affordable housing developments in need of renovation, construction work hasn’t begun and the U.S. Green Building Council hasn’t certified these projects as meeting LEED standards, Cervay says.
 
The City contributed $3.19 million in HOME loan money to the project; additional financing included $31 million from a HUD-insured first mortgage and $1 million in equity from the developer, Wallick Hendy. The project totaled out at about $35 million.
 
The Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award is a national community development award that is presented by the National Community Development Association. The award recognizes exemplary uses of the Community Development Block Grant program and the partnerships between local government and nonprofits to assist low- and moderate-income households.
 
Construction began on the Roll Hill development in Oct. 2010. It’s considered the largest green renovation of an affordable housing development in the country, Cervay says.
 
Renovations included reducing the total number of units from 893 to 703, demolishing 17 buildings, adding new landscaping, planting trees and installing new playgrounds. On top of that, police personnel from District 3 added recommendations to the plans that increased the cost of the project by about $800,000, Cervay says.
 
These recommendations included perimeter fencing, extra security lighting, surveillance cameras, first-floor window bars, rear doors that open out and additional security personnel. In addition, the Villages at Roll Hill purchased a license plate reader that will notify police in real time if a stolen car or a car registered to someone with an outstanding warrant enters the premises.
 
Audrey Nelson was the first Deputy Executive Secretary of NCDA. She grew up in a neighborhood in inner city Chicago that was a target area for the local Model Cities Program. The award stands for Nelson’s commitment to her neighborhood, local program efforts and service to low-income households. She died of cancer at the age of 29.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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A virtual trade mission taken by University of Cincinnati MBA students and local industries has turned into a very real product that could put a dent in food shortages across India.

Next year, new solar-powered refrigerator products will be tested on an aloe farm in the developing country early next year. If successful, the SolerCool could be a reality for Indian farmers, just in time for summer.

The product is a self-contained cooling unit that relies on the sun for power. It's a box that measures 10' x 7' x 11', and is topped by solar panels. SolerCool was developed through a collaboration between former and current UC students and local industries, including SimpliCool Technologies International LLC in Waynesville.

The idea for the technology came after the MBA students and SimpliCool attended a "virtual trade mission" to India in July 2011. The mission was part of a Business Law for Managers class taught by Ilse Hawkins, an attorney and adjunct professor of accounting at UC. The mission virtually brought Cincinnati and Indian businesses together to find ways of partnering to better preserve Indian produce.

Today, 30 to 40 percent of produce in India is lost to spoilage because of lack of refrigeration options, Hawkins says. India, with 1.2 million people, faces chronic food shortages.

"While we were doing the mission, we had this tiny, insulated structure that kept audio visual materials at proper temperature," Hawkins says. "We thought, 'Why couldn't we create a structure powered with solar panels like that that could be put anywhere on a farm?'"

Shortly after that meeting, Hawkins took a group to India where the idea was further flushed out. Eventually, a collaborative effort led to the creation of the SolerCool unit.

MBA students worked on a business plan, helped with the initial feasibility calculations and networked with Indian businesses who might contribute to the product.

Mohsen Rezayat, chief solutions architect at Siemens UGS PLM Software and adjunct professor in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, primarily worked on the engineering of the solar panels in the SimpliCool-manufactured cooling cube.

UC does not own the product, and therefore won't be profiting from its sales, Hawkins says. However, SimpliCool has vowed to contribute to UC's College of Business to fund further travel to India if the idea is successful, she says.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Looking for something "crafty" to learn, Chris Sutton took up jean-making nearly two years ago.

"I wanted to learn how to make something with my own hands," says Sutton, whose background is in live event production. "I'd been doing a lot of tech endeavors, and wanted to get my hands dirty."

Once he began sewing jeans, Sutton found he had a real talent for it. He decided he wanted to make high-quality, American-made jeans, a rarity in today's clothing manufacturing sector. He sought out American sources for his material, thread, zippers and pocket materials. Yes, he found them all in the USA; and he created Noble Denim.

"I wanted to make my own rules around what could and couldn't be done," he says. "I wanted to make my jeans in America, and make them as sustainably as possible."

Using his home in Over-the-Rhine as a sewing factory, Sutton began making and selling Noble Denim jeans. Twelve industrial sewing machines later, he moved the company into a space at Camp Washington.

Designer in style and quality, they're meant to have a longer shelf life than your average mass-produced jean. Materials come from suppliers in Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, Oregon and California.

They're made from raw selvage denim, made through a time-consuming process that makes the material thicker and more durable. This type of denim is supposed to better fit the wearer's body and resist shrinkage.

Sutton launched an online shop in November, where buyers can chose from two styles, Regular and Earnest Slim Straight. The jeans are pricey, $250 per pair, but all materials are 100 percent organic, reclaimed or responsibly produced. Currently, Noble Denim sells jeans only for men; a women's line is planned for next fall.

Noble Denim is a young company, and Sutton still does most of the sewing. He does have interns who are learning the jean-making craft. Within the next year, he hopes to hire three or four employees, who'll make 3,000 pairs of jeans a year.

"I want to grow, but only as fast as I can stick to my philosophy," Sutton says. "So our mantra is grow slow, but do it well."

By Feoshia H. Davis
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It would appear that not all native Ohioans dread the scorching summers typical in our region. In fact, members of UC’s biology department recently identified two plants that thrive under the same conditions that send humans running for air-conditioned shelter.

A pilot study conducted by UC biology student Jill Bader and assistant professor of biology Ishi Buffam found that of four native Ohio plants tested, the nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum) and a European sedum (Sedum acre) are particularly well suited for the vegetated roofs becoming increasingly common—and which the pair hope to help popularize even further—in local green building practices.

Green roofs have been utilized in many cities to address environmental issues, from air pollution and street noise to excess stormwater runoff. According to Buffam, however, most of the plants currently used on green roofs are not native to the region.

“We aim to help inform policy and details of green roof construction and implementation by increasing the knowledge base,” Buffam says.

The results of the study, which Buffam and Bader presented earlier this month at the CitiesAlive 2012 conference in Chicago, confirm earlier studies which have found the nodding wild onion to be a successful green roof plant.

“It was exciting to see everyone coming together to share research data, case studies and ideas for increasing green roof adoption as a solution for the environmental issues created by urbanization,” Bader says.

“In order for green roof installations to become more widely adopted in the region, more guidance supported by research data is needed,” says Buffam. “Especially as it relates to the selection of green roof plants and the ecosystem services they provide. [Such research] is extremely important to the efforts of municipalities, businesses and environmental agencies who utilize green roofs in their efforts at reducing stormwater runoff and protecting the quality of our surface waters.”

Buffam and Bader direct those interested in learning more about green roofs to the Civic Garden Center’s Green Learning Station, a roundup of  “…responsible methods to grow gardens anywhere and everywhere: yards, rooftops, walls, patios, driveways and parking lots.”

By Hannah Purnell

There’s something decidedly sci-fi about digitizing green plants, but that’s what a new partnership between the Cincinnati Park Board and local tech startup QuipTV hopes to achieve.

This month, the duo launched a pilot project that allows Ault Park visitors to access informative videos about specific plants, the community and the park by using smartphones or handheld devices to scan QR-tagged plants. 

So far, 87 specimens have been tagged with another 40 to be added in the coming weeks, according to the Parks. Plans are also in the works to extend the project to Krohn Conservatory in time for its 2012 holiday exhibit, “Trains, Trestles & Traditions,” which runs Nov. 17-Jan. 6.

“We would like to expand the program to more locations in the future, but we will wait to see some of the responses from the pilot projects at Ault and Krohn,” says Deborah Allison, business services manager at the Parks.

You don’t have to visit the sites to learn about the plants, either. The informative videos can also be accessed remotely via the Cincinnati Parks’ YouTube channel and its mobile app, which was launched in July.

According to Kris Kubicki, co-founder of QuipTV, the videos also direct users to local vendors that sell the featured plants.

“We own a small nursery and were trying to figure out a way to generate enthusiasm for plants and let people know that we exist,” says Kubicki. “Recognizing that many small businesses are struggling and need the support of their community, this project helps them, too. In this technology-driven culture with smartphones in the hands of many, we can take a moment of curiosity and educate with a 20-50-second video.”

Organizers hope the project will help people connect more with the outdoors and interact with other Cincinnatians through existing groups like the Greater Cincinnati Master Gardener Association and the Civic Garden Center.

“This project engages people with their surroundings and provides options for citizens to be more proactive,” says Kubicki. “We all need each other. Supporting our local communities is where we start fixing the future.”

By Hannah Purnell
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"Going Green" isn't just a feel-good initiative for businesses. It can have real economic benefits. Those benefits -- lower utility bills, less waste, among others -- are there to take advantage of regardless of whether the business considers itself green.

That's the message organizers of this year's Energy, Economy and Environment (3E) Summit want businesses to grasp. The 4th annual 3E Summit is Oct. 5, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Xavier University's Cintas Center. Tickets are $50 each, with discounts for Green Umbrella Members and students.

"There's a lot of small and medium businesses out there, the people making widgets, who don't always have time to think about how to green their business," says Cincinnati's Sustainability Coordinator Steve Johns.

The Summit hopes to remedy that, giving these businesses concrete ways to become more energy efficient, as well as insight into how that affects the bottom line.

There will be two panel discussions on Green Business. One is a CEO Roundtable featuring local companies that decided to incorporate green concepts into their businesses. The panel will feature Mac's Pizza, emersion DESIGN, Compost Cincy and Burke, Inc.

"Most of these companies aren't producing green products, but thought it was important to take care of energy and waste needs more effectively," Johns says.

A second panel discussion will feature reps from UC Health and Procter & Gamble highlighting their efforts to green their supply chain by seeking out sustainable suppliers.

"You can really have a competitive advantage by having a green business," Johns explains.

The Summit also will feature a "Speed Greening" session, where experts will be on hand to answer specific questions about greening businesses. Those experts can answer questions related to electric and natural gas, waste disposal, transportation and water.

In addition to the City of Cincinnati, the 3E Summit is hosted by Green Umbrella, Xavier University's Brueggeman Center for Dialog, the Greater Cincinnati Green Business Council, and USGBC Cincinnati Chapter.

Register and find more information at the 3E Summit website.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Green Cincinnati. It’s ubiquitous these days, with our civic progress appearing both in national headlines and at eye-level, in the bike-shares and local markets that seem to spring up almost daily.

If you’re struggling to keep up with all this change—in a good way, of course!—or if you just have two cents to share, head to Northside Tavern at 6 p.m., Oct. 10 for the free, public “State of the City” environmental forum.

The forum, organized by Cincinnati Green Group, hopes to recreate the success of last year’s event, which saw over a dozen city council candidates fielding questions—on everything from curbside recycling to fracking—from more than 150 attendees.

This year will feature WVXU’s Ann Thomson as facilitator, with speakers Mark Fisher from the Cincinnati Zoo and Neil Seldman from the DC-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Cincinnati council members will be on hand once again for Q&A.

Larry Falkin, director of Cincinnati’s Office of Environmental Quality, will deliver the State of the City address. Falkin plans to highlight recent strides in the areas of energy, green building and waste management, as well as a number of transportation solutions—such as the forthcoming Zip Car auto-share program—making Cincinnati debuts in 2012.

Falkin points to the Green Cincinnati Plan, an 80-point sustainability blueprint officially adopted by the city in 2007.

“We wanted to use less energy, more renewable energy, and we had a series of strategies for how to get there,” he says. “In five years, city government has done energy efficiency retrofits on 70 city buildings and installed solar energy systems on 20 city buildings. We’ve created a nonprofit organization and gotten funding for them to do work in the private sector, and that organization, the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance, has completed energy retrofits on more than 1,000 homes.”

As a city, Falkin says Cincinnati reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 8.2 percent, surpassing the goal outlined in the 2007 plan.

Falkin also plans to discuss Cincinnati’s energy aggregation program, which now provides 100 percent renewable energy for 60,000 residents and small businesses.

Despite recent progress, there is still room for improvement, particularly in recycling and adoption of zero-waste strategies that other cities use.

“There are communities around the nation and around the world that have made zero-waste pledges,” says Melissa English, Development Director for Ohio Citizen Action, an 80,000-member coalition that canvasses the state promoting environmental consciousness. “[These cities] pledge to send as little as possible of their waste streams to landfills or incinerators, and instead recover those materials—which is essentially money, it’s resources that we’re choosing to bury in the ground—and put that back to work in our economies.”

The environmental group leader points to the Rumpke landfill as an example of how much waste the region still discards ineffectively.

“We have the nation’s sixth-largest landfill in our county, in Colerain Township, and it’s not just the city of Cincinnati that’s filling it up,” English says. “Any sort of zero-waste strategy will be much more effective and farther-reaching if it is [adopted as] a regional strategy.”

Find out more:

• Post questions in advance of the event.

• RSVP for the State of the City environmental forum.

• Download the city’s sustainability plan.

By Hannah Purnell

A friendship between two Cincinnati mamas led to new doctor-designed garments and products designed to help other mamas more comfortably get through their pregnancies.

MamaDoc, founded in 2009, is the effort of Dr. Somi Javaid, an ob/gyn at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine and Kim Howell, a certified yoga instructor with a sales and marketing background. The company was born out of Dr. Javaid's everyday interactions with women suffering from various pregnancy-related discomforts like lower back pain, swollen feet and ankles and breastfeeding issues.

"Day in and day out, she was hearing the same complaints," says her business partner Howell. "She knew what was on the market to address (those problems), and their shortcomings."

The catalyst for their first product, the Nox compression bra, was a conversation between the two friends, who'd met through their daughters. Howell was having problems weaning her son. In particular, she found the conventional chest compression process to suppresses lactation very uncomfortable.

Dr. Javaid told Howell about her idea for a full-coverage compression bra with adjustable straps ($59.99). The bra has pockets to hold speciality ice packs and is made out of moisture-wicking bamboo. Howell encouraged her to make the product a reality.

Howell says this product, like their others, have been designed with a women's curvature and anatomy in mind. For instance, the compression bra is designed to support the often sore suspensory ligament of the breast under the armpit.

"There's nothing like it on the market. It's a very user-friendly garment," Howell says.

Among their other products is the BellyUpIt, a maternity support band aimed a relieving back pain. The adjustable band ($49.95) wraps around the belly and lower back, giving women compressed support. It's also made of bamboo.

MamaDoc also sells speciality ice and heat packs, pregnancy socks, a gown that can be worn through pregnancy and delivery and Organic Bamboo Fleece diapers.

MamaDoc was the most recent Bad Girl Ventures (BGV) microloan recipient. BGV awards loans and provides business support to women-owned companies across Ohio in a competitive process that includes a nine-week business course.

MamaDoc sells to some individuals, but most of their buyers are wholesalers. MamaDoc is working to expand that network and get their products on more shelves.

Howell says the loan will allow the company to revamp its website, stock more product for fast delivery and improve its marketing.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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One Cincinnati entrepreneur's latest invention is getting national attention for easily and effectively getting rid of the pesky Canada Geese that many a Midwesterner is familiar with.

AwayWithGeese, developed by Thomas Wells of Sayler Park, has been on the market for seven years. The solar-powered device works by emitting bursts of light that simulate the eye reflection of the predators of geese, disrupting their nightly sleep. AwayWithGeese looks like a much larger version of the solar lights that many homeowners place in their yards.

The light's base is black, and the orange light fixture emits the glow of a 100-watt bulb. One light can cover about three acres, but is barely detectible to humans, Wells says. The light can stay outside year round, and can operate for up to six days on a charge.

Wells says AwayWithGeese offers an easy and humane way to get rid of the Canada Geese that plague ponds and waterways near golf courses, businesses and homes. Those geese aren't just a nuisance, they're dirty, leaving behind two-to-four pounds of waste a day.

"Geese like to eat, sleep and poop in the same place. If you take away their ability to do one of those things, they'll go find a new spot," Wells says. "They can't sleep with our patented light."

Wells product has been sold around the world, has 55 U.S. and Canadian distributors and has been featured in a host of news articles. Most recently, it was featured in DIY Networks Brother's on Call home renovation show. The show aired July 1, and you can catch it in repeats through mid-August.

"It's been good publicity for us," Wells says.

Individual property owners make up the company's largest chunk of customers. Municipalities, parks, high schools, universities and golf courses are also big buyers.

It looks as if AwayWithGeese will have plenty of room to grow. When Wells first developed the product it was estimated there were 1.8 million geese in the U.S. throughout the year. That number has jumped to 8 million today, Wells says.

Since the company's start, he has developed several versions of the product to suit customer needs. There are land-based and water-based units, as well as rooftop and sports field units. The lights range in price from $349 to $379.

By Feoshia Henderson Davis
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