Danville Community College’s lab brings dreams to life

Nine years ago, when Danville Community College’s Workforce Services division opened its Advanced Digital Manufacturing Lab, one of its goals was to help local entrepreneurs with product development by providing affordable rapid prototyping services.

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The lab does that using 3-D laser sintering and prototype systems at the Regional Center for Advanced Technology & Training. The equipment is used for training students to work for manufacturers and to help inventors bring their dreams to life.

Paul Davis, owner of South Boston’s Sears store recalls and once an adjunct professor at RCATT, said he thought about coming up with an invention that could use the labs services since it opened, and on Thursday unveiled his new product at RCATT.

David said he was watching home shows on TV one day and noticed that in all of the homes, no matter how beautiful they were, the doors of the refrigerators were a mess.

“Papers, pictures, magnets, you name it — they were all covered in it,” Davis said.

He started tinkering with the idea of magnetic organizers that could relieve that clutter, and came up with FrigeMates.

Davis got together with Bedford product engineer Dwight Smith and began the three-year process of coming up with his final product.

Jerry Franklin, director of Manufacturing & Technical Services at RCATT, and Roy Owen, manger of the ADM, both supported Davis’ project.

Franklin said the funds to start the lab came with the requirement that 54 jobs be created as a result of the ADM within its first three years. The ADM proved even more successful, he said, creating 175 documented jobs in that time frame.

Many items, ranging from toothpaste tube caps to parts for motorcycles, have been designed at the ADM, but Franklin said having an item like FrigeMates produced at the lab was “a long time coming.”

“The things we were working on 10 years ago are now starting to yield some fruit, they are starting to pay off,” Franklin said. “I’m so thankful we started back in those days; for small communities, we are way ahead of the curve.”

As different ideas were worked on, Davis discovered how expensive shipping materials can be, especially custom-sized boxes to ship orders placed on the company’s Web site. The final size of the FrigeMate was decided on because it would fit perfectly in a sturdy, standard-size pizza box.

Now ready to take the product to market, Davis is obviously thrilled to be moving on to the next phase of the project. They will be manufactured in small quantities until his full marketing campaign is completed, then Davis hopes to manufacture them in South Boston.

“Right now, we want to assemble and ship them in Halifax, and are looking at locations in South Boston,” David said.

Available in two styles — one a calendar with pockets for small notepads, business cards and pens and the other with a dry erase board, a cell phone holder, key ring hooks and other pockets — the FrigeMates come in colors that match the most popular refrigerator colors: white, bone, black and gray.

FrigeMates can be custom designed with inspirational phrases, the logos of college sports teams, company names and logos or whatever the customer wants imprinted on them.

For information about custom FrigeMates, visit the company’s Web site at http://www.frigemates.com or call Davis at (434) 575-1811.