A local inventor shared his product with some University of Northwestern Ohio students who spend their day under the hood.
Celina native and inventor of Grypmat, Tom Burden, stopped by the UNOH Motorsports Racing Complex to visit with students and donate $2,500 worth of Grypmats to the students. Burden won on the ABC show "Shark Tank" in 2017, where he originally introduced his invention to the nation. The Grypmat is a flexible non-slip tool tray that gives people a close and safe location to set your tools. He developed his product while he was an F-16 mechanic and is glad to share it with others who have a passion for engines.
“UNOH is a top-notch school for its industry of training mechanics. They train the best mechanics all around the world. So this is where I wanted to start. I am actually from Celina, Ohio and always learned lots about UNOH and I just want to be part of the mission,” said Tom Burden, Grypmat founder.
“It’s awesome, it’s great for us students to get to work with great products and get to try new things. It obviously helps us keep our cars very nice and makes life easier for us so there is nothing to hate about it. It is definitely awesome, I am going to enjoy working with it, I am really happy that we get this cool opportunity with Grypmat," said Brenden Rassel, UNOH student.
The UNOH donation is all a part of Burden's school program, where he plans to partner with schools to promote his new product.
Burden sat on the other side of room Thursday evening as one of the judges for the first ever adult Lima Shark Tank. The event was put on by the Independent Small Business Coalition. Six different people who went through their three-month business workshop decided to try their luck behind the closed doors to present their business plan to the judges. The judges then had the option of giving them a loan that they can use to expand their business.
“We hope to do two of these a year, and hopefully raise some additional funds in which we can support this venue. It’s a really a great venue, we had 33 people that began in the process, 23 completed all three of the series and so we added up, we have 6 chose to pitch tonight,” said Jed Metzger, Independent Small Business Coalition.
The judges gave out around $6,000 in loans Thursday night.
