Forward Mobility, an Edmonds firm, has recently received an uptick of publicity for winning an online Newpreneur contest on Alibaba.com, earning them $50,000 in development grants. Joel Smith, the owner, described his big day as "just not an ordinary day" as he walked on the Seattle bound plane with a large "fake check" with a face full of makeup after spending over six-hours with media.

Joel and his wife, Patty Smith, started Forward Mobility just a year ago after years of manufacturing bicycles. Joel started his career at Boeing as an engineer and left to work at a local bike shop where he learned a lot about manufacturing and global exporting. After working there for a few years, he started his own bicycle manufacturing company, working out of a large warehouse in Mountlake Terrace. Their company, Vision, was one of the last standing fully American made bicycles. As successful as his business did become, he realized he had a hard time competing with the Chinese manufacturing boom. "The Made in U.S.A. sticker wasn't getting us the extra couple hundred dollars we needed," he said. That is when he realized that outsourcing the manufacturing was crucial to his success. "I couldn't just send these jobs to China," he said. "It just didn't feel like right thing." This is when he decided that the end was nearing for his bicycle company.

Around this time he was working with a rural, war-ridden town in Vietnam to bring mobility to much of the disabled. "Instead of buying 1,000 wheelchairs from China and shipping them to Vietnam, why wouldn't we just transfer our technology and create the jobs in this village?" he asks. That's exactly what he did. A 10,000 sq. ft. building was built in the rural village and wheelchairs were being manufactured and given to the disabled in surrounding areas. "We needed to come up with a lucrative product to earn the revenue to continue our efforts in Vietnam," Smith said. "That's when my wife had her knee surgery. When a person has an injury from the waist down, your choices are a cane, walker, crutches, or a wheelchair. We're creating other options." His wife had a hard time getting around with crutches and continuing her vigorous life as a gymnastic coach. So, Joel created two new mobility devices which helped her get around, not realizing that these were going to be the future of his new company, Forward Mobility.

The Freedom Leg, the company's innovative claim to fame, has gained its notoriety among military, handicapped, as well as companies from 30 different countries inquiring about device distribution. "We recently received a video from Iraq of an injured soldier that was finally able to leave his barracks because the Freedom Leg freed his hands to carry his sidearm and helmet. That meant the world to us," Smith said. The company has two other products; a seated scooter and a 24-pound collapsible wheelchair specifically designed for developing countries. Forward Mobility uses the non-profit manufacturer in Central Vietnam known as Kids First Enterprise, employing about 25 workers, many of them handicapped.

Smith explained that the $50,000 award allowed them to get much of the production underway for the Freedom Leg. With as much attention as they've received since winning the competition, Smith is confident that the first delivery of Freedom Legs will go fast and sales will exponentially as they continue working with doctors and distributors. "We're really going into 2010 with confidence," Smith said. "We feel really great about our work in Vietnam and we're currently building another 10,000 sq. ft. building to grow our production over there," he added.

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If you are a new, innovative company with a cutting edge, newsworthy story or an existing company with an innovative and upcoming idea please send it to Ryan Crowther at rcrowther@snoedc.org.

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Providence Regional Medical Center Everett has recently created an innovative, less-painful way to conduct chest surgery. Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) is a reasonably new procedure that presents a doctor with access to a patient's chest cavity through very small incisions. VATS is typically utilized when looking at a patient's chest to diagnose an illness whether its cancer, pneumonia, or other disease-related symptoms. Also, it is relatively common to use this to remove small masses outside the lungs.

During a VATS surgery, a few small incisions are made in the chest. A tiny fiber-optic camera, along with surgical instruments if needed, is inserted inside the chest cavity. The camera transmits images onto a video monitor to allow the surgeon to view the potentially affected areas. Prior to the VATS surgery, when a doctor needed to access a patient's chest, they often had to cut a large incision, and perhaps even spread or remove ribs. It was not uncommon that the patient was not strong or healthy enough to go through with the tumultuous damage that was caused and if they were, the recovery was much longer and the pain was much more severe. When VATS can be used instead of open surgery, patients tend to have fewer post-operative complications. They are less likely to require a blood transfusion during surgery and VATS often requires a shorter hospital stay than open surgery. Patients who have a VATS procedure tend to report less pain and higher satisfaction with their treatment.

VATS is not always the best approach for every patient. For example, while VATS is very effective for removing small amounts of lung tissue, removing large nodules may require a larger incision which is not possible with VATS. "Having VATS at Providence Regional is an excellent advancement for our program. It's best to use the most minimally invasive approach possible, because this almost always means less trauma for the patient," says Kimberly Costas, MD, a board certified thoracic (chest) surgeon. Dr. Costas has a special interest in lung cancer treatment and leads a multi-disciplinary thoracic medicine team at Providence Regional."

To learn more about VATS and other surgical procedures at Providence Regional, visit providence.org/everett.