(Please excuse my forthcoming levity.)
Wes Schneider, one who deserves the medal in the image of this post, spent all of his personal and business capital to produce what is now the Camelbak (R) hydration system.
He saw the pervasive need during the Gulf Wars and he saved numerous lives because of it.
Where is he now? He’s destitute.
Where is U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSRDEC)? They’re U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (CCDC Soldier).
Neither the Army nor the rest of the government nor the soldiers nor many other taxpayers have thanked him for his personal sacrifice.
Hear him speak about it: https://clyp.it/ssut51jd
When have YOU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars producing something that will likely save lives because a stubborn, corrupt government doesn’t *WANT* to fund you in doing so?
So, don’t ask anyone else to.
We ALL already pay taxes so the government can fund the development of what it needs and wants.
There is even a personal set aside mandated by Congress to fund those things from solitary innovators and small businesses.
If the Army doesn’t pay for me (or someone, but it should be me – the innovator who knows the most about the closure) to produce the samples of closure that they need then they’ll never get them.
Maybe I’ll be looking back in several decades and they’ll finally be testing and using them. Fine with me.
I’m putting my money and my investor’s money with the development of the closure at pace with what we need to do to make it durable and effective for the private sector – so cheap and nice looking. Not to the specs the government needs for CB threats and hazard containment.
Does Boeing make planes that only the government will need and use without the government paying for at least part of that development somehow?
NO!
Do NASA engineers design groundbreaking engines and devices for space travel without getting a government paycheck?
NO!
They get furloughed if the government doesn’t have money to pay them.
So, Zipr Shift is not producing the closures that only the government will need and use without the government paying for at least part of that development.
As for the private sector, Zipr Shift has sent thousands of feet of prototype sample to certain companies in all industries. We’ve been innundated with companies contacting us from every industry. Some companies we’ve contacted and sent sample to just to make sure we’ve properly notified the entire breadth of the market that utilizes zippers.
But, even these private sector companies will have to wait for closure. After receiving feedback on the prototype samples and modifying our closure and manufacturing process based on that feedback, we need to ramp up and fine tune our new, secret manufacturing processes.
We’re aiming for late Q4 of 2020/Q1 of 2021 for having that all fleshed out. How coincidental that is also when nanoGriptech’s SBIR funding dries up… unless they get more of course.
My team and I at Zipr Shift will be elated to see exactly what millions of dollars of taxpayer funding gets the Army in working with nanoGriptech.
nanoGriptech is the chosen one.
Millions in overfunding of the same research topic, of the same technology, of the same people.
The government isn’t even really hedging its bet.
It is pretty much ONLY funding nanoGriptech in closures beyond the development it’s asking industry to do and the development it is doing on its own… and has been doing since the ’60s.
So when contractors email me, I direct them to the Chosen One.
When the contractors email me back, “We need a zipper” or, my favorite, when they have a different person from their company email me the same exact thing hoping for a different reply, I go to Govtribe and look at the total amount of taxpayer funding they received last year.
Hmm… they don’t seem to work for the government for free either!!!
So, if they really press me then I ask them if they do.
The Chosen One better be up to something good…
And if they are then Zipr Shift is likely unnecessary!
Nobody needs us or the closure we are inventing!
Nobody should contact us then!
By anybody contacting us, they’re saying they’re interested.
Since Army engineers and researchers and contractors are so good at knowing which tech to fund and not to fund then I’m probably doing these inbound lead contractors a favor in directing them to the Chosen One – nanoGriptech.
The Army is giving the Chosen One contracts for the closure specs that the YKK zippers that went to the Moon can’t even fulfill, and as a hook and loop alternative.
What do I know? I don’t have a PhD.
Look out in 2021 or beyond…
Because my buddy Wes taught me not to work for free, and definitely not at a loss to myself.
The government still found ways to screw over Gulf War soldiers…
If the government doesn’t care enough about its soldiers lives to use its citizen’s tax dollars to fund what it thinks it needs and wants (whether by funding or by subverting the original innovator) then it just doesn’t get because…
EVEN PUBLIC SERVANTS, FROM FIREFIGHTERS TO SOLDIERS TO POLICE TO THE PRESIDENT, ARE PAID TO DO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT.
So let’s hope that the only one they’re funding is the only one they need.
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