Frontline Leader and Airman Tom Burden Proves Innovation is Everywhere with Grypmat

OpsLens Deck of 52 Most Wanted Post 9/11 Frontline Leaders

In 2018, as a spin-off and salute to the original 2003 deck of 52 Most Wanted playing cards, let’s honor post 9/11 frontline leaders here at home. Once a week, for 52 weeks this year, OpsLens will post a card highlighting one of the 52 Most Wanted Post 9/11 Frontline Leaders. You’ll learn the top facts about their business or organization, as well as why they made the list, which comes down to impact, scalability, health, and unique value proposition.

I encourage you to look for these weekly updates, share the card with your network, and support or buy the products and services they offer. See the 52 Most Wanted Post 9/11 Frontline Leaders launch story here.

3 of Spades | Grypmat

Tools sliding off the aircraft have been a persistent problem for nearly every person in aviation maintenance. It was an airman with the 180^th Fighter Wing (known as the Stingers) with more persistence and innovative savvy who finally fixed this problem. Tom Burden was an engineering student at the time, serving in the Ohio Air National Guard, when he began prototyping solutions in his parent’s basement. Over three years, the problem continued to vex him and his maintenance crew. Tom relentlessly analyzed, simplified, and iterated solutions until he finally had his first wooden mold, created in his dad’s barn over a Thanksgiving break.

That determination—putting in the time in that basement and barn—eventually landed him (in November 2017) on Shark Tank, where he confidently negotiated and captured three billionaire investors (Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, and Lori Greiner). Tom is the founder of Grypmat, which produces a high-performance, nonmagnetic, nonslip, chemical resistant, antistatic rubber tool mat that keeps tools and hardware in place, no matter where you need to put them. The combination of silicon material formed as a tray and the bright orange that keeps track of runaway screws or misplaced hardware make this product superior. A slew of pitch and innovation awards along the way have validated Tom’s effort, from being selected a finalist for the Thomas Edison Awards to winning first place at the world’s biggest automotive trade show, SEMA Launch Pad (where he also won SEMA Global Media Award for best new product).

Used by NASA, Gulfstream, Virgin Orbit, and Boeing, to name a few, the sky is not the limit for the application and opportunity for this product. The next horizon for Grypmat is expansion. Yes, products like this used on commercial airliners to do maintenance could lead to cheaper prices for you and me when we buy a plane ticket. But imagine different markets maximizing efficiency and reducing costs by utilizing a variation of the Grypmat (think medical industry and the benefits of a shorter surgery). Or consider how ownership of a Grypmat tells the world an auto mechanic is a top-of-the-line professional, while reducing maintenance time from 20 to 40 percent. In Tom’s words, “the first thing people often think about with the military is that it’s the biggest, most expensive part of our budget. Yet, the ecosystem of ideas and innovation amongst service members is worth far more, and can help us reduce costs and increase efficiency.”

Grypmat is a frontline leader that should be on your list of most wanted businesses to support in 2018.

Frontline Leader (Founder(s)): Tom Burden.

Name of Company/Organization: Grypmat, founded 2013.

Location: Columbus, Ohio.

Post 9/11 Service Connection: U.S. Air Force (F-16 Weapons Mechanic).

Tours of Duty: Guam, with nine years in the Air National Guard.

One sentence tagline & mission statement: The Grypmat. Use it everywhere.

Company / organization website: https://www.grypmat.com/