Business school professor turns inventor,
patents Christmas-tree stand

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Gary Shoesmith spent part of his Thanksgiving holiday looking for a Christmas-tree stand. But not just any tree stand-he wanted his stand, the one he invented, spent six years developing and successfully patented that debuts in stores this holiday season.

Shoesmith, professor of economics at Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management, invented the E-Z Straight Christmas-tree stand. The stand's adjustable telescoping legs allow the user to determine the tree's upright position by adjusting the stand's legs rather than the tree.

Shoesmith is director of the Center for Economic Studies and publishes the Quarterly Review, which features economic analysis and forecasts. He has taught at the Babcock School since 1986, but his academic business background didn't inspire his invention. He developed the tree-stand idea in 1995 after becoming frustrated trying to make a Christmas tree stand up straight.

"I would go through the house looking for books of just the right thickness to put under the legs of my tree stand so the tree would stand straight," Shoesmith says. He ventured to a home-improvement store and found a stand that guaranteed a straight tree with little effort. It cost $70.

"I had two thoughts," he says. "One, it was obvious that someone other than me hated to put up these trees enough to invent a tree stand that was easy to use. Second, I thought nobody would pay $70 for a tree stand."

When Shoesmith returned to the store two weeks later and found that all 45 of the $70 stands had sold, he realized there was a healthy market for adjustable tree stands, even those priced at $70. That ignited a brainstorm about how to build a better, more affordable tree stand.

During the next few years, Shoesmith built a model of his concept in his garage, filed for a patent and had a production prototype built before discovering that manufacturing costs appeared to be insurmountable. In August 1999, Shoesmith met Michael Cobb, president of the sales and distribution company Diamante International, which is based in Hickory, N.C. Shoesmith and Cobb met while traveling to Mexico as part of N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt's trade mission to Latin America.

On the airline flight back to North Carolina, Shoesmith explained his invention to Cobb and asked if he could help find a manufacturer for the tree stand. Cobb was interested.

"When Gary said he had been approved for a patent, I knew there must be something significant there," Cobb says.

Cobb contacted several Mexican manufacturers with whom he had dealt on other projects and arranged a meeting with a Mexican manufacturing plant in February 2000. Plant representatives agreed to produce 5,000 metal tree stands at production costs that were lower than other manufacturers' estimates.

In March 2000, Shoesmith received patent No. 6,042,077 covering both the stand and its method of use. During the 2000-01 academic year, Babcock MBA students Laura Geisfeldt and Nick Fourcade compiled information on marketing issues for the fledgling business as part of a field-study project. Last March, the students presented their work to representatives of Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, which agreed to test-market the stands this year by placing 35 stands each in 140 of its more than 600 stores. The stands sell for $39.95 each.

"People have always said that necessity is the mother of invention," Cobb says. "In this case, it was aggravation that was the mother of invention."

Diamante International has committed to give a portion of the profits to fund a scholarship for Babcock MBA students. Details of the scholarship arrangement are being finalized, with Shoesmith and Cobb proposing that 25 cents from each tree stand sold be used for the scholarship.

Shoesmith found his stand during a stop at a Lowe's store in Charleston, W.Va., and says he may have bought the first one sold. He hopes his tree stand can gain a modest share of the estimated nine million to 10 million tree stands sold annually.

"Our goal eventually is to sell 100,000 units a year, and that would mean $25,000 in scholarship money," says Shoesmith.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Michael Cobb can be reached at (828) 322-2608.

Last updated 12/10/01