Young and inventive

Who says a kid can't dream up something new and fun? Rich Stachowski did, while he was in elementary school. Now he's 17 and a seasoned entrepreneur.

By JACKY JOHNSON
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

When he was 10, Rich Stachowski went on a family vacation to Hawaii that gave him an idea.

The Water Talkie, a colorful, cone-shaped device that amplifies voices underwater for up to 15 feet, was the first of his creations to hit stores. Toys "R" Us liked it well enough to order 50,000.

Rich's ideas and sketches turned into a company producing water toys "made by a kid for kids." The company was called Short Stack, named for his penchant for pancakes as well as his resemblance to his father, who as a Denver Bronco NFL player went by the nickname "Stack."

By the time he was 13, Rich had invented and sold a successful line of eight pool toys.

Rich recalled the Hawaiian inspiration last month by phone from his home in California. He was frustrated that he couldn't talk to his dad while they were snorkeling. "I was getting excited about the things (underwater) that I was seeing, and I just wanted to (talk about it instantly and) do something about it," he said. "(When we got back) we came up with a prototype to figure out how it was going to work. I hired a manufacturing engineer, my mentor Bob Miller."

Target, Wal-Mart, Eckerd and other retailers followed Toys "R" Us in stocking the Water Talkies, which are still available in stores.

[Photo: Wild Planet]

More than glub, glub, glub: Rich Stachowski demonstrates his first invention, the Water Talkie. It enables swimmers to communicate underwater.

"We had so many orders, we could hardly ship everything," said his mother, Barbara Stachowski, who has developed more than 80 products of her own, including the hairstyling tool Hairagami.

"I actually have a formula of how to invent stuff, and I shared that with him," she said. "Rich had so many different ideas, he always wanted to do this. But when he showed me the Water Talkies, I knew it was the one to run with."

Despite the tried-and-true family formula for inventions, his success came as a surprise to Rich.

"I had no idea that it was going to turn into something like that," he said. "When I first saw (the Water Talkies) in stores, that was pretty weird."

Next, Short Stack floated an underwater periscope known as Aqua Scope, and the Bumper Jumper Water Pumper, a pool float equipped with a water shooter. A year after that, Rich turned more ideas into hot-selling toys: a pool pogo stick, underwater binoculars and character swim masks.

"I've always tried to build things and take things apart," he said. "I played with Legos when I was a kid. Me and my friends used to make forts."

Rich's creativity was getting wide notice. At 13, he was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. That year, 1998, he also was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the Winners League Foundation. As keynote speaker at the National Gallery of Young Inventors hall of fame ceremony, he spoke to 2,000 people, and he has appeared on Nickelodeon and the Late Show With David Letterman.

"Jay Leno wanted to have me do a show, but I didn't. I think I had basketball or something," Rich said. "I guess (Letterman) thought it would be good to get the kid who rejected Leno."

Rich Stachowski, 17, has put his toy business on the shelf and faces normal high school challenges: sports (he plays rugby) and deciding where to go to college.

Wild Planet Toys acquired his company in 1999, and that year Rich attended the American International Toy Fair in New York, the annual winter event at which toy stores get ideas for the holiday season's hottest offerings.

"When I sold (Short Stack) to Wild Planet, I was still going to help them with ideas," he said. "It's pretty much over now, though."

Rich won't say how much money he made from the sale, thought reports at the time estimated several million dollars. For now, his life is back to normal. He is 17 and a junior in high school, facing the usual question of college and the excitement of sports. Rich said he doesn't see toys in his future, but he would not count out self-developed businesses. His mother, for one, has no doubts about his future success.

"He's a good person inside and out," she said. "And once he gets focused on doing something, nothing can stop him."

-- Jacky Johnson, 15, is in ninth grade at Seminole High School.

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