COOL COLORADO STUFF.

• Author: PETERSON, ERIC
• Position: Innovative Colorado companies - Brief Article

GREAT GRIP

As a company, Great Grips Inc. is a study in perseverance. After Bill Youmans and Brad Going started the business in 1990, it took nearly a decade to perfect their patented, easy-to-grip doorknob turners, designed to make life easier for the disabled, young, and elderly. After eight years in the red, Great Grips finally took off last year, selling 300,000 units in the last six months of 1999 and, in the process, allowing the founders to quit their day jobs. The real key is, when things don't work, keep trying, said Youmans.

Made by Great Grips, Inc., Littleton, (800) 346-5662, www.greatgrips.com. $5.95 per pair. Retailers include Ace and True Value hardware stores, but call or visit the Web site to locate the retailer nearest you. You can also order online.

THE PERFORMER

Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Eddie Van Halen have several things in common. They're all rock-guitar demigods. All also are customers of Fort Collins-based Trans Performance, which, with a product it calls The Performer, has retrofitted guitars with self-tuning technology since 1991. Thanks to a small computer and a half-dozen motors -- one for each string -- a new tuning is just a touch of a button away, allowing the guitarist to compensate for chaos (i.e. neck warp, humidity) or even switch to a different setting in mid-song.

A rock-star tune up, however, costs rock-star money: TransPerformance charges $3,250 to retrofit an existing guitar with The Performer.

Made by TransPerformance, LLC, Fort Collins, (970) 482-9132, www.selftuning.com. Lone distributor is Louisville's Wildwood Guitars, www.wildwoodguitars.com.

CLOTHE YOUR FDA

Why let your personal digital assistant go naked when you can gussy it up in some snazzy duds? The storage and organization fanatics at Case Logic answer this query with a pair of products: the billfold-style Leather PDA Case and its zippered counterpart, the Koskin Pocket PDA Case. If you've abandoned pen-and-paper for digital media, these pocket-sized carriers will sheath your data in a bit of real-world security, and even give you an extra spot for excess credit cards and receipts. The leather version is compatible with the Palm V only, while the Koskin option is designed to handle almost any PDA on the market. Each case runs $24.95 retail.

Made by Case Logic Inc., Longmont, (877) 227-3347, www.caselogic.com.

MOUSE HOUSE

In the...