Julian Ferreras: building a better mousetrap.

• Author: Patkotak, Elise Sereni
• Position: Ferreras pile cutting tool patent - Innovation

Barrow resident Julian Ferreras displays the card showing his patent number on it with a shy pride - patent number 5107594 issued on April 28, 1992, for the Ferreras Pile Cutting Tool. It was issued in less than a year from application-record time for such matters. Because what he designed is so unique, no one else had anything even closely resembling it up for a patent. This means his tool skipped the "patent pending" part and was issued a patent number.

The device it represents is simple. Yet it solved a chronic problem encountered by anyone who has ever built structures on pilings.

Ferreras says the whole thing started when he built his own house. He couldn't cut the pilings straight enough to satisfy himself. He admits up front that he's his own worst critic and holds himself and his work up to very exacting standards. What had been straight enough for other people over the course of the years was simply not good enough for him.

So he started tinkering with ideas. He used parts bought from the local store - many no more than 40 cents each - and used his kitchen as his workshop. When he was done, he had a new tool, one that could cut pilings as straight as his demanding specifications required. In fact, his machine is so versatile, it will cut pilings straight even if they have been set into the ground crooked. And a simple change of saws will allow the machine to cut everything from wood to reinforced concrete.

Ferreras admits that he's always tinkered with things. Once, a relative going out for a six-month R&R left him in charge of a car-parts factory in the Dominican Republic. He observed what was happening on the factory floor and decided that there had to be a better method for cutting a specific bolt to size than was currently being used. He waited until evening when the factory was quiet and then started tinkering. Before he left the factory, he'd devised a better way.

Ferreras came to Alaska in the late 1970s after a brief interlude on the East Coast. He says he likes the outdoor life and the East Coast just didn't work for him. So he came to Grog Creek and Valdez Creek near Cantwell and started gold mining.

Love and marriage brought Ferreras to Barrow, where he became a heavy-duty equipment operator for the North Slope Borough. He brought up his John Deere bulldozer from Fairbanks and started a gravel-spreading business. The borough contracted with him to work on a gravel pad project for homes in the community and, between the...