Inventor: Stacie Urbach

Having worked for several global companies, I stem from a successful career in the financial industry specializing in asset-backed securitization. My resume includes Citibank, Fuji Bank, GE Capital, and Assured Guaranty Corp.

I left the corporate world in 2005 to pursue a profession better suited to my personality.  Soon after leaving, I damaged a pair of expensive designer shoes the moment I walked out of the store.  As a devoted shoe person, I was determined never to let that happen again and the idea for Smart Heel was born.

I graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in mathematics and serve as Treasurer on the board of Barnard Business and Professional Women (BBPW).

Inventors: Gretchen Frankenstein & Thomas Kessner

Thomas Kessner is the co-owner of Aurelia Holdings, its products division Handi-Stor, and co-creator of BIN BUDDIES®. He is an avid outdoorsman living in Seattle, WA.  He started down the path to becoming a products inventor while working along side Gretchen at an environmental law firm. However, his ideas didn't start or stop there.  They started while working for Target as a plan-o-gram specialist back in high school. From there he went on to assist a number of retail companies such as Fred Meyer, Mervyn's, and Office Depot, in product merchandising, promotion, and marketing.

He continues to plan and develop innovative organizational products and takes great care to engineer them to last a lifetime - reducing the consumer's carbon footprint.  As a way of giving back, he consults with new businesses and product developers to help them understand the entire idea-to-market process and how to set up their business for success.

Gretchen Frankenstein is the other half of Aurelia Holdings and its products division, Handi-Stor, and co-creator of BIN BUDDIES®.  She became an inventor quite by accident when, while working in law firm administration, she and Thomas Kessner came up with the idea of BIN BUDDIES® and it just kept rolling along.  Gretchen has found that she loves developing innovative, practical storage products that are built to be functional and useful over a lifetime, reducing cost to the consumer and waste to the environment.  She also enjoys the operational challenges of growing and running a small niche manufacturing  business.

When she isn’t dreaming up new ideas, Gretchen likes to spend her time assisting other budding niche manufacturing entrepreneurs to get their products to market, playing marine biologist in the Puget Sound area, and spending time with her husband and their various foster springer spaniels.