Who We Are

Lori Cogen is a teacher of the deaf who, for many years, worked with hearing-impaired students in mainstream classrooms. She often installed tennis balls on the desk and chair legs in her students’ classrooms so they were better able to hear the teacher. The tennis balls reduced the scraping sounds of chair and desk legs on the floor. Teachers love the quieter classrooms and the maintenance staff appreciates the easier-to-maintain floors. Lori cut the tennis balls by hand, with a razor, taking several nights to cut the balls needed for just one classroom. She worked with one custodian who tried using a saw to cut slits in the tennis balls, but these didn’t stay on the chair legs. This is where her husband, Bill, stepped in. Bill is an engineer by trade and by nature. He saw that cutting the tennis balls was the major obstacle to using them in schools. And out of necessity, invention. The Tennis Ball Cutter™ was created to solve the problems that Lori was experiencing. The Tennis Ball Cutter™ turns a tedious and laborious task into an easy project.