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Custom Tools Help Disabled Farmers Keep Working
If you or someone you know has a disability that makes it hard for them to keep working, Ned Stoller may have an answer. He does research and development work on tools especially for disabled farmers. His DisabilityWorkTools.com website lists a raft of tools to help people continue to work. However, every job and every challenge is different. Sometimes there isn’t anything available.
  “If you or someone you know has a specific need for a tool, we’ll try to come up with a custom solution,” says Stoller. “We interview the person about the disability, what activity they want to accomplish, and the environment they want to use it in.”
  Stoller charges a fee of $40 for the phone consultation, drafting a design concept, and providing a cost of production estimate.
  “We give them an idea of what it would cost to develop the tool and then go from there,” says Stoller. “Once a customer is satisfied with a design plan and price, we’ll produce it and deliver it to the workplace door.”
  Most of the requests for custom items have been from people in Michigan, where Stoller is located. Some of the items end up featured on the website.
  “Our mechanical creeper with lift seat was a custom design,” says Stoller. “Now others can get one, too.”
  Only a small percentage of the items on Stoller’s website were designed and are manufactured by him. “The vast majority are from other inventers and manufacturers. Some items that we came up with have been adopted by other companies.”
  The website is expansive and easy to use, with hundreds of items from tractor controls and cab accessories to livestock watering and feeding devices. Items are indexed by tool type as well as by job and disability.
  Stoller suggests spreading the word about the website to friends and relatives dealing with a disability. “It’s meant to be a service, whether or not people buy anything from the website,” says Stoller. “It opens people’s minds to what can be done, regardless of a medical condition. They don’t have to be stuck on a couch.”
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Disability Work Tools, 12152 Cascade Rd., Lowell, Mich. 49331 (ph toll free 888 354-3289; www.disabilityworktools.com).


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2016 - Volume #40, Issue #6