Page 12 - Mobility Management, July 2018

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Therafin Launches Innovation Company
commit to Therafin full time.
By then, the company had grown enormously,
expanding from products related to ADLs, such as transfer boards, to manufacturing complex seating and positioning components and systems.
“First, people needed seating components, not really full systems,” Todd said. “Then it morphed into entire seating systems and soft goods. Now we have products for the feet, torso, head and upper and lower extremities.”
Today, Therafin has a staff of about 40. But the company still pays homage to its founder, Gibb, who passed away in 2004. He started Therafin by listening to what people with disabilities said they needed, a habit that led to the creation of many new products.
In 2017, that policy of listening to consumers led to the start of a brand-new company.
makes it possible for athletes to play, even if strength, stamina and muscle control are challenges. The Gravity Hammer enables athletes to move and line up their boccia ramps as desired.
“We’re manufacturing custom ramps for competitive players at the international level now, and we have low-end ramps for people to get into the sport for less money,” Todd said. “In the United States, boccia is becoming more popular, but folks with greater disabil- ities who can’t actually hold the ball need this ramp
to slide it down. We were told there weren’t any ramps being made in the United States. The most popular ones were from England, Turkey and Slovakia, and it was very expensive to get ramps unless you made them yourself. So we were challenged by a recreation specialist person in the Chicago area who needed a ramp.”
Gibb Fink probably didn’t foresee designing and manufacturing boccia equipment when he started his company 50 years ago. But his son thinks Therafin Innovation is perfectly in line with the company’s long- time philosophy, as molded by its founder.
“He was always looking at a problem and trying to solve it with a product,” Todd said of his dad. “At first, there were no customers; there were just people in the rehab hospital. The first problems he saw were theirs. He noted that they were struggling for independence, so that’s why a lot of the first products were ADL related, and he continued to listen to the customer base.”
Therafin Corp. continues to create and manufacture complex seating and positioning equipment, a signifi- cant amount of it to custom specifications. Todd noted how much the rehab industry has changed in Therafin’s lifetime, and how Therafin Corp. often works more directly with ATPs than with end users.
Therafin Innovation, a company created for fledgling ideas, is in many ways a throwback — another chance to listen not only to industry and clinical professionals, but also to once again listen directly to the consumer.
“It gets us back to our roots, dealing with the people who actually need this,” Todd said. “When you manufac- ture products that go to the dealer world, sometimes you don’t get to spend time with the actual users. So this is really exciting, to be connecting with these athletes who are highly competitive. It’s a great joy for us.” m
— Laurie Watanabe
Therafin Innovation designed and manufactures the BOSS boccia ramp.
Innovation in Its Name
Todd calls Therafin Innovation a “sibling” of the original Therafin Corp.
“We clearly listen and create products to meet consumer demands,” Todd said. “Sometimes, we don’t know where that’s going to take us.”
The latest venture is a company that “creates,
designs and manufactures things not necessarily connected to the rehab world. Pretty much any design that needs a home,
when people have reached out to us and wanted things to happen, we’re making things happen.”
That’s led Therafin to invest in boccia, a game of strategy and skill that’s rapidly growing in popularity among wheelchair athletes.
“It’s a big Paralympic sport gaining all sorts of momentum in Europe and the U.S. for people in wheel- chairs,” Todd said. “It’s a modified bocce, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Therafin Innovation’s Gravity line of BOSS boccia ramps
10 JULY2018|MOBILITYMANAGEMENT
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