Leggett & Platt Honors 12 for Technology Advancement

November 18, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Bedding on November 2008 Leggett & Platt honored 12 employees for their contributions to technological advancement at the second annual J.P. Leggett Innovators Awards Dinner, held recently at the bedding and furniture component manufacturer’s Carthage, Mo., headquarters.

The awards are for both individual and team-created innovations. This year’s recipients range from product designers to engineers to heads of marketing.

2008 J.P. Leggett Innovator Award recipients are:

• LeRoy Johnson, senior director, emerging technologies, for eCoupled technology.

Johnson worked to develop eCoupled, an evolution in traditional energy that delivers power through advanced wireless infrastructure. eCoupled will be showcased by Leggett at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show.

• Ryan Chacon, software controls engineer; Niels Mossbeck, senior director, advanced technologies; Mark Quinn, executive vice president of sales and marketing, bedding group; Chuck Steers, mechanical design engineer; Jason Turner, director of controls & technologies; and Tom Wells, Jr., director of engineering strategy & technical, all for Starry Night Sleep technology.

Chacon, Mossbeck, Quinn, Steers, Turner and Wells created and promoted Starry Night Sleep Technology, the first bed to incorporate diagnostic and entertainment technologies to create an intelligent, intuitive and comfortable sleep environment. Starry Night was not only a revolutionary concept that redefined the boundaries of the bedding industry, but also was an international media sensation.

• Dana Lockwood, senior seating designer, Indiana Chair Frame business unit for the Responder Office Chair.

The Responder office chair is an ergonomically-designed office chair that responds intuitively to all body movements and is uniquely engineered, designed and tested to withstand more than one million cycles of 24/7 intensive use.

• Jennifer Guerndt, vice president of marketing, Gamber-Johnson business unit; Jason Lewandowski, vice president of engineering, Gamber-Johnson business unit for MAG Dock.

Guerndt and Lewandowski created and promoted the design and technology of the MAG Dock, the industry’s first low-density and affordable magnesium docking station. MAG Dock is used in thousands of vehicles worldwide.

• Greg Lawson, chief engineer, Omega Motion business unit, for ZWAHL (Zero Wall High Leg).

Leggett & Platt saus Zero Wall High Leg technology is the world’s only high-leg motion mechanism for furniture. Zero Wall High Leg technology utilizes geometry to balance chair operation, ensuring that when reclining, a chair will adjust itself to never come in contact with a wall or other obtrusive objects.

• Glenn Wiecek, product designer, furniture hardware division, for Patients Choice Medical Care Mechanism.

Patients Choice is a new mechanism for coupling a seat back to a base, providing for smooth and simultaneous extension and retraction in seating items including sofas, loveseats and modular sectionals.