Davison Design and Development Brings Home Two Design Awards in Prominent BusinessWeek-Sponsored Competition

PITTSBURGH – Two Pittsburgh-developed products won prominent international design awards today, making them two of the top 106 products designed this year.

The city’s own Davison Design and Development earned recognition in the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for its Hover Creeper, which took a silver award, and The BikeBoard, which earned a bronze. The unique hybrid bicycle-skateboard will be featured in the July 10 issue of BusinessWeek magazine, along with other IDEA winners.

“It’s great to see our hard work rewarded,” said President and CEO G.M. Davison. “A lot of people don’t associate Pittsburgh with innovative design and product development. This just shows exactly what we’re doing and what we’re capable of from our corner of Pennsylvania.”

Some of last year’s winners include the Motorola Razr, the Apple iPod Shuffle, the Nike Considered Boot and the Sony QUALIA016 Digital Camera.

The BikeBoard concept was brought to the Pittsburgh firm by Southern California’s John Iavarone. Davison developed an entire line of BikeBoards for The BikeBoard Company. Iavarone’s products have made their way into various sporting goods and toy store chains, as well as being featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Gear Guru, American Chopper and the 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears.


The Hover Creeper, a corporate product owned and licensed by Davison, won in the concept category. It’s a 14-pound floating garage creeper that uses compressed air bladders to stay afloat, making it easier for mechanics to navigate the undercarriage of a car. Davison’s Ralph Kalkbrenner, a 73-year-old former Westinghouse engineer, was key in the development.

In 1997, the Davison-developed Oil Filter Gripper won a bronze IDEA.

The IDEA awards, co-sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), recognized 27 gold, 39 silver and 42 bronze award winners from 20 countries. Eighteen leading thinkers in the design world judged products based on design innovation, benefit to user and client/business, ecological responsibility and appropriate aesthetics and appeal.

Davison Design and Development, Inc. is a cutting-edge 110,000-square foot product design and development factory. Its services include research, industrial design, virtual reality, video, animation, product samples, packaging, presentation and royalty management. Learn more at www.davison54.com or call 1-800-544-3327.