TeamSpirit" Enables the Disabled

This ~~TeamSpirit" Enables the Disabled
W
hat can happen when you can help a buddy? Well, if you are "Renaissance man" such as "Woody"
(Trautman G.) Witte of Denver, it can lead to the birth of a new business-and the birth of Team Spirit
International, a new organization to help disabled persons "get where they want to go."
Born in Germany and reared in New Jersey, Woody has utilized his talent for creative solutions in such diverse areas
as starting organizations, learning several languages, teaching gifted children, participating in winning motorcycle racing
teams, helping to develop experimental vehicles, becoming a national leader in the manufacture of wire spoked wheels,
and increasing the skills and satisfaction of disabled skiers by a quantum leap.
Coming to Colorado, Woody continued his longtime love affair with fast motorcycles by organizing the Mountain
Rpadracing Association, which helped develop safe roadracing facilities, becoming a nationally-known and respected
organization.
A natural craftsman and inventor, Woody saw the need for a high-quality custom-made wheel, and a business,
Woody's Wheel Works was born, soon gaining a national reputation. Woody also developed the wheel and brake system
for the "Mana La," a solar race car which competed
in the First International
Solar Vehicle Race.
Zooming across the continent of Australia, the craft used a combination of wind and solar power. When fellow motorcycle racer Ken LaCome crashed August 14, 1983, suffering a spinal injury that paralyzed his legs, "Team Spirit," a race
team "to take care of our own and raise money for him," as Woody puts it, came into being.
Team Spirit began when Woody talked to Bruce Sass, his nemesis on the race track but a good friend off the track,
about setting aside egos and business identities and coordinating their abilities and energy.
continued inside
TEAM SPIRIT'S
MISSION...
to enable the physically
challenged achieve their
goals in the recreational
domain by:
. providing
solutions to
requests from individuals
and programs
locating donors tofund
creative solutions
·
·
.
networking manufacturers
and R &D facilities
sharing solutions with
disabled community
Woody and Valerie Witte with Enabling Technologies' BI-UNIQUEbi-ski
o &P Business News, September 1, 1995 Revised May 1997
Team Spirit Leads to Greater Independence
Explains Woody, " I said, 'Look,
what if you and I teamed up? We become Team Spirit and have the same
agenda, which is raising money,
preaching safety, and winning like
nobody ever won before.' Then, Team
Spirit dusted the doors off everyone.
We got nine first places in different
categories. We won the number one
plate overall for the entire year. We
went to three different endurance races
nationally and won all of them, including the Aspen six-hour, we raised
$2,000 for Ken. Also, new safety equipment guidelines were adopted by the
race club."
Making dreams come true
woody encouraged Ken with the
idea he could ride again despite his
injury. Ken went to work for Woody
as a mechanic; the shop was modified
to make it wheelchair accessible. Team
Spirit members worked to rebuild the
bike. Woody developed a hand-operated clutch and brake system; Ken's
feet were held in place by bolted-on
boots. On January 1, Ken achieved his
goal - he roared around Denver's
McNichols Arena parking lot on his
modified Yamaha RZ 350 while a
local television station recorded
the event.
But Ken also had other goals, and
one of these involved Woody. Ken had
been introduced to wheelchair sports.
His first enthusiasm was tennis, and
he advanced quickly. By 1985 he was
ranked third nationally in the Division
D Men's Singles.
Skiing was next, and this is where
Woody stepped in again. "We went to
see him ski one day at Breckenridge,"
explains Woody's wife, Valerie."Woody
was distressed at the kind of equipment they had at that time - eight or
nine years ago. You could hear them
coming down the slope before you
could see them because the equipment
was so clankety-clank noisy. They
were older-model sit-skis - very difficult to handle and maneuver. Woody
said, 'I think I can make something better then that'." Woody and Ken then
designed and built a prototype
monoski.
Woody takes up the tale: "So I used
ideas from motorcycle racing suspensions and also redesigned a loading
system for it, and the rest is history.
Two weeks later, we built the first prototype. He started skiing on it, and
within 15 minutes he was
blazing down
the mountain.
A month later,
he went to a
qualifying race
in Powderhorn
and qualified;
the next month
he went to the
Nationals. He
dusted
the
doors off the U.S. Disabled Ski Team
- came in second overall."
Ken's dream was to be part of the
U.S. Disabled Ski Team," and this ski
helped him achieve it," says Woody.
"We want Team Spirit to be a 'Dream
Come True' program for disabled persons; we want to take the 'dis' out of
'disability' ."
The monoski Ken used was the beginning of Enabling Technologies. "We
hadn't originally thought this would
become a business," explains Valerie.
"Woody was just making it for Ken because he wanted to race."
"People were calling from all over
the place to find out who built that
ski; they had taken videos," says
Woody. "They knew that (at that time)
he didn't know how to ski that well,
but his equipment enabled him to ski
well. "
want to go sledding; he wanted to go
skiing untethered and in control. He
also wanted to load and unload independently on the chair lift."
On a monoski (one ski) or bi-ski
(two skis), the seating systems serves
"We identify
an individual
or a program
that needs
something...
then we see
who wants to chip in and be
a team player to help solve
the problem.
Creating the first solution:
UNIQUE-lmonoski
The UN1QUE-l monoski enabled
the user to actually ski and self-load;
the sit-ski is basically a sled. "You had
to be tethered all the time in those
days," Woody says. "For the most part,
they gave people these sophisticated
fiberglass sleds and a couple of ice
picks in each hand, and you'd drag
the ice picks through the snow to control it, which was awkward. Ken was
having a hard time because he didn't
"
the same function as a ski boot. "The
shift of their weight shifts the ski left, right, etc. - the same as your
boot," explains Valerie. Woody developed the Glove seating system, which
is made from a special plastic that does
not break or snap in cold, yet is flexible enough to conform to the skier
for a snug fit, thus giving him more
control and assistance.
Monoskis require good upper body
control for management, explains
Valerie. The suspension system in most
monoskis enables the skier to hit corners and moguls better than a bi-ski.
However, a bi-ski is more suitable for
someone with high-level injuries and
less upper-body strength, since it sits
lower.
Both types of skis allow the skier to
load on a chairlift without assistance
and include safety harnesses. One
safety strap acts like the seat belt in a
car; it secures the skier to the ski. The
other safety strap with a carabiner allows the skier to hook himself and ski
to the chairlift. The skier thus cannot
fall down from the chair; the worstcase scenario would be that he would
flip out and dangle.
Continues Woody, "One of the first
guys we had sees a pretty girl, leans
over and waves at her - boom!
Twenty feet down right into a snowbank. They dug him out of the snow.
He was lucky to come back to talk
about it."
I
Creating more solutions:
hi-skis, crutches & outriggers
Recently, Woody designed the
BI-UNIQUE, a bi-ski versatile enough
to be used by programs either for taking someone out for a ride or for lowlevel quads and high-level paraplegics
learning to ski independently.
Woody has focused his design creativity on outriggers and crutches, compl.etely changing the way they are
manufactured.
Now, Superlite
outriggers and crutches are made of
injected molded nylon; thus they are
much lighter and more durable, says
Woody. "They are made all in one
squirt, rather than in many pieces that
fall apart and need adjusting. Almost
everyone that was at Lillehammer
0994 Paralympics, Norway) last year,
except the u.s. Disabled (stand-up) Ski
Team, was on our outriggers. PracticaUy every gold, silver, and bronze
winner had ours."
Outriggers include several Superlite
flipski models: one with a standard
bend tube for monoski, bi-ski, threetrackers, and four trackers. The Ed
Lucks model, inspired by Ed Lucks,
Founder/Director of the Snowmass
(Colorado) Disabled Ski Program, features a single bend below the hand
grip for comfort and control, allowing
a more upright skiing position to minimize lower back pain. There also is a
straight version for racers and
advanced skiers. Even President Bill
Clinton of the United States is using
the Ed Lucks model Superlites while
recuperating from knee surgery.
If metal edges are needed, standard
ski tips can be mounted. Flipskis can
be converted to walking crutches, complete with ice-gripping points on the
tip, by simply squeezing the hand-grip
cord. The ski then flips up and locks
in the vertical position. Simply squeezing the hand-grip cord again converts
it back to a skiing outrigger.
A competition flipski also is available; it enhances the racer's ability to
exit the starting gate more quickly.
Superlite flipskis also can be converted
to lightweight,
durable walking
crutches by popping off the ski portion and installing a walking tip for
summer hiking
and other recreational activities.
Achieving
state-of-the-art
outriggers didn't
come easily. "To
build them like
that, we had to
invest a lot of
money in this
mold,"says
Woody. "Every
time we touch
the mold,
it
seems we need
to change something, and it's a
$5,000 to $10,000
bill. Just in the
mold alone, we
have
over
$100,000-that's
one expensive
little piece of
metal. But right
now, it spits out
the stuff like we
want it-at last!"
"We've finetuned it; out of
Valerie and Woody with Jeff Wesselswho is holding the
1,200 to 1,500
Superlite flipski outrigger.
outriggers,
maybe two or
three pieces broke last year; that's Paul Speight, left a paraplegic by an
pretty incredible. But it was a real pain- accident in 1975, also is involved in
ful process to get there-we kept per- product research and development at
severing. To win people over to the Enabling Technologies.
idea of plastic, we offered a one-year
Paul's dynamic sense of adventure
warranty. We'd tell people if something hasn't lost its luster because of his pabroke, send it to us; we'll analyze it. ralysis. Even daring able-bodied perTell us how you broke it. We'll send sons might think twice about bungee
another one, the latest version. People jumping, but not Paul. In 1989, he bestayed with us, and we gave them op- came New Zealand's, and possibly the
portunities to turn in their old stuff and, world's first paraplegic bungee jumper,
for a couple of extra bucks, get the strapped in a wheelchair and plungnewest stuff."
ing from a 200 foot high bridge.
Originally, Woody's Wheel Works
A few years earlier, in 1984, Paul
was the larger business, but Enabling discovered that he could ski again. He
Technologies has grown to the point began to research sporting activities
where it provides more than 50% of and found that a considerable amount
the business, according to Valerie.
of equipment could be adapted to suit
the needs of the disabled.
Spokes
'n Motion,
a business catering to disabled sportpersons worldwide, handles the sales
continued next page
and marketing of Enabling Technologies' products. The firm's president,
I
Team Spirit: A Problem Solving Network
Finding new solutions
But business is only part of this story.
Woody's dream focuses on Team Spirit,
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit corporation. The
mission of Team Spirit is to assist the
physically challenged by providing
solutions to their recreational needs.
How does Team Spirit work? An individual or program makes a request for
assistance to Team Spirit by identifying their need for products, goods, services or aspirations. Through networking with the larger community, Team
Spirit finds those willing to help solve
the problem.
"Someone says - "I need something'," Woody explains. "We identify
an individual or a program that needs
something-financial help, a new device designed, locating existing services, linking donors to recipients,
whatever-then we see who wants to
chip'in and be a team player to help
solve the problem. One person may
help with the machining; one person
may donate $5,000; someone else may
say, 'I've got skills and time, so I'll donate my brains'." Donors and supporters will always see the fruit of their
commitment.
As an example, Woody cites a fundraiser held by the Evergreen (Colorado)
Kiwanis Club, which enabled a bi-ski
to be donated to the National Sports
Center for the Disabled at the Winter
Park Resort. "It'llhave a Kiwanis sticker
on it to show they donated it, and a
whole lot of people can use it," says
Woody. In turn, Winter Park will provide a video of the bi-ski in action.
"This way the donors get to see what
they paid and worked for,"says Woody.
Team Spirit wants donation recipients
to provide similar videos" so people
get to see where their money went." A
monoski was donated to Children's
Hospital of Denver under a similar arrangement.
Woody's active mind is bursting with
new ideas. "Right now, for instance, I
have several quads that want to ski
themselves; they don't want the guy
behind them. I already have a redesigned bi-ski in my head. It utilizes the
joystick or sip-n-puff electronic com-
ponents found on their wheelchairs.
Then, they, too, can go skiing all over
the mountain."
"But to transfer it from his head to
an actual piece of equipment takes
some time and money. That's where
some of the donations would go also,"
says Valerie.
The seat system for the skis also can
be bolted to the bottom of a kayak,
according to Woody. "We also have a
project where they want to take this
seating system and put it on a horseback saddle, because people want to
really go riding, they don't want merely
to be led around in a circle in a barnyard on a gimpy, lame horse." We have
requests for a motorcycle with stabi-
lizers; you push a button, and down
they come. They want to take their
collapsible wheelchair on the bike,
clipped in place."
With this network of people who
are involved and donating what they
can, Woody feels that time, effort, and
funds donated go directly to helping
persons, rather than to administrative
costs for the "middleman." Woody
would like sometime to have a weekly
television "Team Spirit" report "to show
people what problem we are trying to
solve, and then, when we have a solution, show how it came about and how
it's working."
So, if you need some help or want
to help, give these folks a call.
Team Spirit International
50I (C)3 nonprofftcorp.
2225 S. Platte River Drive
Denver, CO 80223
303-936-3469 phone
303-922-7943 fax
www.teamspirit.net/spi rit
Enabling Technologies
2225 S. Platte River Drive
Denver, CO 80223
303-936-0232 phone
303-922-7943 fax
Spokes 'n Motion
2225 S.Platte River Drive
Denver,CO 80223
303-922-0605 phone
303-922-7943 fax
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