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This invention really IS cool Medford inventor takes the heat off with refrigerator, heat pump device By Mark Freeman Who says daytime TV is a waste of time? It has helped Medford�s Rick Ledbetter reach the brink of riches. While watching "The Price is Right" one day in the early 1980s, the former asphalt paver and self-described tinkerer came up with the idea for a new commercial product that will take the heat out of standing in a restaurant kitchen � a combination refrigerator/heat pump that keeps both food and cooks cool. Ledbetter has modified a commercial, stainless steel refrigerator so it also pumps out enough cool air to chill a restaurant kitchen by 20 degrees or more. But this contraption is more than just a really cool fridge. It also will heat a kitchen in winter. "Everybody who looks at it is dumbfounded," says the 49-year-old Ledbetter, who runs an adult foster-care home with his wife. "You just don�t expect that kind of air to be coming out of a refrigerator." And Ledbetter may have money coming out of his ears when his invention is offered for sale early this year. Ledbetter has joined forces with a business consultant and a designer and with Western Freezer Co., a Tigard dealer in commercial-grade refrigerators, to come up with two models now under construction in Medford. After they are unveiled at a Portland trade show in March, the inventor and his cohorts expect orders to pour in for this ultra-cool version of the American Dream. "He is going to be very rich from having an idea and the fortitude over the years to move his idea forward," says Joe Morgan, a Medford-based business consultant working with Ledbetter. "And it�s all his idea. We�re just helping him." The idea came in the early 1980s while watching Bob Barker on the tube give a woman a new refrigerator that also dispenses water from the door. "I thought to myself, why the hell would anybody get a drink of water from a refrigerator when you have a faucet right there in the kitchen," Ledbetter says. "What you need is one with an air conditioner," he says. "So I built one." But no one had any interest in his contraption of a heat pump/kitchen refrigerator when the first prototype was finished in the late 1980s. But when he fitted the system onto an industrial fridge, the interest became immediate from restaurants that constantly battle hot-kitchen madness. So Ledbetter built another prototype from a standard industrial freezer, gaining two patents along the way. That system has been working in The Metropolitan restaurant kitchen in Medford for about a year to rave reviews. "When it�s 90 degrees outside in the summer, it�s 130 degrees inside the kitchen," says Bruce Davis, the restaurant�s general manager. "That thing drops the kitchen�s temperature by 30 degrees. It�s a quality piece of equipment." Ledbetter now has Morgan and designer Steve Hale working on his venture, which is focused on a newer, more streamlined version. The contraption simply has a shrunken version of a heat pump affixed to the refrigerator�s top, Hale says. The two appliances work independently of each other, with one cooling food and the other blowing immense amounts of cool air toward the ceiling. The cool ceiling air forces down the hot air so it can be sucked through oven hoods, Hale says. "It�s so simple it�s like, duh?" Hale says. "But it�s a great thing. We took what he built and streamlined it." The new models are being built this week by Southern Oregon Heating and Air Conditioning, Morgan says. When orders come in, the group hopes to have the systems built in Medford. Hale says Ledbetter�s story shows there�s room in the 21st century for the shade-tree tinkerer who can parlay a good idea into a fortune. "He�s believed in this for a long time, and that�s what I admire about him," Hale says of Ledbetter. "He�s kept the dream alive." Now, Ledbetter expects to see more cash than he ever dreamed of. "To tell you the truth, I thought it would be worth about $20,000," Ledbetter says. "But from what everyone tells me, it hasn�t worked out that way. "And that," he says, "is great." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.