Page 39 - Flathead Beacon // 7.9.14

“I REALLY WANTED IT TO BE SUSTAINABLE, IF IT GETS THROWN OUT, IT’LL JUST DECOMPOSE AND BREAK.”
- Robert Knox
Christmas
in July
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BUSINESS
JULY 9, 2014 | 39
“so I decided to make it.”
Now, the patent is pending, and Knox
is already taking orders for his cork- wrapped creation. The cork acts as an in- sulator, shock absorber, and a coaster for tables.
Once the mug needs cleaning, it’s as simple as taking the porcelain piece out of the cork – which holds the 12 oz. mug tight with a friction fit – and put it in the dishwasher. The cork piece can be hand washed.
Knox isn’t a stranger to the busi- ness world; during the major construc- tion boom, his company, Knox on Wood, built many custom houses for customers throughout the valley.
What started as a way to be a profes- sional builder turned into a larger com- pany, he said, and soon he was manag- ing dozens of people and working crazy hours just to keep up.
“I woke up one morning and turned to my wife and said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’” Knox said.
They closed the company down and went to Cambodia and Thailand, where
they built orphanages.
“I just really needed to build some-
thing that was going to be used all the time,” he said.
When they got back, Knox restart- ed his construction company but on a much smaller scale; now he is contracted to build custom pieces and rarely has to hire more than one person for a job.
For the Cortiça mug idea, Knox leaned heavily on his family – his sons, Caleb and Nathan, and of course, his wife Rachael. The mug idea was also partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which reached its $35,000 goal with two weeks of funding still to go.
The mug and cork pieces will be man- ufactured overseas by an American com- pany, Knox said, but that was worth the price variable for him. Instead of having to sell the Cortiça for $40 retail, they’ll cost $25, he said.
This way, more people will be able to afford them, and start using fewer paper cups and reduce waste.
“I really wanted it to be sustainable,” Knox said. “If it gets thrown out, it’ll just
Robert Knox of Whitefish holds up a cork and porcelain travel mug that he desiged in his woodshop and will be selling in the coming months. JUSTIN FRANZ | FLATHEAD BEACON
decompose and break.”
The porcelain will turn back into
dust, he said, and the cork will decom- pose because it’s wood.
Knox is already taking orders for the travel mugs, and expects to be able to start filling those by October. The Kick- starter campaign helped find a market for the minimum number of mugs he needed to order, and now he hopes he will find a local market for the travel mugs at Flat- head coffee shops and household stores.
He is also offering 200 mugs at $5 off for Flathead Valley residents, which will
be delivered in October.
The prototype of the Cortiça mug
that Knox made five months ago is still alive and well, which is practically a mir- acle with how hard he is on his mugs, he said.
“I’ve been looking for a mug like this for a long time,” he said.
For more information on Cortiça travel mugs and the Kickstarter cam- paign, visit www.kickstarter.com/proj- ects/1672271502/the-cortica-mug-a- coffee-mug-for-coffee-connoisseu.
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