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I Used To Be ... And Now I'm ...: Flight Attendant to Inventor
Joi Sumpton stepped up so kids can wash their hands.
by Mary Welch
April 1, 2008
W
arning: Do not read this if you ever had an idea for a product and didn't follow through.
The story of Joi Sumpton will make you cry - or inspire you to follow through the next time
a million-dollar idea crosses your brain.
Sumpton is a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. She has been flying for almost 20 years.
"I love it," she says. "I love working with the folks at Delta and the passengers. I'm a pretty
social person, so I really enjoy working and my job. I actually find it relaxing going to work and
being on the plane. Delta has been very, very good to me."
Sumpton now is working at Delta part time ("We need the medical insurance," she says),
managing her home, two children, a husband recovering from a brain tumor and - oh, yes - starting a
company.
"I recently read my journal that I wrote when I was a girl, and I wrote that I wanted to own
my own business and invent a product. But I became a flight attendant and the years go by. But I
guess I'm back to where I thought I would be."
What started as a simple idea is now, after three years, projecting sales of $1 million. Who
would have thought a trip to the restroom with her young children would spawn an entrepreneur?
"The Barnes & Noble bookstore has a children's reading program on Wednesday, and I took
my children there," she recalls. "After the reading, all the mothers and kids went to the bathroom,
and I saw all the moms trying to lift up these squirrelly kids, balancing their purses and maybe a
bag of books. I was lifting my son Carter, who at the time was three, and I didn't realize that I
was pressing his stomach against the wet, sharp counter edge. He started crying. All the moms,
including me, were struggling."
She went home and kept thinking about the experience. "I starting talking to mothers, and we
all agreed that trying to wash our kids' hands in the bathroom was a pain. At home we all had those
little steps, but there wasn't anything like that out there at restaurants or stores or public
places. I told my husband I was going to look into it."
She was flying - or more accurately - sitting on the jump seat on the plane telling another
flight attendant about her idea of some sort of step that would be resilient enough, yet easy for
kids and parents. It turned out that her friend's husband was a patent attorney. She went over to
their house and discussed her idea and asked lots of questions. The attorney, Jerry Boss, agreed to
help and gave her the name of a sketch artist, Mark Sampson, who could put her vision - literally -
to paper.
"I didn't even know such a person existed," she says. "But his job is to listen to my dream
and sketch it. He would tell me what we could and couldn't do, and he added to my original design
idea. His job is to take the idea and draw a prototype so that patent attorneys could register it."
The next step was to go to an engineer, John Evans, who made the design a reality. "He's the
best," she says. "I'm so grateful to him, because he really helped with how the step functions.
It's a retractable step with curved legs so that it's out of the way for adults but available for
kids. He was all about function."
Sumpton says they didn't have a lot of start-up money and juggled bills and made partial
payments. "We just kept floating," she says simply.
It took a year of redesigns and testing to get the product ready for market, but in 2005
Sumpton and her team introduced Step 'n Wash, the first and only retractable step that enables
children to safely and effectively wash their hands in public restrooms by providing children with
a secure step to help them reach the sink and soap dispenser.
Sumpton went to the Atlanta Zoo and the Atlanta Botanical Garden and asked them to test the
product. She received positive feedback and employed one of the oldest marketing tools in the book;
she asked all that used it to tell their friends.
It worked.
She soon received calls from a variety of places, including churches and stores. One thing
led to another. Someone from the botanical garden told her about the International Association of
Amusement Parks and Attractions, the largest international trade association for amusement
facilities and attractions worldwide. The product not only was a hit with the attendees, but it
also was named the best new product in 2007.
"It was the trade show for everything - museums, aquariums, amusement parks, science
museums. That was huge. We started getting a lot of orders," she says.
Currently, Step 'n Wash is in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium,
the Florida Aquarium, the San Diego Zoo and the Great Lakes Science Center, as well as the Georgia
Aquarium and the Fernbank Science Center.
"Visitors at our zoo have commented on how easy it is to get toddlers to wash their hands
now that we have Step 'n Wash in all of our restrooms. What an improvement to the wooden step
stools that preceded them!" says Mimi Wickless, education director of the Children's Zoo in
Lincoln, Neb.
Sumpton pursued new business by showing her product at targeted industry shows. Airports
were another natural, and Step 'n Wash is in several airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson,
Cincinnati-Kentucky, Salt Lake City and Boston's Logan.
So were stores. "It's a great family-friendly feature of our restrooms at Whole Foods
Market," says Darrah Horgan, public relations specialist for the Whole Foods Market South Region.
"It makes a trip to the restroom with a young child less of a balancing act, and it also cuts down
on the amount of water that gets splashed onto the floor."
More than 250 businesses across the country and Canada have installed the product, which
sells for $249.95 ($395.95 for stainless steel). Thanks to the IAAAP show, there is considerable
international interest as well. Sales for 2007 were $500,000, and projections for this year hover
around $1 million. To help manage manufacturing and distribution, Sumpton recently signed with
Cincinnati's Brocar Products, which also manufactures restroom accessories as well as restroom
changing tables.
"We're happy to partner with them, and it helps when a place is putting in a changing table
that they sell them both," she says. "At some of the larger zoos and aquariums, Step 'n Wash is
used over 25,000 times per year. Our research shows that in those restrooms where both a diaper
changing table and Step 'n Wash have been installed, customers will use Step 'n Wash an average of
50 times more often than the diaper changing table."
Sumpter is modest when talking about her accomplishment. "I just had an idea and then asked
a lot of questions. The product really sells itself so beautifully. It was a matter of showing it
and then telling everyone to tell their friends. I just really couldn't believe that no one thought
of it before."
During the process of developing the product, her husband Paul was diagnosed with a brain
tumor and underwent extensive chemotherapy. "So I was a nurse, mother, flight attendant and budding
entrepreneur. I just woke up each day and kept trying to make things better."
Her husband is now recovering and recently left his job to work full time for their
business.
She has, however, learned some lessons. "Expect that you will dish out a whole lot of money,
more than you would think. If you feel that your idea will work, then talk to a lot of people and
learn," she says.
Lastly, "if you think it will work, then just do it."
