Invention prevents child from being burned in car seat

When Christi Kale’s oldest son was a toddler, she wrestled with the same quandary thousands of moms face every summer — how do you prevent a child from being burned in a car seat that has been sitting in direct sunlight?

The summer sun can heat the interior of a car to more than 150 degrees and the sunlight can unintentionally turn metal buckles into branding irons.

For Kale, a Henderson resident, the solution was to invent a device called a Kool Seat and she developed and unveiled it in 1998.

It’s a washable nylon canvas bag with Velcro-secured pockets that hold a pair of frozen Gel Packs. They have handles for easy transport and fit snuggly into an average child car seat.

After a child is removed from a car seat, the Kool Seat is placed on the seat, keeping the entire seat and its buckles cool. The Gel Packs are effective for about six to eight hours. When it’s time to get back in the car, the device is removed and there’s no danger of skin burns or hot seats.

After returning home, the Gel Packs or even the entire seat can be placed in the freezer for the next use. “It’s about the size of a frozen pizza so it’s pretty easy to find room for it,” Kale said.

A relative helped her build a prototype out of ice packs and pillowcases, and the design was perfected.

Kool Seats have a water-resistant lining that beads condensation and they come in red, blue, yellow and orange.

Kale found a manufacturer in New York to mass-produce the product and she sold them in mom-and-pop children’s stores in Southern Nevada, including the Dagerman’s Just for Kids outlet. She sold more than 1,000 of them.

A few years later, her son outgrew the car seat. She and her husband, Brian, a technology expert, had another son. Soon, Christi, a Las Vegas native who attended Chaparral High School, became a soccer mom instead of a “momtrepreneur.” Dagerman’s closed its doors after the owners retired and the Kool Seat went from hot commodity to child product footnote.

Until last year.

That’s when Kale decided to re-energize the Kool Seat with online sales and develop a new company name, SwaggyBear. Steven, the tyke who first tested the Kool Seat and is now a teenager, came up with the SwaggyBear name and a cartoon polar bear with sunglasses became the corporate mascot.

Kale switched suppliers to a Spokane, Wash., manufacturer, secured all the trademarks and patents and now sells Kool Seats online through SwaggyBear.com and Amazon.com.

“It isn’t an easy process getting your products on Amazon,” Kale said. “But it’s really expanded our sales.”

Not surprisingly, the sale of most Kool Seats, which retail for $25, come from hot-weather locations. Kale said most of her sales have come from Phoenix and its suburbs and she’s seeing more customers buying in Florida.

In 2014, she’s sold 175 units.

Kale increases the visibility of the product by appearing at some children’s products trade shows and she’s developed a presence on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for SwaggyBear and SwaggyBearStyle.

Her social media marketing plays off keeping cool and the cool-looking cartoon bear and keeping “cubs” happy.

Kale packages and mails her products from home, storing inventory in her garage. With about 4 million children a year born in the United States, Kale figures that SwaggyBear and Kool Seats have a bright future.

“If you figure that maybe half of those children grow up in places where it gets hot, especially in the summer, there’s a real opportunity for growth,” Brian Kale said.

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow him on Twitter @RickVelotta.