ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – To be successful you often have to think outside the box.
Huge companies have been built on the idea of building a better mouse trap.
This week’s News 6 Getting Results Award winner did just that.
Dino Rachiele owner of Rachiele Custom Sinks started his company because, as a kitchen designer, he grew frustrated with the products he had to choose from.
“The sinks I had to work with in the past irritated me,” Rachiele said. “So I started making sinks that made sense.”
Rachiele’s designs are handcrafted with the owner in mind.
“We only sell to the end user,” he said. “That’s so I can speak to them, find out what their needs are and make a creation specifically for that family.”
Rachiele said his company was the first to design and patent the workstation sink.
“They’re all using our design,” Rachiele said. “We hardly use the original design because we’ve come up with far better designs over the years.”
Rachiele and a small team of designers and builders are always thinking of ways to make their products better and meet the needs of a diverse customer base. That’s how they came up with their design for people in wheelchairs.
“This crazy industry we’re in, all they do is take a regular single bowl sink with the drain in the center. To meet compliance, they just make it shallow and I’m thinking how do they get their legs under there?”
Rachiele’s answer was simple, move the drain to the side so the cabinet underneath can be opened up.
His design was perfect for someone he came across almost by accident.
“We saw the most inspiring video,” Rachiele remembered. “It popped up in our feed and I said we’ve got to get a hold of this guy. I want to make him a sink. He showed his sink (in one of the videos) and it was the most horrible sink I’ve ever seen,” Rachiele said with a laugh.
He was talking about Dan Kotter of Utah. Kotter runs the popular social media account called “The Wheelchair Dad.” Kotter, who is paralyzed from the belly button down, posts videos of his busy and active family life to show others that they too can have a fulfilling life after tragedy and setbacks.
“When I was in the hospital I went looking for something like that and I couldn’t find it,” Kotter remembered.
As time went by, Kotter and his wife Andrea decided it was time to start a channel of their own.
“I said, we need to put something online that can help people in situations like this so that they see there’s hope and positivity for someone in a wheelchair.”
Kottter’s videos show him doing everything from driving his sports car to tackling home improvement projects. He even built bunkbeds in his daughter’s room.
“I think there’s a point when you have a tragedy or trauma like that, and you just feel like life is gonna stop, like life is over, there’s nothing to look forward to,” Andrea Kotter said in a video conference interview. “So just seeing even one video clip of a man who was paralyzed and now has a family and is a dad and drives cars and builds and all these things. It just gives people so much hope that there’s still life to live, which is priceless for people that are in the middle of a trauma or tragedy.”
“We didn’t want anyone else to have to feel and go through what Dan went through, which is the same thing that everyone goes through in that situation.” Andrea Kotter said. “So, if we could help even just one person, we wanted to put content out there. Now it’s helped millions and millions of people. So it’s been incredible.”
The Kotters new sink arrived packed in a wooded box with The Wheelchair Dad’s slogan painted on the side. “Punch today in the face.”
“That’s our mantra, just get up and get going. You can do it. Don’t let struggles hold you down just get up every day and get the fight on. Punch the day in the face.” Dan Kotter said.
In the time since Dino Rachiele first reached out to Kotter, the two have become friends, talking almost every day.
Rachiele was nominated for the News 6 Getting Results Award by project manager, Mataya Gurley. “This project just inspired the whole team,” Gurley said. “I just felt like it was an important story that needed to be shared.”
Mataya said Rachiele has been giving back to the community in other ways for years. “He’s been volunteering at Loaves and Fishes, a local foodbank, for years. He offers generous discounts for military veterans. He’s a kind and generous boss. And when he saw someone in a wheelchair that could benefit from something that would make his daily life better he didn’t hesitate to step in and say let’s do this.”
Dan Kotter says he can’t wait to use his new sink but it will have to wait a little longer. “Dino has put us in a predicament,” Andrea Kotter said with a laugh. “Now we feel like we have a horrible kitchen to put this beautiful sink in. So now we feel like we have to redo our kitchen.”