One step closer

Making a dream come true often requires drudgery.

On Monday, Logan residents Glenn Lubera, his son, Jared, and friend Justin Osborne spent the morning offloading hundreds of boxes from a 40-foot container propped up on the loading dock of Tucumcari's old broom factory on the northeast side of town.

The boxes held enough handles and heads for brooms and shovels to produce the first 2,700 units of Lubera's inventions, the 3D Shovel and 3D Broom.

Lubera wants to get them assembled and distributed as soon as possible, he said.

Spring and summer are when hardware and home stores order their winter weather goods for the next onslaught of snow, ice and the wet messes they leave when they melt.

Lubera's inventions are designed to make winter chores a little easier. The 3D shovel and broom each contain a device that changes the angle of the head to the handle from perpendicular to about 45 degrees.

To change the angle, the user pulls and turns a convenient lever on the tools' bright green handles.

Lubera said he worked with designers at the Chinese firm that assembled the parts Lubera's crew offloaded from the container on Monday.

"That meant I was up 'til past midnight many nights working with them," he said. "You have to remember they're 14 hours ahead of us."

He would not name the firm, because that would reveal a trade secret, he said. He is currently in the process of getting a patent for his product.

Lubera said he has worked on the 3D tools project while holding down a full-time job as an automation specialist for Oxy, the company that mines carbon dioxide from wells in northeast Quay County and Union County.

The ability to change angles means both tools can move snow and water out of the way, Lubera said, while eliminating the need to lift and toss shovelfuls of snow, or sweep two directions to move water and debris from a path with a broom.

The 3D Broom, Lubera said, pointing to a broom head, also includes a squeegee.

Actual production, Lubera said, is likely to begin next week. In the meantime, he said, he must deal with paper work.

Lubera's operation is financed in part by an $80,000 Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) grant.

Lubera said he plans to create two full-time jobs soon. Terms of the LEDA grant require him to create two full-time jobs filled by local residents within a year and file annual reports to the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation.

Lubera said he intends to introduce the 3D shovel and broom to hardware outlets in the eastern New Mexico region over the next several weeks.

The 3D Shovel, he said, will retail for about $40, and the 3D Broom will sell for about $25.