Utah designer's brain is always buzzin' with ideas

Sure he's got the big house on the hill and the snowmobiles and the motorcycles and the Jet Skis and the weekly flying lessons and a wife and four kids and a Utah-based company called Ogio that has gone global and cracked a market dominated by Nike and Callaway and the other big boys, but it isn't easy being Michael Pratt.

He can't turn off his brain. From the mundane to the grandiose, his head is buzzing with ideas 24/7. Ideas for businesses, ideas for products, ideas for fixing up the yard, ideas for better light fixtures, ideas for designing a better golf bag, ideas, ideas, ideas. Even on vacation he doesn't get a vacation, it being difficult to leave your brain at the office.

He was trying to relax on the beach in Hawaii recently with his family, but his mind was thinking about how he could provide services on the beach and how to make the beach a better place to play. Later, he was driving around the island and couldn't find a convenience store, which prompted him to wonder if he should open a convenience store and how he would go about doing that. Then he went to a surf shop, where he started to think about how he could improve the shop.

"It's a blessing and a curse," says Dave Wunderli, president of Ogio and Pratt's longtime friend. "He's told me several times that he'll go for a walk with his wife and can't shut it off. Suddenly he's saying, 'Those people shouldn't have planted that tree there; in a few years it will block that view.' "

Pratt was working out at a local athletic club when the shape and design of the exercise equipment caught his eye. He called his design team to take pictures of the equipment and applied the designs to other, unrelated products.

Which is how his mind works. He got the idea for the design of the club holder in the Ogio golf bag from the lines and molded shape of the BMW automobile. He was so smitten with the mechanics and material on a pair of ski boots that he is applying both in the creation of luggage. Similarly, he has applied the shape and lines of motorcycles and airplanes to athletic bags.

Nothing seems to escape Pratt's attention. He was in a Denver restaurant with his family when the design of the condiment bar, of all things, caught his eye. He took pictures while the kids groaned. Not again.

"I'm sick," says the 45-year-old Pratt.

On the other hand, his sickness has made him wealthy. It was his sickness that caused him to invent a better gym bag because his own bag wouldn't fit in a locker. That was the beginning of Ogio, which makes bags for travel, sports, golf, motocross, snowboard, baseball, skateboarding, surfing, laptops and school.