Stephen Lane

A suit to induce to hypothermia in cardiac arrest victims, a toy that grows with a child's developmental levels, and a device that attracts and kills mosquitoes.

These award-winning (and revenue-generating) innovations were all designed inside the walls of Providence-based ITEM Group — a fast-growing, full-service concept-to-manufacture product development consultancy that helps companies ranging from Fortune 100 giants to funded venture startups design, develop and market revolutionary new products.

Meet Stephen Lane: ITEM co-founder, CEO, entrepreneur, business growth catalyst, teacher and innovator.

Lane's inborn entrepreneurial, creative and communication qualities thrive on finding lucrative white space in highly complex situations, and building businesses around them.

A Rhode Island native, Lane began creating new products at a young age. At first his designs were simple yet diverse — a clever way to deliver nearly 100 newspapers at one time; an automatic toothpaste dispenser he made because it took too long to brush his teeth; a curb climbing wheelchair before curb-cuts existed.

Today, this passion for finding innovation opportunities is still there — just on a much greater scale in crowded, competitive product categories. It's led to the launch of hundreds of commercially successful products and more than 100 established patents — earning Lane leadership in the design, entrepreneurial and venture communities.

"We live in a world of constant invention and high-velocity product improvement," Lane says. "I have always had this understanding of what people want and never have been discouraged that the idea already exists...there's always room for innovation."

Lane is creative and he thinks outside the box all the time, but his time as a Rhode Island School of Design student brought on a new, more structured way of thinking. RISD took something instinctual and turned it into a practice.

That practice was put into motion in his academic days and continues now at his alma mater where as an adjunct faculty member, he teaches industrial design students to understand their place in the business world and how to value themselves regardless of where they operate in that world.

"Over 20 years I've applied my creative instincts and desire to innovate and design to our business," says Lane of Item Group, the company he and partner Aidan Petrie formed right out of college in 1985.

Today, that company is parent to a trio of businesses, including Item New Product Development, a product development company; Ximedica, a capital equipment and medical device business; and the most recently launched Innovation Chain Partners, a supplier of private label product programs to leading retailers.

Lane credits the success of those businesses to the creativity of his 100-plus staff, and his ability to always move forward without looking back.

One example came in the form of a maze designed in the company's headquarters. The Item Maze is where the company's five phases of product development come together. Evolving findings from various development disciplines, such as research, design and engineering, are posted in a living, collaborative workspace that is updated throughout the development process. The maze encourages brainstorming and fosters ongoing, real-time inputs from diverse professional perspectives.

"To me, innovation means being in front of the status quo or the current state of the art," he says. "That can be in the form of the product or technology."

Recently, Lane and his firm embarked on an ambitious collaborative and multi-disciplinary project with the Business Innovation Factory, the University Emergency Medical Foundation and Rhode Island Hospital to identify innovation opportunities in an emergency trauma bay — the area within an emergency department where patients receive life-sustaining treatment after serious injury or a major medical event.

Every move, every tool and every communication in the trauma bay is critical to achieving successful outcomes. "Looking at the environment from the perspective of the people who actually use it will reveal insights into the human factors that define activity within the space. It's an exciting opportunity to affect meaningful, visionary change," Lane says.

A constantly moving entity has to be comfortable with a little bit of the unknown, Lane says. "It is a little bit like parenting," he adds. "You plow through and that sort of dedication (to your business and customers) lasts forever."

Being innovative, Lane says, is about constantly questioning what your business is about now and forever. "You need to be in front of the trends and adapt appropriately. You also need guts."

"When you are in a thick fog looking for opportunity to leverage the company's assets you have to have faith, confidence and really just backbone."