InterShelter Portable Building

(Post: English)
"Don Kubley says he is "as mechanical as a stump." But that hasn't stopped the fourth-generation Alaskan from developing a business around a nifty piece of engineering: a portable building that looks like an igloo (with a door and windows) and can be assembled by hand."

Kubley says pieces of his InterShelter dome fit together like fish scales and can be stacked in the back of a pickup truck, a noteworthy quality for customers looking to transport units to hard-to-reach locations.

The standard 314-sq.-ft. structure retails for $12,500 and is available from dealers in a dozen countries as well as online.

Kubley, 56, credits architect Craig Chamberlain, a former student of geodesic dome inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, with dreaming up the design and says he bought the rights to commercialize it two years ago.

After a protracted search, Kubley recently found a manufacturer in Idaho to build kits.

So far, Kubley, a former consultant who says he ran a fleet of charter boats out of Juneau for 20 years, has raised $250,000 from friends and family.

Though 2008, revenue was only around $140,000.

Kubley says he is negotiating with the U.S. military and Afghan authorities and projects up to $5 million in sales in 2009.

Source: BusinessWeek