Carry Pat Milan’s ‘Ski E-Z” or ‘Ely-Z’ chairs with you and you can sit anywhere

While vacationing and skiing in France, sitting on a slope, sitting on the ground, sitting in the snow, the thought occurred to Pat Milan, by the seat of his pants, “there must be a better way than sitting in the snow, on the ground, on the side of the slope.” Sometimes people take their skis and shove them into the snow and put the ski poles across the bindings and sit on the poles, but that’s not very comfortable. Pat thought there must be a better way and that’s when he started working on a chair design using skis and poles. He designed the comfortable chair while he was living in Switzerland. When he was back in the States he began searching for a manufacturer. He would have liked to have his chair manufactured in the United States but it was not cost effective so he went with a manufacturer overseas. Pat’s “Ski E-Z Chair” has a harness type device attached to the skis which turns them into a comfortable chair that can be set up on uneven terrain. The harness folds up and is carried in a small bag attached to a belt, akin to a fanny pack. In May 2003 Pat had his first shipment of chairs flown into Denver, Colorado. In August 2004 Pat and his wife Josie moved to Ely and he got the idea to pursue the chair design using dead wood as the chair supports. “There’s plenty of dead fallen wood around that you can use for firewood, but,” Pat says, “why not use it for a chair first.” Now instead of using skis, this compact and lightweight package can be carried while camping, canoeing, hunting, fishing or hiking and can be set it up using dead fallen wood from the forest. He calls it, “The Ely-Z Chair.” The ski chair was manufactured but needed some modification to be used with wood so Pat had a local man who does repair type sewing, Rick Aylsworth of ‘Get There Designs’, make the modification. The next generation of chair Pat plans to design will accommodate either skis or wood but for now you have to chose either the Skiits for skiing or the Ely-Z chair using wood. The chairs are sold in a couple places in Ely - at the new Ely Sportswear Shop, the Northern Tier High Adventure Camp Boys Scout Base, at the Blue Heron, or on line at www.skiits.com. The Scouts are testing three chairs and say they put their tents up first and immediately after that they set up the chairs and the kids fight over the chairs to see who can sit first. The Boy Scouts will be selling the chairs at the Blueberry Arts Festival near the dunking tank. The Entrepreneurship fund in Virginia was very helpful in this business venture. Since Pat just retired from the service and is a new entrepreneur, he had lots of questions. The Entrepreneurship fund was helpful teaching the business aspects and forming a business plan and marketing ideas. Pat and Josie are members of the newly formed Ely Business Cooperative which is an offshoot of the Ely Area Development Association. Much to their credit and congratulations, Pat received two awards for his chair invention at the Inventors Congress in Redwood Falls, MN this past June. They received a Bronze award for the actual invention and another award for the presentation and the overall display of the product. Originally from Minnesota, they traveled throughout the United States and Europe while serving in the Army for 20 years. They currently manage the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast and hope to one day own it.Pat is currently working on the idea of “GEO Caching” - using a GPS (Global Positioning System) - in conjunction with his chairs. There are currently caches all over the world listed on www.geocaching.com - sort of like a treasure hunt. Pat’s idea is to cache the sticks in a beautiful area and post the coordinates on the website. People can then find the locations and set up their Ely-Z Chair to take in the view.