Inc. Magazine – September 2019

PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY LUONG ● ● ● SEPTEMBER 2019 ● INC. ● 103

HOW A

JOB LAYOFF

KICKSTARTED

A COMPANY

I grew up playing hockey in New

Jersey, and I was keenly aware of how

sharpening affects your skate perfor-

mance. The only thing I can liken it to

is getting your racket restrung in tennis,

except with ice hockey and figure skat-

ing, you’re getting your skates sharpened

at the pro shop once a week. It was such

a pain. Over the summers, as a teen, I’d

go to hockey camp and we’d sneak in

an old-fashioned sharpener—this group

of 12-year-old boys huddled around,

essentially, a bench grinder in a dorm

closet, trying to keep our edges sharp

without losing an eye. It was nuts.

Everyone in my blue-collar neighbor-

hood was a hustler—holding down

multiple jobs and picking up odd hours

when they could. From the time I was 10,

I worked: I had a paper route, I answered

phones at the church rectory, I pumped

gas, and as soon as it snowed, I’d grab my

shovel and hit the sidewalks. I even made

business cards as a teen to drum up more

business.

But I didn’t want to be hustling in the

same way as an adult; I saw college as a

way out. Once I started, however, it felt

Russ Layton was one of the few people in

his blue-collar neighborhood to make it to

college—and by most measures, his career

in mechanical engineering was a success.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was

just going through the motions. When an

unexpected windfall and job loss collided, he

took it as a sign to go all-in on solving a child-

hood frustration. —AS TOLD TO KATE ROCKWOOD

The Long Game

Decades after Russ Layton began

playing ice hockey—and sharpening his

skates on an archaic machine—he

designed a smarter blade sharpener.