A Burleson inventor plunges into profitability with the Johnny-Light

BURLESON -- For months, Burleson inventor Bill Bradford was hounded by environmentalists with hundreds of e-mails and late-night telephone calls.

They were contacting him to complain they didn't like the mercury in his Johnny-Light toilet-seat product, which Bradford helped invent. In fact, they wanted him to replace the chemical element, which is now considered an environmental toxin -- particularly around children.

At first Bradford was angry, especially since the complainers were using his toll-free phone number. The number was intended to take orders for Bradford's unique product: a light in the toilet bowl that turns on when a man lifts the seat.

Then he had a change of heart.

"It dawned on me, let's look at changing this and maybe, just maybe, they'll put as much or more effort into promoting Johnny-Light as they spent hammering me," said Bradford. "They have a voice. I heard what they were saying, and I acted upon what I was hearing."

The new, mercury-free Johnny-Light is now back on the market. But, to his surprise, Bradford has heard nothing yet from his tree-hugging friends.

That's disappointing, said Bradford, an electrical engineer who's been marketing the patented Johnny-Light for five years.

But, being a philosophic guy -- one who peppers his down-home Texas speech with multiple references to a higher power -- Bradford accepts the turn of events as just one more bump in the entrepreneur's road.

That never-say-die attitude is a key reason the Johnny-Light has succeeded against all odds, according to John Thompson, an instructor in marketing at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Sales have reached nearly 50,000 units, and the Johnny-Light, which sells for about $11, actually became profitable 18 months ago, according to Bradford.