Financial executive adds inventor to resume

After a career as a top financial executive for a variety of organizations, from an air-conditioning company to the Sarasota Opera, Ken Kwiatkowski, 59, recently added something new to his resume: inventor.

His creation? The humorously named Grasshole. It’s a sprinkler head protection system, designed from flexible ABS plastic. Kwiatkowski says it’s a solution to the mostly unseen, yet frustrating and costly issue of sprinkler head damage and alignment issues, which, in turn, lead to grass and yard problems. Kwiatkowski, like many other investors, came up with the idea when he couldn’t find a solution in the marketplace. In his case, it was when he couldn’t find something to protect his own sprinkler heads. “I had some that kept breaking,” says Kwiatkowski, who lives in Bradenton. “I thought I could create a better product.”