Gamblin' Man

Rob Brady gets the same question before every business trip he takes to pitch his technology design company's products in Las Vegas: Are you going to gamble out there?

Brady has a joke at the ready in retort: “I'm a small business owner, so I gamble every day,” says Brady, chief executive and design director of Sarasota-based Robrady. “I go to Vegas to get some rest.”

Technically speaking, however, that is no joke. Brady, whose 19-year-old firm has designed products from electric bikes to Lasik surgical tools to a pair of floating pliers, has led a seismic — and risky — shift at the company in order to survive the recession. That has included altering the company's business model to design and test several products on spec, instead of building those services into the initial contract like it used to.