From Burger To Bicycles, This Inventor Tinkers With All

PORTLAND - ``It's impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.''

Roger Berg wrote that line, but he doesn't always follow his own advice.

If there is a need for a gadget anywhere in Berg's universe, he'll invent it.

Wheel covers that make bicycles more aerodynamically svelte. A bed shaped like a race car. Easy-to-pull carts for backpackers' extra equipment. A machine that broils burgers vertically.

That last invention is the one that made Berg famous locally. His Cooper Mountain home, built on an acre that commands a 180-degree view, could be called the house that Verti-Burger built.

Berg sold his Verti-Burger spread two years ago, but the interior of the burger and ice-cream emporium still speaks of his influence, from the posters on the ceiling to the homage to Elvis that lines the walls on the way to the restrooms.

Berg, who is never without a thought to occupy him, saw to it that Verti-Burger gave the customers plenty to keep busy. Software in the cash register - he has the patent - assigns customers numbers that can win an hourly lottery. Table tops are covered with trivia questions. Original bumper stickers - ``I saw Elvis at Verti-Burger'' - are stuck to various surfaces.

Even the glasses have punny sayings on them. ``One good turn gets the whole blanket,'' one says.

In the center sits one of Berg's more unusual concepts. Up to six hard-drinking buddies can race the clock at once using his Chug-a-Lug machine.

When he invented the contraption, the chug of choice was carbonated apple juice. The bikers who used the field that once was next to the restaurant would come in hot, thirsty and ready for a challenge.

Now the field is gone, and the Chug-a-Lug machine has become an artifact.

But back to the Verti-Burger concept. Berg started with just an ice-cream store. The winter business - only polar bears eat ice cream in winter - was killing him, and besides, customers wanted sandwiches. One 6-foot-6 giant from Connecticut was especially insistent.

``I told him frying hamburgers made too much smoke,'' Berg said. ``But he said, `Not if you cook them vertically.' ''

Berg gave it a try. After some experimenting, he patented a method that sticks hamburger patties between two very hot infrared heaters. The juices, which never get hot enough to burn or vaporize, harmlessly dribble into a drip pan. The patty is cooked but not charred.

Now that he has sold the restaurant and the Verti-Burger machine, Berg is busily developing a new Verti-Burger fryer for home ovens. It's called Burger-Up, and Berg said it makes great chicken, too.

It might be a great new concept, but Burger-Up will have to compete for Berg's time and attention with all the other things he designs, manufactures and sells.

``We do a lot of different things,'' he said. ``We figure they can't all be losers.''

The biggest non-loser so far is the Uni-Disc nylon wheel cover. The idea is to cut the drag that builds up when bicycle spokes slice the air. For $40, Berg said, ``You can really go one gear higher on a familiar road.''

Like many inventors, Berg was an inveterate tinkerer as a child. He specialized in scooters and soapbox racers.

As a Beaverton High School senior in 1956, he won the Northwest Science Fair by building a solar-powered car. It worked, after a fashion.

His prowess landed him a job as an industrial designer with General Motors. After staking him through college, the auto maker sent him to work with a design group that produced, among other things, the first plans for the square headlights now found in most cars.

But Berg longed for his hometown. Coincidence put him in touch with a woman in Youngstown, Ohio, who had her own ice-cream business. Impressed with the young man, she remembered that she, too, had started in business at age 35. She gave him her blessing - and all her recipes - and the next thing he knew, Berg was back in Beaverton.

Not so successful was ``The Dream Machine'' - a water bed frame that looked like a race car. The fancy red prototype sported tires and had a dashboard headboard. It survived one trade show before Berg got into bicycles.

There is no time better than the present to be inventing, he said. ``Always be thinking, because it really is an interesting era - we just are really at the infancy of developing stuff.''