Liz Holland is the innovative owner, chief executive officer, designer, and inventor at Sensory Product Design LLC, based in California yet serving customers globally. After she was diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder (SPD) as an adult, Ms. Holland was moved to launch her company to shine a light on this relatively unknown category of disorders that are often overlooked, minimized, or ridiculed by those lacking education on the subject. Upon finding a therapist who specialized in treating SPD, Ms. Holland realized that she had already been inventing solutions to cope with her sensitivities throughout her life.
Key to understanding her own triggers, Ms. Holland says, was an understanding of domino triggers, which describes the knock-on effect of hypersensitivity once one sense is triggered. Without proper knowledge of this complex neurological disorder, the line between being productive and being nearly catatonic can be extremely difficult to navigate, and the symptoms can become debilitating. Dedicated to helping others like her, yet who have gone undiagnosed and struggled with feeling flawed their whole lives, Ms. Holland began developing her flagship, celebrated Cozy????TM line of products. During the research and development stage, she discovered that the product not only helped with specific temperature triggers but also helped settle the nervous system. Emboldened by this realization, Ms. Holland continued working on numerous applications of her patented hand and foot pockets that warm the extremities and allow wearers to micro-adjust their levels of warmth. She proudly declares that her CozyThrow????TM and CozyCo????TM products can also help people without SPD. The technology helps all users to find their center and settle their nervous systems.
Throughout her own life, Ms. Holland’s sensitivity to stimuli has been a source of difficulty and struggle, but upon launching her Cozy????TM line of products, she realized this same hypersensitivity has helped her to excel as a designer. She is completely devoted to realizing her vision and spends her time making prototypes, remaking products that don’t live up to her needs, and researching improvements to her designs. Ms. Holland strives to find the gifts and lessons in every part of her life, an outlook that has led her to operate Sensory Product Design LLC with gratitude and never take aspects of the process for granted. She has learned firsthand that even with a well-developed design, every other part of the product launch and rollout must be well-executed for the product to reach its full potential. Lacking effective execution of even one component, from manufacturing to marketing to distribution, the product can fall flat. With this knowledge, Ms. Holland spent time researching the entire product cycle for her proprietary creations to ensure they were the best they could be.
Inspired by the prolific career of her father, who was an inventor, engineer, and pilot with more than 100 patents to his name, Ms. Holland attributes her success to her exceptional problem-solving skills and attention to detail. As a child, she spent countless nights examining products, brainstorming names, and strategizing for her father’s business interests alongside her loving family. Moved by this background in innovative and creative design, Ms. Holland studied industrial design, metalsmithing, and jewelry design at the Philadelphia College of Art, now known as the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1985. Alongside her formal degree, she was certified in industrial and product design through InventRight. As the principal designer for Prince Tennis, she designed tennis racquets and helped the company overcome a period of low market share to earn five international industrial design awards. At the core of this impressive feat was Ms. Holland’s innovative racquet design, which featured larger holes.
Ms. Holland is an active member of the Industrial Design Society of America. She envisions her Cozy????TM line taking off and strives to help millions of people worldwide through her developments. At the helm of Sensory Product Design LLC, she leads with caring and gratitude for her team, as she believes that being genuinely concerned for others will produce the best results. To this day, she remains motivated by the example of her late father, whose book “Let My People Go Surfing: Education of a Reluctant Businessman” remains an enduring inspiration for the operation of her company. In the future, Ms. Holland looks forward to introducing the CozyGo????TM and registering trademarks for her whole line of products.