Debi LeVieux experienced what most floral customers encounter while transporting their floral arrangements and created a floral delivery system to solve a need.
                                           This is her story:

I  was   working   as   an    Office  Manager          when          dating           a
gentleman     who   was   kind   enough
to send me flowers about once a month. I always thought flowers were God’s gift of beauty to this world. I enjoy the unique color, shape and aroma of all the different varieties. To have flowers delivered to me at my office made me feel special and brightened my day.

Of course, just like everyone, my first thought and comment would be “ Oh, they're beautiful”. Then as soon as the delivery driver walked out the door my immediate next thought and comment would be “How am I going to get them home?” It only takes a couple of times of trying to deliver a vase of flowers home  do you come  to realize it is  not easy. Even though this was a difficult task, I wanted to bring them home to show the man who purchased them how much I appreciated his thought.

I noticed after a few months the arrangements were being delivered from a different Retailer almost every time. When I asked him about it he stated he was not pleased with how the arrangements appeared after I would bring them home. Some of them would have broken stems or half the pedals gone. It was then I realized that not only transporting the beautiful arrangements home almost caused me to wreck and created a mess in my vehicle but he was becoming discouraged with his purchases. Concerned that the beautiful flowers would stop coming, I knew I needed to find a way to deliver them so he could view them the same as I did when I first received them.

I called several of the Florists and was told several ways to transport my arrangements. Some of the suggestions were to empty the water out of the vase, to wrap the seat belt around them, or find a box and stuff paper around the vase. Well, emptying the water made the flowers appear wilted, the seat belt just created more damage to the arrangement, and it wasn’t always easy to find the right size of box laying around. I was very excited to hear that one of our local supermarkets provided a floral carrier to their customers so I requested one. My excitement quickly vanished after braking too quickly and the floral box tipped over right along with the flower arrangement, creating another mess. I had enough but was not willing to give up receiving my flowers. I decided to create my own transporter for my arrangements and proceeded inventing a prototype that worked.

It was a coworker who noticed my invention and stated I was not the only one who has had problems transporting flowers. After being encouraged to share my product with others, I knew it was just as important for it to work for the Florists as well. I presented the product to some of the local top designers and with their input made some minor changes to create the VaseValet®.

In 2002 I started my own company. Vase Valet, Ltd. is a Kansas-based company whose mission is to provide a superior transporter solution to the floral retailers that strive to achieve customer satisfaction. The patented VaseValet® is now sold nation wide to Retail Florists.