Thomas Edison said: "Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged."

Calverton resident Willie Rangel has developed an idea of his own - actually he first thought of it over six years ago. And while he admits that at times the road ahead of him looks hard, with his own homemade product in working order, the word "impossible" would be a stretch to describe how he feels about his own invention, El Diablo Match.

"If I have to, I'll make these myself and walk around Manhattan with a backpack selling them to stores," he said.

Since moving to Calverton nearly a year ago, Rangel has worked even harder to push his idea forward, as he sees his non-traditional match - which lights with a striker wrapped around the matchstick head instead of on the side of a box - as one of the next great ideas to make the lives of cigar smokers, hikers and campers, and other audiences easier with his invention, which has a patent pending.

"I'd pay a dollar for this," he said, holding a package of three El Diablo matches. Each striker wrapped around each match, he said, lasts an average of four to five times before wearing out. "And who would pay a couple bucks for a few matches? I think a lot of cigar smokers would."

Rangel hasn't got to the point of backpacking his matches around the city, though a surprise pop-in at the New York City headquarters of Cigar Aficionado did sound like it came from a scene from a movie.

"I went to their offices and asked for the editor, and the next thing I know, I was in an elevator going up to see him," he said. "He said it was a little bit of a nontraditional way of getting his attention, but I got his attention at least."

The editor, Greg Mottola, ended up showing Rangel's product to the Vice Publisher of Cigar Aficionado, Barry Abrams. 

Reached on his cell phone, Abrams said, "I thought it was pretty cool. It's a talking point, what you would call a novelty. But that's about all I can say."

Which leaves Rangel where he's at now.

"I show a lot of people and most say, 'That's pretty cool.' But that and a quarter will get me what?"

Rangel has attended meetings with the Inventors and Entreprenuners Club of Suffolk County to try and answer that question and, according to the club's founder and inventor Brian Fried, he has a couple ways he can go now. Rangel can license his product himself and sell it to companies that sell similar products, or he could manufacture it and set up the distribution, accounting, and receiving all on his own.

In the meantime, Fried has encouraged him to attend trade shows to keep an eye on the industry he's trying to crack into.

"In Willie's case, he has to identify his market and look at the window of opportunity," Fried said. "And he has to look at the competition and see if he can find a partner if his finances are tight."

Rangel is currently working part-time to secure funding and save up for a utility patent, which he says are a "must" for most manufacturing companies to consider doing business.

In an effort to spread awareness, he's reached to local media, and was recently featured on Riverhead News-Review's website.

Should El Diablo strike it big, Rangel said down the line, he'd like to market some more ideas he has - he made it to the set of American Inventor with one of his ideas - and some day be able to help inventors looking to get their ideas off the ground.