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Onalaska businessman Ryan Rugroden was named as one of 10 finalists in the Nation’s Most Innovative Companies competition sponsored by the National Federation of Independent Businesses and Dell Computers.

“The No. 1 reason small businesses use technology is to better serve customers, and no one is doing it better than these 10 finalists,” said Frank Muehleman, vice president and general manager of Dell Small and Medium Business. “These companies are applying technology in innovative ways to break new ground and raise the bar.”

Rugroden owns and operates Rugroden Drafting and Design in Onalaska. The 41-year-old lives in Holmen and has been in the design/drafting business since graduating from Mankato (Minn.) Technical College of Architectural Drafting in 1990.

He’s integrated his drafting skills with his customer service acumen and fully utilizing state-of-the-art technology to perform a highly unique service for clients building their dream home.

By using a program that takes blueprints that builders and architects draw and transforms them into 3-D renderings of what a room or house will look like when it is built, Rugroden turns a client’s requests, thoughts, words and ideas into a fully-rendered, 3-D virtual home. He and his clients can sit at his computer and take a virtual walk-through of their future home. Modifications can be made and tested before the final plans are even drawn up and presented to a builder.

“Ninety percent of the people that build new homes don’t fully understand the floor plan because they can’t visualize the result,” Rugroden said. “I have a service that sets me apart from others. Designing and drafting a house is a secondary service for lumberyards and builders. They don’t want to be doing that; they’d rather be selling a product or building.”

Using architectural design software called Softplan, Rugroden designs plans for homes but instead of just spitting out a slew of very technical drawings, people can leave with a rendering of what the room will look like. While in his office, they can get a 360-degree picture of their home.

What used to take 80 to 100 hours of drafting now takes about 30 hours on the computer. The best part, he said, is people understand what he gives them.

If someone says to him, “I want to be able to watch my children out in the back yard while standing at my kitchen island,” Rugroden draws up the plans and then, from a 3-D picture as if the person is standing behind the kitchen island, shows what can be seen right from that spot. It’s like standing in one spot in the center of the room and viewing it through the lens of a camcorder and spinning around the room.

It’s like taking the house for a test drive. “For example, if the client says she’s not sure where the fireplace should go, I can move it around,” Rugroden said. “We can literally see whether it looks best in the corner, on the center of this wall or that wall and make all kinds of what-ifs without changing a thing.”

The same can be tried for determining where the windows of a master bedroom might be, how they fit around a bed.

Instead of bringing in color swatches, clients can experiment with colors of walls, counters, fixtures or any surface and even see in 3-D how furniture might fit into a room.

“Many times, people don’t realize how much space the furniture takes up,” Rugroden said. “They can bring in the furniture measurements and experiment with where it would look best and if the room size they’ve decided on can accommodate their existing furniture instead of finding out after the house is built that the favorite recliner is not going to fit. When people leave from a meeting with me, there are no surprises.”

He can even change the outside scenery to reflect whether the house is going to be in a field or on a mountain with a stream nearby or even by the ocean.

“You wouldn’t buy a car based on the manufacturer’s drawings,” Rugroden said. “You test drive it. You get in the car, drive it around and see how it feels to you. This is the biggest investment people make and it is lost if people don’t know what they’re getting. We can get to the fine details before the plans are even drawn or put a house out to bid to builders.”

Rugroden said he entered the contest after seeing it advertised in the NFIB magazine he gets as a member. It was an online application he almost didn’t complete. There were too many essay questions, he said, making the application so long he didn’t want to complete the form. So he left it online without finishing it, doubting he’d have the time to get back to finishing it.

Then he got a phone call from Dell notifying him his form was incomplete. So he obtained testimonials and finished the application and the next thing he knew he got a call saying he was in the Top 10 finalists.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Rugroden said. “There were over 1,000 entries nationwide. It’s because of the testimonials. I’m so thankful — they were great.”

He found out recently he didn’t win the top prize. That was won by a company in Pennsylvania. But as a finalist he won a year’s membership in NFIB and $1,500 worth of Dell computer equipment. When he told the manufacturers of the software that he won the award partly because of their software, he received a free upgrade worth $700 from them.