 Once the Leathermans returned to the U.S., Tim decided to put his engineering degree to use and see if he could somehow combine a pocket knife with pliers. With his wife's blessing, he started tinkering. She went to work to support us, and I went to the garage and picked up a file and a hacksaw and started trying to build what was in my mind. After several different iterations, Leatherman eventually came up with something that looked like this. You open it up, and you have a pair of needle-nosed pliers.