This is when we really started to feel like a business. I was a full time framebuilder in a commercial location with a business partner. I hadn’t realized it but I chose a fork in the road. The forks were either, grow the business and get employees or stay small. I chose growth. Looking back it’s easy to see that small was more my style but at the time I couldn’t have been told that. Some people just have to go and find out for themselves and that’s exactly what I did.

During this time Tony and I stayed busy, made a little money and really started to get our process’s dialed. Tony was in charge of process engineering, tool making and helped with finish work on the frames. I marketed, sold and built the frames. We had an open house/BBQ each spring and organized spring and fall trips to the “Desert” (Moab and Fruita). This was a really fun time. I have Tony to thank for that because he was a great social organizer. We were a strong (no pun intend) part of the local cycling community. We also promoted races and sponsored teams.

Tony and I decided that we could make more money and control our turn-around if we finished our own frames. We decided on Powder coat because it was environmentally friendly and produced incredibly durable finishes. We decided to get a loan to buy a system but we didn’t have room for it in our current shop. It so happened that our landlord (and my current next door neighbor whom I’ve know all my life) had a 2500 s/f shop vacating. We decided to take the new shop, buy the powder coat system and move. Our new shop was Lea Ave and off we went.