Originally printed in Westerm Montana Business Monthly - March 2006

Safe and sound — Safe Shop Tools succeeds by bringing ideas to market
By TYLER CHRISTENSEN

Hale Williams, co-founder of Safe Shop Tools Inc., holds a BoaGrip, one of the company's newest products. Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian

About the owners:

Craig Rawlings and Hale Williams co-founded Safe Shop Tools Inc., a company that designs and commercializes innovative new products, in 1992.

Williams, 64, is the company's vice president. Originally from Butte, Williams came to Missoula to attend the University of Montana and become a CPA. Rawlings, the president of the company, grew up in a family that constructed and owned sawmills. He worked as a millwright and managed some of his family's sawmills before he helped establish Rawlings Construction Co. He and Williams met through a mutual friend, and shortly afterward Williams started working at Rawlings' business, where they commercialized their first major product together.

Both Williams and Rawlings are married to women named Carol. Williams has three grown children and Rawlings has two.

Five keys to success from Safe Shop Tools:

• Identify a product that fits a niche in the market.

• Adapt the product so it's widely usable.

• Design the product so it's manufacturable - so that the production process is as smooth and simple as possible.

• Prove the product's ability to sell by getting it out into the market. This usually means initially selling it to the direct end user.

• Get the product into distribution.

When Craig Rawlings and Hale Williams co-founded their Missoula business, they already knew how to market new products.

They just needed new products to market.

Their company, Safe Shop Tools Inc., is in the business of acquiring promising prototypes, developing them and then commercializing them. When the company started in 1992, the focus was on finding the kinds of products mechanics and industrial companies needed to help prevent worker injuries - hence the company's name.

But since then, the company has expanded into a whole new line. Its most recent product is a lightweight foldable platform that would replace the tailgate in a pickup truck. Tentatively called the RoundUp Ramp, the platform folds down to act as a ramp for recreational vehicles like ATVs and snow machines, explained Williams, vice president of the company.

Williams specializes in the financial end of the business while Rawlings, the company president, handles the marketing side, but both have experience in product development and commercialization. They met in the '80s, when Williams was working at the family business Rawlings helped found, Rawlings Construction Co. That company was manufacturing a wood waste processor called the Rawlings Rotary Hog. Together, Rawlings and Williams developed a marketing plan and before long they were turning sales of more than $2 million a year.

In 1989, they started a new company, Lifting Technologies Inc., which was built around a core product, a mechanical platform that lifts workers. Three years later they sold that business to their partners and formed Safe Shop.Essentially, the company identifies a need in its market and patents or licenses the patent for a product that meets that need. The company then designs, field-tests, and finally advertises the invention.

For example, Safe Shop's first big hit came from a Helena mechanic who'd hurt his back removing the heavy brake drums and hub assemblies from trucks. He came up with a basic device that allowed him to lift the drums and hubs without further straining his back. "That's the best kind of product, the one somebody develops for their own use," Williams said. Safe Shop paid the mechanic a royalty, then patented, developed and eventually marketed the device as the Back Buddy.

"That got us into the truck service business," Williams said. "The rest of the products came out of the truck service business."

They started developing an entire line of Truck Service tools, which was bringing them about $1 million a year. Last year they sold the line, including five patents and two registered trademarks, to Tire Service Equipment Manufacturing Company Inc., a leading manufacturer of tire and truck service tools.

"The process of bringing things into commercialization is pretty rewarding," Williams said.

It's also pretty slow, he added. Some days it seems as though nothing is happening, and it's hard to stick to the plan he and Rawlings have laid out.

"That's the toughest thing with a lot of entrepreneurs, is they don't stay the course," Williams said.

But that's what impresses her most about their company, said Rosalie Cates, executive director of the Montana Community Development Corp. It takes discipline to see a new idea through all its stages. The first stage - the flash of inspiration - is the fun part; the methodical process of designing, testing, redesigning and retesting in preparation for the market takes a lot of forethought, she said.

MCDC has provided financing for the company several times over the years so the business could expand its product lines, Cates said. And all those loans have been repaid, she added.

Now the company is working on one of its most recent products, a nylon lifting sling called the BoaGrip. Most chains and slings slide around on heavy gas cylinders and metal poles, especially tapered ones - but the BoaGrip is equipped with rows of polymer traction bars so the sling won't slide, Williams said.

"As of yesterday we have the BoaGrip into distribution with the biggest manufacturer in the industry, LiftAll," Williams said. "The BoaGrip has just taken off. We'll probably do over $250,000 with the BoaGrip this year, I'm guessing."

With that product on the launch pad, Safe Shop is focusing its attentions on the RoundUp Ramp, he said. That's enough to keep the three-person company occupied for now.

They don't yet know what their next product will be. The company won't take on just any new invention, Williams said. The product has to fill a need in the market.

"If somebody came to us with a better screwdriver, that probably would not be something we would take on," Williams said. "The market's already developed for screwdrivers."

Tyler Christensen is the staff writer for Western Montana InBusiness Monthly. She can be reached at 523-5215 or through e-mail at tchristensen@missoulian.com