Episode 312 with Don Rycroft, founder of RPM Steering

This week, Rich sits down with Arizona native and RPM Steering founder, Don Rycroft, for a candid, high-horsepower story of resilience, faith, and community in off-road. From BMX racing and desert motos to early marriage, entrepreneurship, and a life-reset at 50, Don shares how setbacks forged a family-run brand that’s now a national name in steering and suspension.

Don’s story is a masterclass in grit: lean into faith, serve the community, build cool parts that work—and have fun on the trail. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off road industry. Being involved, like all my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present and future legends as well as business owners, employees, media and land use warriors. Men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle. We call off road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off Road.

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[00:01:13.090] - Big Rich Klein

On this week's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, My guest landed in Arizona at about the age of six years old, found a love for anything with wheels as a youth, has overcome tragedies and business failures by maintaining his faith and need to flourish. My guest is Don Rycroft. Good morning, Don Rycroft. It's so good to have you on the podcast. I'm looking forward to this one. I've been following your stuff for a couple of years, but I don't think we've ever really met or talked.

[00:01:46.040] - Don Rycroft

No. Good morning Rich. No, I don't think we've come across each other's paths at events yet and got the opportunity to talk or meet.

[00:01:53.650] - Big Rich Klein

Well, here we are. So let's get started with the first question I ask everybody. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:01.410] - Don Rycroft

Well, I was born in Simi Valley, California, but we only lived there a short period of time because when the 72 quake hit, my parents fled. So I kind of spent about four years. They jumped from state to state trying to figure out where to go. And ironically, it's kind of a hilarious story, they ended up in Mississippi. Corn farmers. First tornado season came through, ripped our house in half. And they said, okay, that's enough of that. Went to Colorado. And the first season we were in Colorado for snow was like the worst blizzard they had had in like 25 years. And the story my folks told was that they rolled a map out on the table, pointed to where there was no weather, traumatic weather, and ended up in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I personally call 122 degrees in the shade traumatic Weather.

[00:02:59.940] - Big Rich Klein

No kidding.

[00:03:02.260] - Don Rycroft

But that's where they felt. There was no storms. There was nothing in a, you know, calamities that were going to happen. And so we ended up in Arizona. And I've spent majority of my life, from six years old on here in this state.

[00:03:14.730] - Big Rich Klein

So then those early years of jumping around, you really don't recall much of that except for what you've been told?

[00:03:21.370] - Don Rycroft

There's some vague memories. I mean, I do. You know, when a tornado rips through your house and you're in the basement, I don't care that you're four years old. You remember that?

[00:03:28.370] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow, you did get hit by a tornado.

[00:03:30.410] - Don Rycroft

Wow. Oh, yeah. It ripped an oak tree, went through the middle of the house while we were in the basement, tore the house in half. And I remember the rumbling and you know, vaguely I just remember the stuff from being that age, but I remember all the rumbling and it sounding horrific and we were in the basement, you know, just freaking out. So, you know, you remember a little bit of that. I remember the snowstorms because we were sledding in it and stuff like that, but I don't remember much about that. Most of my memories started about six, when we came to Arizona. And I have a lot of memories here from, from what we've done in this state.

[00:04:05.190] - Big Rich Klein

And so how do you stay out of that 116 degrees in the shade in Arizona during the summer?

[00:04:15.950] - Don Rycroft

We, we just stay inside.

[00:04:18.070] - Big Rich Klein

So it's all about the AC and the. And at least you can use swamp coolers.

[00:04:23.830] - Don Rycroft

Well, swamp coolers are, are really a thing of the past here. They're, they're. You, you, you hide in the AC is what you do. You, you definitely hide in the ac. We have a pool, so if we want, we go out and take a dip and cool off in the pool and. But it's hot. I mean, we don't wheel. We don't do anything related to that. You try and go up north if you can, because you can go up to Prescott or Flagstaff and get out of the heat and that kind of thing, so.

[00:04:54.270] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And one of the things I've noticed is when you fly over the greater Phoenix area, there are a lot of pools even in the neighborhood. You wouldn't think there are pools.

[00:05:07.630] - Don Rycroft

Yep. I think we have the highest pool per capita of any state in the country.

[00:05:12.670] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, My, my sister lives in Scottsdale and I can remember coming down from Cedar City when my kids were. Oh, little rich was eighth grade. Seventh. Eighth grade. And. Yeah, eighth grade. Eighth or ninth grade. And we were. My daughter's younger than that, and we get there for Christmas to my. My sister's house, and the kids. Oh, pool. And so they go jumping in the pool. And my sister goes, they can't be swimming. And I said, why? And she goes, it's only 70 degrees out. We just left Cedar City. It was 4 degrees. Yeah.

[00:05:52.500] - Don Rycroft

My mom and dad used to have a tradition of plunging in the pool on Christmas morning.

[00:05:56.900] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:05:58.020] - Don Rycroft

I thought they were crazy. We. We didn't do it, but they did for just fun.

[00:06:02.600] - Big Rich Klein

But that's awesome. So then you get to Scottsdale, since that's where you just. The majority of your growing up was done. And that was. That's fairly early. What year was that about? I don't. I don't want to ask your age right out, but I think.

[00:06:24.800] - Don Rycroft

I think we got here. I was 6 years old when we hit Scottsdale. And I don't mind. I'm 60. I was born in 68.

[00:06:30.840] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:06:32.040] - Don Rycroft

So I was. It was roughly 1972, because that's when my sister was born, and she was born here. And so we came. I'm sorry, 74. So right around 74. And yeah, we came to Scottsdale. It was not the Scottsdale you see today, obviously.

[00:06:49.860] - Big Rich Klein

No, Much more rural.

[00:06:52.180] - Don Rycroft

Yeah.

[00:06:52.620] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:06:53.620] - Don Rycroft

But we only lived there a year. We rented a house there for a year, and then my folks moved across the Salt river, if you're familiar with the area, into Tempe. And almost my entire life was in Tempe.

[00:07:06.160] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, and that Tempe is the home to asu?

[00:07:11.360] - Don Rycroft

Yes. We were actually not far from asu, where our. Our home was growing up.

[00:07:15.880] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, and what was. How did you hang out in the Salt river then?

[00:07:24.080] - Don Rycroft

No, so my childhood, you know, and this is how I got into just everything with wheels. Right. If it has wheels. I was into it from about 7 years old on. We were BMXers in the early days of bicycle motocross, and it's probably a lot of where I got my entrepreneurial stuff from. My father owned part of a BMX company developing bikes like.

[00:07:51.310] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:07:51.750] - Don Rycroft

We were one of the first chromoly bikes on the market for BMX things like that. So, you know, the. The innovation of. Of aluminum cranks on BMX bikes, all that stuff was cutting edge at the time, in the 70s. And I was racing from the time I was six years old until later on in my teen years.

[00:08:12.380] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, and what did your dad do prior to moving to Arizona? Like when he was in Simi Valley, before going.

[00:08:21.260] - Don Rycroft

Going east, My dad Was like a roaming salesman. He, if he could sell it, he did. And, and ultimately he ended up owning a sign company to, to make signs and put them on buildings essentially before neons and all that became, you know, big light lit signs. Back in those days, it was, you know, styrofoam lettering on the front of a building that told you what the business was. And he owned a sign company that did all that.

[00:08:51.240] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, all right. And so you raced bmx? Did you just race locally there or with you guys in manufacturing? Did you travel?

[00:09:02.320] - Don Rycroft

We traveled, yeah, we traveled the western states. So we, I've raced in Colorado, California, Nevada. You know, those were the big areas during the boom in the 70s of BMXing was in the, the west coast was huge. And especially California. We did a lot of traveling over to California to race, right?

[00:09:24.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. If anybody remembers the beginning of on any Sunday was kids racing BMX bikes in Southern California.

[00:09:35.720] - Don Rycroft

Yep.

[00:09:36.520] - Big Rich Klein

And that was a cr, that was definitely a craze. I remember a kid I went to high school with or grade school with, they moved to Southern California so that he could race, which, yeah, SoCal was

[00:09:51.310] - Don Rycroft

the Mecca of, of. So we, that's why we traveled a lot to Anaheim and, and that sort of thing because the, the, that was really the mecca was that over there. Phoenix had some great tracks. My dad actually owned two of the tracks in Phoenix and so we had some great tracks here too. It was a big thing here and, but we traveled to California. It was known if you could beat the California teams, you were something. So we would travel over there and race those guys.

[00:10:20.820] - Big Rich Klein

That's really cool. And for how long did you race?

[00:10:26.180] - Don Rycroft

Man, I think I was about 13 and my dad showed up at my house with a brand new YZ80 and I never got on, I never got on a bicycle again. I, I, I didn't race that. He didn't want us racing motorcycles because he felt that was going to be a little bit more danger than my mom wanted to handle. But we hit the desert. I mean, you know, again, this is where the outdoor off road life started was we just lived on bikes and, you know, took our, our motorcycles and back then Scottsdale didn't really exist the way it does today. So when you left from Tempe, it was, you know, 15 minutes to hit desert and you know, we just drop the bikes and go race through the desert. So, so that's where I started on two wheels with engines, so.

[00:11:17.030] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. And is that still a hobby of yours?

[00:11:23.030] - Don Rycroft

No, you know, my, my hobby today is Jeeps and off road with the Jeep community and the business. And honestly, as a business owner, I don't have time for any extra hobbies at the moment.

[00:11:36.940] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So did it become age, you know, age with or with age comes cage or did you, did you bail off the bikes early?

[00:11:47.100] - Don Rycroft

Well, I had some trauma happen at 14. My. I lost my father. He passed away. Sorry. And so things changed for us from a family standpoint. We didn't have the toys anymore. I, at about 16, I had a little bit of money that had come along from a car wreck when I was younger that I had a little trust fund that opened up and my mom allowed me to buy a 200x ATC. And so at 16 I went to a 200xATC. And then shortly after that, life started hit and I was 16 and I actually got married early, had three kids. So life kind of got put on hold from toys and fun for a while.

[00:12:33.790] - Big Rich Klein

So how early, how early did you get married?

[00:12:38.510] - Don Rycroft

I was 16 years old when I got married the first time. So yeah. And I have three beautiful children from that marriage, Two of which worked in our company.

[00:12:47.470] - Big Rich Klein

So that's even better. Excellent.

[00:12:49.510] - Don Rycroft

Yep.

[00:12:50.670] - Big Rich Klein

So it is really a family run

[00:12:53.390] - Don Rycroft

business right from the top. My wife and I and my son and my daughter all run the business.

[00:12:59.950] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Excellent. And so during those, those times, really young getting married, what kind of work did you do to survive?

[00:13:12.350] - Don Rycroft

I actually worked at a high end detail shop. Again always around cars, you know, either I and I started during that time I worked at a very high end detail shop in Phoenix. It was one of the elite shops that did the Barrett Jackson cars and all that kind of thing. And my love for hot rods kind of came out of that. And so I, I bought a 77 two wheel drive Blazer and slammed it 383 stroker motor. You know, had custom back then you could order custom centerline wheels that were offset properly and you know, all that. So I kind of went into the hot rod side of things for a little While. Bought a 69 Camaro and you know, restored it, built it during that time. So I never got away from cars, Was always into cars and just was always into the car field from that point.

[00:14:15.170] - Big Rich Klein

With, with getting married that young, were you able to, to, you know, finish high school or did you get a ged? Did you get any other education after that or has it just been the school of hard knocks school?

[00:14:28.770] - Don Rycroft

Well, gee, I did get a GED because it was required for some job that I was applying for. And I actually Applied to be a police officer in Phoenix.

[00:14:37.690] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:14:38.130] - Don Rycroft

And then I realized I didn't want to get shot at for 32, 000 a year. So that changed. But. And then I ended up divorced at 25. And so, you know, I just. That's when I came into Four Wheeling. So that's when I moved from hot rods to an 84 Blazer and started going out and just doing trails.

[00:15:03.580] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And the. So you at that high. You worked at the high end detail shop, got your ged, went to. Is that when you then decided to try to try to be a police officer? And did you.

[00:15:27.190] - Don Rycroft

That was the reason I got the ged. I wanted to go be a police officer. And so I had to have a GED minimum to become an officer. So I got the ged, passed all the testing, passed all the physicals, and it was more that I made the decision not to do it at that point. I didn't go to any final interviews.

[00:15:46.870] - Big Rich Klein

And did you stay in the detail business or did you do something else?

[00:15:51.670] - Don Rycroft

No, I actually. So after my divorce I realized kind of working for somebody else was no longer my thing. And I ended up buying a window tint and alarm shop. And so again in cars, you know, so I was a window tinter at the detail place as well. And so I moved into my own business, little thousand square foot bay tenting, and I had an alarm guy I hired to put in alarms for me. And you know, that was kind of the boom of the Viper alarm system and all that stuff back then. And so, you know, we were hawking alarms and window tent jobs all week long, working six days a week.

[00:16:36.100] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Okay. And the, the next phase or how long did. Were you in window tint and alarms and you got into the end off roading. Did that, did that take a while then?

[00:16:54.900] - Don Rycroft

Well, I actually got married again to my current wife back then 26 years ago, I think it's been now 26 years roughly ago we got married right before I bought the window tent shop. So I got married to her, bought the window tent shop, and we ran that together as a husband and wife for that time period. It was. We actually had thought about moving to Georgia and so we sold the window tint shop. We were going to move to Georgia, but we had the conundrum of his, hers and ours kids. And so we had sold the business, we're ready to move to Georgia. And then we got a fight from another ex that wanted to make us stay where we were at, even though he wasn't still in the state and it kind of became over challenging. So we decided not to fight it. And for the first time ever, I was not in the auto industry. A friend of mine called me and he said, hey man, I know you're not leaving now. He said, just, you know, passing this on if you need a job. He goes, we're looking for a sales team member for garage door company.

[00:18:05.870] - Don Rycroft

It was a huge company called Copay Doors. They manufacture and all that. And I had never sold a garage door. Never had, you know, but I could sell anything. And so I spent I think four years or two, two or three years selling garage doors. And that was kind of when I was able to start enjoying hobbying because now my, my four wheel drive vehicles were hobbies instead of business and I could enjoy them. And we'd go out on the weekends and you know, we, that kind of thing. And ended up with our first Jeep behind a motorhome at that time. And we pulled the Jeep around the country and just went and did trails and enjoyed that kind of stuff. And then the economy took a crap and the housing industry collapsed.

[00:18:57.030] - Big Rich Klein

And 2008.

[00:18:59.430] - Don Rycroft

Yep. So ironically my pastors called me that like right in the time that was all happening. And my pastors called me and said, hey, we, we have, we went to kind of a very large church in Mesa, Arizona and they said, we have a challenge running our children's department. They had like 400 kids a weekend in this children's department. And they actually asked me if I would run it. Not be the children's pastor, but run the department. And so, you know, with the economy bust and everything that was happening, we, we thought, well, this is time to go into, you know, maybe it's time to do some ministry stuff. So you know, and our faith has really driven our marriage. So we, we decided to go to work for our church. And my wife and I ran the children's ministry at our church for several years.

[00:19:48.570] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[00:19:49.130] - Don Rycroft

So.

[00:19:51.610] - Big Rich Klein

And then still wheeling at that point.

[00:19:55.930] - Don Rycroft

Well, this is where I became much more of a wheeler at that time. So when you work for a church, you don't make great money. So I had sold my Jeep and it sold in like 10 minutes. Like I put it on marketplace. Even during the economy bus, I put it on marketplace and it sold. I had like five guys fighting over it.

[00:20:17.010] - Big Rich Klein

And so you knew you underpriced it?

[00:20:20.370] - Don Rycroft

Well, it wasn't underpriced. That was the thing. It was like right up at top dollar. And what I realized is that, is that Jeeps were like A commodity here. And so while I was doing this children's ministry, I supplemented our income by buying and selling Jeeps. And so we would go wheel them and have fun with them, and then I would own them for, you know, a couple weeks, maintenance them, get rid of the death wobble, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then we would sell them, we just put them up for sale and. And we were making, you know, a lot of money. I mean, I started moving specifically LJ's, which is how I became an LJ fan. I would literally drive to California and, or even fly into California and buy an lj. Because during that time the, the wealthy over there were selling their toys because of the collapse of the economy, right? And so you go to LA and pick up, and you know, people will hate me when they hear this, but you go to LA and pick up a nice Rubicon LJ for like 11 grand back then.

[00:21:28.400] - Don Rycroft

And I would drive it back to Phoenix, maintenance it and turn around and sell it for good money here, right? And you know, because people here were looking for toys to go out and wheel with at that time and get out of the house because, you know, the economy kind of crashed and they wanted to just get out of the house. So we, we flipped Jeeps for a while. I mean, while we were working at the church, I probably sold 30 or 40 Jeeps and so did that for that time period. And interestingly enough, there came a spot where churches in the valley, here in Phoenix took a big hit. For some reason, a lot of the churches, the giving had slowed way down at the churches and we both got laid off because it was an oversized staff for a big church. And we both got laid off and, and I had a, at the time I had a 71 Bronco I was building that I had bought and beautiful rig and I decided to sell it and I was just gonna flip Jeeps. I thought, well, I'll just flip Jeeps. We're doing pretty good at this.

[00:22:37.610] - Don Rycroft

You know, I don't even need a job really at this point. And I was just flipping through Craigslist and a fabrication shop, off road fabrication shop, came up for sale in Phoenix, Arizona. It was in Tempe. And I thought, I'll just call this guy and see what he's got. You know, it's an off road shop. It might tie into what I'm doing. And at the time, I mean, being honest, I didn't know anything about fabrication whatsoever. I, I mean, nothing other than I thought it was a resource that I could Work on Jeeps, maybe do lift kits for people and. And sell the Jeeps and maybe his building and tools and stuff like that would be a value to me. And so I went over and met this guy. It was Ian Lilja Blad, who you probably know absolutely. And struck up a deal with him. He just wanted out. He was burned out. And I ended up buying his company just for the tools he had for the tools and take over his lease on his space he was in. And the minute I got there, you know, he had kind of made it look like there was no business left over there.

[00:23:49.800] - Don Rycroft

But I got there and the phone was ringing off the hook every day. And I. I hired a friend of mine who's still with our company today, and he was a fabricator. And I said, man, I need a guy to fabricate. I said, you know, and help me quote these jobs, I said, because people are coming through the door wanting this stuff done. And I said I was buying this just to flip and, you know, lift jeeps and sell jeeps. And he came in with me and it was kind of the start of everything we've done. We were building custom bumpers for guys, we were doing cages. We were doing all kinds of stuff. And I was just absorbing and learning as fast as I could back then. You know, everything I could suck up, I was learning. I was spending hours on the Internet that night just learning about fabrication and learning about how to build stuff and learning how to do all this stuff. And it's kind of where we got our start and what we're doing.

[00:24:48.280] - Big Rich Klein

And that was the beginning of rpm.

[00:24:51.000] - Don Rycroft

That was. So that was a company called RPM Fab.

[00:24:54.680] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:24:55.240] - Don Rycroft

And we ran that company for a while and then we were into other stuff. Because it was a fabrication company, Ian had had contracts outside of off road with some banks and things like that, where we were building swivel walls and stuff like that out of steel and, you know, for big screen TVs and all that. And so we kind of delved into more things and ultimately it actually shot us in the foot. And so we ended up having to close the company down roughly in 20. I don't remember where it was at site like 2019. We shut that company down and we were. We were a bumper company at the time. We were doing the steering. So we were doing the aluminum steering because during that time I had developed the aluminum steering stuff that we today are known for. And we ended up having to shut the company down because of some situations that happened outside the off road side of the business. And we ended up shutting the company down. And then thusly was born RPM steering. We had multiple people, like reach out to me shops that we had been selling our aluminum steering to.

[00:26:13.600] - Don Rycroft

They're reaching out to me and going, well, wait a minute, we want steering. How come you're gone? And we started in 20. Later on, in late 2019, we started on a backyard lathe working in the 120 degree weather. Packaging. Steering and packaging parts.

[00:26:34.990] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Okay. You and the friend, that fabricator that helped you to begin with.

[00:26:42.190] - Don Rycroft

Yep. He was helping us with parts out of his garage. We had a lathe in another garage with another guy, was paying piecework to do the materials. And when it was funny because my wife and I were like going through this time of really challenging our life and we actually had to file bankruptcy for the whole thing. And we lost our house and all the other stuff. And we looked at each other and we said, well, we're just going to do this and have some fun. You know, looking at the shops we had, we thought we could just make a good living. Her and I just, you know, doing it this way, we'll just enjoy it. We'll four wheel, we'll have a good time. You know, we'll just. It made it so that we could start enjoying life. And we thought, we'll just keep it small and do this. And yeah, that didn't happen.

[00:27:32.240] - Big Rich Klein

Like all good things.

[00:27:34.160] - Don Rycroft

Oh my gosh. That didn't happen. You know, so you, you got into Covid and you, you got into the JL platform. And the JL platform is a nightmare from a steering standpoint. From a manufacturer side, really, the JL created the steering industry because the need for it. And the parts were so crappy that when you put a set of 35s on or 37s, you could forget it. You're gonna. The front end was terrible on these things. And so, you know, we hit Covid and everybody wanted to get outside and wheel. So JL sales shoot through the roof. The shops we're working with start calling us. When are you going to have the jail stuff? When are you going to have the JL stuff? And so we developed our two inch, you know, what we call two and a half ton steering. I was working with rare parts at the time, and I called rare parts and I said, are you going to do studs and cartridges for these? And he goes, no, we're just kind of not going there yet. And I said, well, well, your site says you do custom. I said, so I'm Going to draw them and I want you to build them.

[00:28:50.330] - Don Rycroft

Well, he came back to me, he goes, well, I'm not going to do that because then I shoehorn myself into making you the JL parts only. And I said, I said, well then make them. So sure enough, he said, he, he inducted some, some tres in his cartridges. Within 60 days, I had parts nice. And so he's making me the cartridges and the forgings and then we're turning the aluminum to match it. And you know, thus, then the first jail stuff came out. And man, during COVID we got so busy that at that, that's when my son came to work with me and my daughter. The guy I was working with couldn't do the volume we were doing. And so we bought his lathe and we were working out of a warehouse at that point where my powder coater was. They had some empty offices and a little corner, 10 by 10 corner in his warehouse. And we were working out of shipping out of the office area. It was not an office area. We had it set up as a shipping department. My daughter and my son were turning the lathe behind the door in the little 10 by 10 space in 100 degree weather.

[00:30:06.750] - Don Rycroft

Like, they were sweating.

[00:30:08.030] - Big Rich Klein

We would sweatshop.

[00:30:09.390] - Don Rycroft

We would, oh, it was a sweatshop, you know, family sweatshop. And we would give them, you know, as much fluids as they needed to keep moving. And you know, so we're turning this stuff on a manual lathe. We had a bridge port that I had had from the old business. That was the only piece of equipment I had kept. So we were able to hex the ends and do the finish work. And they would run the hit Bridgeport in that, in that little 10 by 10 area. And literally they would hand me the aluminum. I would be packaging it in the front office. And it was. And then we would drive to FedEx with a truckload of steering. And it just kept growing. So from humble beginnings, a restart, right? We restarted our life from, from that point. And I was 50 years old at the time. I had to restart my entire life at 50 years old.

[00:31:04.990] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:31:05.710] - Don Rycroft

And we slowly just went from there to a new space that we shared with a friend of mine, owned a bat company for softball bats. And they had like this whole warehouse they weren't using and an office. And he says, why don't you just come here and pay us some rent here and you can run your facility here. And so we were in the back of his place, which was about thousand square feet and had one office up Front. My wife would work in that office and you know, we would finally at that point we had, you know, FedEx coming to the door instead of us having to go to FedEx. And so we, we bought a, you know, our second lathe. And you know, again, we're still turning on manual A's back then, right? You know, pumping out aluminum steering all day long on manual A's. And subsequently from there, you know, he sold his business and said, man, you, you can either rent the space in completion or you're going to need to move. And ironically, Caddy corner to that, a really nice 3,300 square foot space came open with all the power we needed to run machines.

[00:32:25.040] - Don Rycroft

And it was the biggest step we had made since having to restart. And my wife and I looked at each other and we're like, do we really, you know, here we are. We, we were going to do this as a small thing and here we are moving into the space. We now had my son, daughter and another employee there, plus my fabricator. And we're like, this is crazy. We're going to do it. And so we rented that space and we thought, we'll never outgrow this is just be where we're at. And I started, you know, doing things like suspension links because we had done suspension links before at RPM Fab, we had done aluminum suspension links with joints and stuff like that. So I called Rock Jock and set up an account and we started making aluminum short arm links for JKs and JLs and you know, started making those and they started getting popular. And so, you know, and over the years I had, we, we had become big and known for. When we had the Fab company, we were known for some of the big builds we did. We, we were doing hemi swaps.

[00:33:32.250] - Don Rycroft

By the time we ended up shutting it down, we were doing, you know, some of the first tons. I worked with Armando at our tech on the first tone rings on a 14 bulb, things like that. So we were kind of known for that. And I had already started working with suspensions at that point and long arms. And I had figured out a double triangulated three link that I always dreamed of making for the jks. And all the timing just sorted out, right? And my son was there and he put it in SolidWorks from my brain to him into SolidWorks. And we had a customer from California who had bought steering from us. And I had kind of posted a picture of this, this SolidWorks rendering of a 4 link, 3 link. And he literally calls me and he says, I'm going to be there tomorrow, I'm going to drop off my chassis. I'll pay you to do it. He's just, I saw it, I want it. And this guy wasn't kidding. He shows up the next day from California, rolls this thing off a trailer and says, build it, I'll call me when it's done.

[00:34:41.390] - Don Rycroft

And we weren't prepared for that. We didn't even have the space for it really. So went to my laser and press brake guy said, you know, we're gonna send these files over, we want all this stuff. Laser and press broke my fabricator, put it together and two months later I rolled the first double triangulated three link out of our shop on a rolling chassis. We didn't have a Jeep there, just a rolling chassis. And it started it, man. We're taking pictures using Instagram to build it and you know, that kind of thing. And next thing we know, we completed it. And people are like, how do I order it? When can I get it? And we were just shocked. We're like, okay, I guess we're gonna do this now, you know. So that's kind of how this got started in a, in a nutshell. And it's just gone nuts since. So.

[00:35:40.920] - Big Rich Klein

But so when you're, when you're making those moves from, you know, that, that small little in the friends back of the shop, you know, 100 square feet to the 3,000 square feet or the thousand square feet and then the 3,000 square feet, what's going through your mind when you, when you have to make those jumps?

[00:36:07.010] - Don Rycroft

Well, you know, when you fail in life and you start over as an entrepreneur, you know, everybody thinks that, that entrepreneurs just, you know, we always have it right, right? We always get it right because you can see the fruition, but you never see the failures. And you always have that in the back of your mind. You, you, when you fail as big as we failed and had to shut our life down, and you, you always have that in your mind. What's going to happen? Can I pay the rent here? Can I, you know, can I grow? Can I hire the next guy? Those things are always. As an entrepreneur, there's some of the hardest decisions you make as a building, as a business owner. And so every step, when we sign that lease for the 3,000, my hand was shaking, my wife looking at me and she's like, I don't know, I mean, this is crazy, you know, and, you know, and that brings us to our new building. We're in and we'll get to that. So. But you're always in the back of your mind, you're always thinking, you know, what happens if.

[00:37:11.930] - Don Rycroft

Again. And you know, because you have people involved too. When we shut the other company down, we had, I think we had 13 people that we had to sit at a table with and say, guys, you're out of a job. We have to shut the company down. And we love people and we love being around people and we love being that part of the industry. And that's, you know, we'll get to that again what our brand is and, and we'll talk about that. But, you know, so when you move from that job, every jump is scary as heck. Every single one. From, from the backyard to paying rent to the next big rent to the next big building our commitments. They'll, they'll. You take pause, you know, you have to assess. So you put it well.

[00:38:05.370] - Big Rich Klein

I, I had the same thing happen a number of times in, in my lifetime where I've had to start over. And it was, the first one was devastating. It was when Desert Storm first happened and we, I remember I had a big landscape company here in Northern California and it just, it all fell apart in those first six hours of watching it on the news in the middle of the night when all hell broke loose and you know, customers calling the next day, canceling their, their contracts and, you know, backing out of the, the jobs we hadn't started yet, you know, had about a week's worth of work like you, you know, I had three construction crews going, plus a maintenance crew. And it was like, I don't know how I'm going to keep the lights on. And there was some dark days, you know, and what I realized then was that you just needed to, What I needed to do is I just needed to, you know, tie those boots a little tighter and just say the hell with it and get out there and get it done. And just pivoted and went on to something new and then eventually found off road again with.

[00:39:30.470] - Big Rich Klein

Because back then I was wheeling, but I was just an enthusiast and then lost the landscape company, went to work for Sears Automotive again, which I'd worked at in high school as a mechanic and. But this time as a salesman and then worked my way up into management. Realized that, you know, that's, that's where, you know, my skills lied and continued to do that. Ended up in Utah and then decided, okay, I got, when I get back to California, I'm going to start my own rock crawling series. And for the last 25 years, that's what I've done, and it was just out of necessity. But a pivot.

[00:40:16.030] - Don Rycroft

Yep.

[00:40:16.590] - Big Rich Klein

You know, I wasn't going to fail. I mean, I wasn't going to let myself quit at that point in 2000 when I. When I jumped in, and there's been some hard times.

[00:40:26.350] - Don Rycroft

Well, and that's what happened, you know, when we had to shut the other company down, you know, I looked at my wife and I said, we're down to a few dollars. We got, you know, two cars, so we get to work, you know, And I said, so what do we do? Do I go get a job in a cubicle somewhere? Do I go back to sales? What do I do? And again, I. I looked at her and I said, I can't work for anybody. I. I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I've always figured out, you know, if you come up to a wall, you figure out how to get over it, around it, under it, and you just go. And I said, I'm gonna pull my bootstraps up. We're just gonna do this. And we're gonna. We're going to do it this way because I don't quit. It's life. And I'm not going to go. I would have died in an office. I would. If I would have gone to an office and sat in a cubicle, I would have died. And I just said, I can't do that. I said, I've got to build something.

[00:41:17.750] - Don Rycroft

I've got to do something. Even if it was just, you know, because you're. You're an entrepreneur, even if it's just paying your bills and making some money. Right. You don't. You don't start it out thinking you're going to become a name brand in the business industry. You. We're just here doing some stuff to make. Pay our bills, pay some employees, you know, kind of enjoy life. Right. Be able to go out for a dinner every now and then. And it just grew and it. And it kept growing. And part of that is our. And a lot of it is our culture and what we've brought to the industry. And that's why I said, we'll get to that. You know, we've. Our culture is. I. You know, at the beginning of the show here, we talked about. You industry guys hang out with industry guys at events and things like that. Yes, we actually don't. We came from the enthusiast side, and we create a culture of hanging out with the enthusiast. And it's been an interesting thing to see what's happening, because there's we believe we actually have started a shift in the industry that is coming.

[00:42:26.440] - Don Rycroft

You know, everybody kind of got high and mighty that we're the producers and you guys are just consumers. And you grew these big companies that had no relationship with the consumer other than they phone called in and you took their credit card. And we've, we've moved to a culture because when I wheel, it was go hit, you know, call five of my friends, you know, get your Blazer, get your Jeep. We're going to go out to the mine trail. We're going to have lunch and hang out at the mine, and then we're going to, you know, laugh and have a good time and come back home. And we wanted to create that same culture with rpm. We wanted to create the. We're all family. We're doing this for fun. There's an enthusiasm about what we do. You know, my wife, actually, it's hilarious because my, my wife now, Michelle, she does it. She was never a Jeeper. She loved driving around with the topless Jeeps. She was kind of, you know, she enjoyed the big build stuff, but she didn't, you know, she. I wouldn't call her a mall crawler, but really all she used the Jeeps for was go to the mall, you know, go to the grocery store, stuff like that.

[00:43:33.650] - Don Rycroft

And she enjoyed them. Take the top off in Phoenix here and, you know, go drive around in the store or whatever. It was interesting. In 20. It was, I think three years ago, on our anniversary, I bought her an Eco Diesel jl and we built it and we did a long arm development on it and all that. And again, it was just her daily driver. And she said, take me wheeling. She said, I want to learn how to at least drive this thing, how to shift it, how to do it. And we went out by ourselves, kind of elite, you know, something you don't do in the end you're not supposed to do. But she didn't want anybody out there with her. So, you know, so we go out and on our. On our wedding anniversary in November, we go out to a trail out here. That, that is a good beginner trail. It's called Woodpecker. And. Yep, so we went up Woodpecker and I, I didn't get light on her. I made her do all the obstacles just so that she could learn how to two foot and how to put it in low and how to use the Jeep and all that.

[00:44:34.960] - Don Rycroft

And she got addicted. And, you know, so she wheels with us. So she, she is now following me around the country. When we do events and things like that. But what we've created is a culture of come out and wheel with us. We go to an event like Trail Hero and I told Rich this year, I said, you know, I, I don't think the booth is a huge value to me in a sense. I said, what we valued was we went out on the trail every day and we kind of posted up and said, hey, we're going to meet up at Wadi's corral and you know, anybody want to go wheel us? We're doing the maze today. And 35 people showed up. Like people we don't even know, like people that follow us and they're like, well, we get to wheel with you guys. Like, yeah, we're just going out having fun, man. That's what we're doing. And so we go out and have fun. And it's funny because these people become our customers through that, but they become more than that, become friends, right? These are people. If you see and you follow us at all, you see us hang out with John Odaway and we hang out with, you know, the, the, the off road affair people and, and Tom and Sarah.

[00:45:50.130] - Don Rycroft

These are just people we went out and wheeled with. These aren't industry people necessarily. They're just people that we went out and wheeled with that became our customers and now they're our friends. And then they bring their friends and we go wheel them when we go to events. And so we've created this culture that the, that we're here to help you no matter what. So I have become one of the experts in our field in suspension and steering. And I get people will call and, well, I don't have your stuff. I've got somebody else's stuff that my Jeep's doing this and I'll spend two hours on the phone helping them fix their Jeep over the phone. And that gets out there. It gets out there. That man I called him, didn't spend a dime with him and he helped me fix my Jeep. And that culture of just helping people and that they can access the owner of the company instead of seeing the owners all gather in a corner somewhere. I think that's the culture we want to create out there, is that we're here just to have fun. I started this to have fun.

[00:46:53.890] - Don Rycroft

I started wheeling to have fun. And I understand the fun aspect of being off road and it can be intimidating for new people. We try and help them with that. It's my favorite story to tell. We were at Trail Hero last year and this gentleman, RJ and his wife were in the parking lot at the resort, and he sees my big orange Jeep and he goes, yeah, that's bad. You know, I love that. And he goes, what are you guys doing? I said, we're going to run the maze. And he says, he says, man, I'd love to do that, but, you know, we don't have a big enough jeep. And he's on 40s. The guy's got, you know, he spent money on a build with tons, but he's never really wheeled it. And it says, rj, come out with us, man. I just. Come out with us. Just have fun. I said, we'll get you through the trail. I said, I got some of the best people in the world coming out for this run. These guys know how to get you through a trail. We won't damage your rig. You're going to have a great day.

[00:47:47.040] - Don Rycroft

And he says, oh, I can't do that. You guys are just these big guys that do all this stuff, and I don't. I finally talked this guy into going out on the trail with us. And his buddy that he just met at the hotel there comes to, got this build with Dynatrax. Never wheeled this thing. And you could tell they'd been through a couple trails, maybe in Montrose, stuff like that. You know, this is light stuff. We take them through the maze. My friends who are customers of ours all are on this trail. We get off the trail after eight, you know, six hours out on the maze, and they walk up to my wife and they said, we've never had that much fun wheeling with anybody in this industry. They said, your. Your people that you have that are part of what you do are the nicest people we've ever met in the industry. Both those guys bought long arm suspensions a month later.

[00:48:40.260] - Big Rich Klein

Very good.

[00:48:40.740] - Don Rycroft

Now, it wasn't the goal to sell them a long arm suspension.

[00:48:44.580] - Big Rich Klein

No, but they saw it working.

[00:48:46.820] - Don Rycroft

They saw it work. But what they said most was that the people that are our friends, that these are not industry people. John Odaway, you know, this is just a guy who goes out and wheels his Jeep and beats it up and has fun. He. They talk to John, and John's like, yeah, best suspension I've ever had. Love these guys. Wheel with them all the time, you know, so our people were so nice to them, Talking to them about their Jeep, spotting them through obstacles, making sure RJ broke a brake line. We fixed it for him on the trail, you know, oh, you guys can leave. No, we don't leave. We fix. You this is what we do. And you create a culture where people want to hang out with you, not because you're an owner of a company. And that's not what I want. I don't want people to hang out with me just because I own RPM Steering. I want to hang out with them and have a burger and a dog afterwards, you know, and hang out with them and learn who they are. And, you know, interesting enough, RJ is a company owner who's gone through struggles.

[00:49:49.760] - Don Rycroft

And, you know, talk to me about some of the struggles he went through as a company owner, not in our industry, but just other things. And, you know, you get to know these people, and it's so great to go out in that culture. And it's the Berger and drink after the trail. Fun, and that's what we love. So, you know, taking that to the next level. We came out of Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion and I called Warren and I said, hey, man, my wife and I are going to have a barbecue for rpm. We're going to publicize it after the Warren run. And, you know, they grabbed me and said, hey, announce it at the Warren run. You know, come out and announce it. Because we're partners with Warn2. And you know that if you've been to Windrock, that first cabin set has a big, huge drive that you go up, right? And Warren gets the big house. Our house is the one next to them usually. I said, we're gonna put the trailer here, if you guys don't mind. We're gonna put up canopies and we're gonna grill burgers. So we announced this thing.

[00:50:51.700] - Don Rycroft

We don't know who's gonna show up. Maybe 20 people, right, are gonna come out afterwards and come have burgers and dogs with us. We had about 150 people come off the trail, and you could look down the entire drive, and it was people sitting in their chairs that they had brought with them, having a dog on rpm, you know, or a burger. And they're just laughing and talking about the day on the trail and reminiscing about what they did that day out

[00:51:19.040] - Big Rich Klein

in Windrock and meeting new people and

[00:51:22.000] - Don Rycroft

meeting new people walking around. And the beauty was we had some influencers there. We had, you know, some of the industry guys were there. So these people were getting to walk around and talk to the industry guys. You know, Max from Rock Jock is sitting there on a trailer and just hanging out. You know, so these people start doing that. And Max came over to me and he said, I sent a picture of this to John and Brandon, he said they can't believe this, that this is what was created. It's the culture we're trying to create. Go wheel, have fun. Nobody is above anybody else out here. We're out here just to have fun with you. We're here to answer questions if you have them. But really, I want to know how you felt when you're on that obstacle and you flopped on your side today and laugh about it with you, you know, and that's. We're doing it again this year, so it was a huge hit. And that's the culture we're wanting to create in this industry. We are wanting to create a. We're not better than you because we own companies. We're out here as enthusiasts, and we just want to have fun with you.

[00:52:28.960] - Don Rycroft

And the rest will happen naturally.

[00:52:31.360] - Big Rich Klein

Right?

[00:52:31.920] - Don Rycroft

Right. When you do that, the rest happens naturally. The buyers will come just because of that. So, you know, it's kind of the story. And now we're in 9,100 square feet. We've got 10 employees, and it's crazy.

[00:52:48.140] - Big Rich Klein

From humble beginnings. And.

[00:52:50.420] - Don Rycroft

And we've done that in six years, so. And. And I won't say we've done it. You know, again, my wife and I are. Our faith is huge. We. We really sat down and prayed about all this. And they said, okay, God, I'm giving you this. You do with it what you want to do with it, and it'll be what you want it to be. And so we. We thank God. We are blessed. We get to go to work, and I get to go do everything I love to do every day. I get to design new parts. I get to design new suspensions. I get to see consumers and customers become friends. And I get to see them enjoy their vehicle in a way that they couldn't enjoy it before because of what we do, which just thrills me.

[00:53:32.600] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. So one question during those times, the first time of the failure, when things just happened and then you move on and you have another. Did you ever have the. It sounds like you didn't have a fear of failure. That. That paralyzed you. You just thought, okay, this time I'm going to get over it. We're going to make it work. Was that the mentality?

[00:54:05.050] - Don Rycroft

You know, it really comes down to is again my fate.

[00:54:09.340] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:54:09.780] - Don Rycroft

When. When everything failed and collapsed, I stood out on my backyard. And it was really interesting because we were blessed. We actually lost our house. It had to go up for public sale. The guy that bought it rented it back to us. So we didn't even have to move. So.

[00:54:24.420] - Big Rich Klein

Wow, that's good.

[00:54:25.460] - Don Rycroft

We. Yeah, we. We still live in the house today. And so I stood out on the back porch and I just lifted my hands and said, okay, God, I. I can't do it on my own. I'm going to freak out. And I said, so you're just going to have to help me and do it. And so I walk back in the house and will I tell you, there's not nights that I have stared at the ceiling and not slept. I will tell you that those happen. It doesn't matter what faith you have. You can still sit there and stare at the ceiling and not sleep because the week got slow or something happened and, you know, the machine broke and you're going, okay, how are we going to fix the machine? You know, I can't tell you how many times those manual lathes broke. And we're sitting there going, how are we going to fulfill orders? You know, and. And it's 4,500 bucks for a new motor for the lathe, you know, so you stare at the ceiling a lot, But I've never let it paralyze me. I've never sat and thought, I can't do this anymore.

[00:55:29.850] - Don Rycroft

I just get up and do it because I have people that depend on me. I have my family that depends on me. I'm actually the oldest person in my entire family. On my dad's side, we've had a lot of people that have passed. So I'm actually the. I would. I guess you'd call it the patriarch of our family at 58 years old, might have kids that depend on me. My. You know, two of my kids work for me. They depend on that. I have 10 people that I feed. And then you look down line and you look at the. The amount of people just in the aluminum company we buy from, because we are the largest purchaser of Round Bar 7075 on the west coast. From. From our company we buy from. You look at the people that employs. They have one lady whose job is just to watch my account and make sure she's ordering enough from the mill. I mean, I'm one of her accounts that she has to focus on weekly to make sure that the mill is getting her enough aluminum to feed my company. And you look at that and you realize it's not that you get too big to fail, it's that you get too big to go, I can't fail.

[00:56:39.700] - Don Rycroft

I have to get up every morning and you see me, if you follow me, and you're Around. You watch me on the Internet. I'm on the Internet at 5am answering questions in every form and every page for guys. And then I go to the shot I call that first shift, having my coffee, sitting here, answering questions. I go to second shift and be at the office. And then third shift is come home, eat dinner and get back on the Internet again. So you get to the point. I never was paralyzed. I knew that I had to succeed somehow I knew that people depended on me. I had to get up and I had to work and I had to make it work. And I always liken it to the difference between the, when I call the water cooler people and the people who get it done. And when you or I saw a wall, you pivoted, right? You figured out how to get around that wall.

[00:57:36.320] - Big Rich Klein

Correct.

[00:57:36.840] - Don Rycroft

And you look at the wall and you can either look at the wall and it can paralyze you. And then you go work in a, in an office, sitting in a cubicle, because risk will paralyze you. For me, I look at the wall and go, okay, this is a challenge. How am I going to get through it? Am I going to dig under it? Am I going to go around it? Am I going to go over it? Do I got to build a ladder to get over it? You know, do I get a big, get a big drill and drill a hole through it so I can get through this wall? You know, and that's how I liken what I do every day. I wake up and go, how do I get around the next wall? You know, what's the next thing that's going to push me back that I have to work and navigate around so that we can be successful at what we do. And entrepreneurship is not for everyone because it will paralyze you if you don't know how to face that wall.

[00:58:24.570] - Big Rich Klein

Correct. So true. So true. I, my, my parents were the, were the kind that, you know, my dad worked for the federal government since he was time he was 17, worked for a year or two, went into the military, did a stint in the army, got out, went back to civil Service and after 38 years retired with a pension at 55 and thought, you know, this is the way life should be. And he always tried to push me in that direction and I couldn't do it. I never stuck with a job, even really high paying jobs, you know, close to 200,000 a year type jobs that for more than five years because I could not, I couldn't see myself continuing to do what I was doing because I wasn't happy doing it, even though I was making money. It's never been about the money. It's always been about the passion to do what I want to do.

[00:59:34.230] - Don Rycroft

Absolutely. And that's why I say anything with wheels and a motor at this point is my passion. So, you know, so I get to get up every day and I get to go, you know, and people go, it must be you. You've heard it. It must be nice because don owns a 426JK Hemi with, you know, fully built with 42s and 426 Hemi in it, you know, and it must be nice, right? And he's pulling it behind his Dodge truck that he just bought. But they don't hear the story of how I got here and they don't see the parallelism, the night slaying, staring at the ceiling, you know, they don't see all that. And that's okay because there's people that just don't see that. And those are the people that. They're not going to own a business. They're not going to go into what we do. You have to have a different fortitude to do what we do. And then you have to have thick skin because that, because I'm gonna tell you right now, after you get a little bit of success, you get turned on by people who were cheering for you, but they're no longer cheering for you because you're successful.

[01:00:37.930] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[01:00:39.450] - Don Rycroft

And I run around with a big old target on my back a lot of times now. So, you know, and my wife is, it's challenging for my wife because she loves me and she sees how much work I do to do this and when she sees the negative stuff, it really gets to her. And, and she was also come. She came from that banking background. Like her dad worked the same job until, you know, he retired and things like that. So waking up every morning and not even knowing where your paycheck's coming from was a big challenge for her. She had to move into that realm with me. And now she's our bookkeeper and our accountant and does all the, you know, does all the Internet sales stuff. And, and she's, and I couldn't do this without her. I mean, to be honest with you, I couldn't. My son the same. I. You ask how family is, the business. My son does all of our CNC stuff. He's the one that handles all of that. He's self taught and he handles all the solidworks design work. And it's really interesting because I can Walk to him with a design in my head, tell it to him and he almost puts it into SolidWorks.

[01:01:49.960] - Don Rycroft

Exactly the way I put it.

[01:01:51.600] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[01:01:52.320] - Don Rycroft

And it's really, again, I couldn't do that with somebody else. For some reason he can take what I spew out and put it into SolidWorks. And it's almost identical to what I was thinking in my. It's almost like he saw the picture in my head and you know, so we couldn't do it without the people that we have my. You know, we talked earlier about Dave, the guy that's been fabricating for me forever. He's still leading my back shop after all those years. He, he stuck to it with us and he's been around since the beginning of what we've done and today he and his family are, you know, have grown with us and they've been with us for that time period. So, you know, couldn't do it without him, you know.

[01:02:35.400] - Big Rich Klein

Right. That's awesome.

[01:02:38.500] - Don Rycroft

And my daughter, she's, she's a rock star. I have a daughter who's five foot tall, fully tatted, has my grandbabies, she's divorced. She rides a full on bagger. She's, she's in the industry on the, on the bag side. So she's, she's famous in the, in the motorcycle world. And she literally learned how to run the manual lathe to do, to do aluminum with us. We taught her how to run the lathe, we taught her how to do everything and she's now learning to weld too. So she's, she's just a rock star too. Couldn't do it without her.

[01:03:20.350] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome.

[01:03:22.110] - Don Rycroft

You know and she, she actually leads our shipping department. So you know, when she's in the back, if you get your parts from rpm, she's probably had a hand in it.

[01:03:31.880] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Nice. So, so what's in the future? What do you, what do you see on the horizon? Is it just status quo? Keep doing it. Making products available. Are you going to expand your product line or what do you, what do you see?

[01:03:48.760] - Don Rycroft

We just did this year. So we just launched Ford F250 and 350 steering. We, we launched Ram or Ram 3520500 steering. And we are working towards the suspension side of developing track bars, drop brackets. We're going to do link systems for the Fords and the Dodges. Up front. I have a few guys in the industry that want us to create real rock crawling suspensions for the F350 platform. Like 12 inch full coilovers up front, link systems in the back, tanks behind the axle, that kind of thing. And so we're entered, we're entertaining that. We're looking at seeing what the ROI is on it. Is there going to be an roi? Apparently the full size nation guys are starting to make full size wheeling a thing. And again, you know, you and I came from full size wheeling, right?

[01:04:49.280] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. One ton Chevy.

[01:04:51.740] - Don Rycroft

Yep. I had an 84 Blazer and an 89 Jimmy and both full size K5 platforms, you know, and we thought 33s were huge, you know, and I had a four inch Skyjacker lift on all those and was wheeling them out on trails and doing stuff full size. I didn't rock crawl back then, but I mean it was, you know, trail running and. But these guys are making rock crawling happen now with these full size nation guys. And I've been approached by a couple guys on the F350 platform to actually manufacture parts that guys could build these things with. And we'll see. Yeah, I enjoy developing. It's funny because my wife was telling me the other day she said my husband enjoys building and designing more than he enjoys wheeling. And she's right. I love creating new stuff that is cool. And so, you know, I enjoy the wheeling but my passion is to big make cool stuff that people love. And so if these guys want that and there's an ROI there, we're going to look at it and see if, see if going Into Long Travel F350 rock crawling rigs is the thing to do.

[01:06:10.540] - Don Rycroft

So we'll see because there, you know, and again, you look at that market, you know, there's 10 million of those. 05 to 16 trucks were made. They're becoming cheap to buy. You can pick up a full size diesel in Phoenix now for around 10, 5 to 15, 5 on a 0506 platform. You know, I can imagine a guy buying that and then building it to off road, you know, because the value's there. So we're going to work with some people, you know, in the industry. It's somebody that's, you probably know that's come to me already and asked me to build it. So sweet. I'll keep, I'll keep that under the hat until that happens. But you, you know who I know you know who it is. So I know you know them, but they've come to me and said, hey, we'll hand you the truck, you build it. And so, so we're considering that it's always moving forward, you know, spreading out a little bit. And, oh, and Toyota stuff, my wife's Toyota and me over here, we're moving into the Toyota stuff and you know, we, we've got some great partnerships that have allowed us to move into Toyota suspension and we're moving into that.

[01:07:25.890] - Don Rycroft

And, and again, the Toyota guys are reaching out to me. I've got some bigger Toyota guys that saw we were going into that and they want me to build link systems and convert Tacoma systems and build Tacomas to be crawlers and daily drivers. So essentially they want the same thing we do with the Jeep stuff for straight axle Tacoma.

[01:07:47.310] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:07:47.950] - Don Rycroft

And so, so who knows, you know, we're just kind of grappling with it as we go and I love creating new stuff, so I'll probably dive into those areas. And I can't even tell you how much stuff we've created that's not even on the website, you know, where we've gotten creative and solution things and, you know, haven't even put it on the website yet because we're not even sure it'll sell.

[01:08:14.700] - Big Rich Klein

Right, so. But you had to. But you saw a need.

[01:08:18.620] - Don Rycroft

Yeah, saw a need, fixed it for somebody and then you're like, well, how many more somebodies need that need? You know, so it's kind of the thing. My wife laughs. She goes, you know, how many parts you've made that we don't have on the website?

[01:08:34.370] - Big Rich Klein

Time to get, at least get them on there. Never know when somebody's gonna need it.

[01:08:38.690] - Don Rycroft

So we're working on that. That's where we're working on is getting things on the website and going, you know, somebody needed it, so that means probably a bunch more people need it and you know, getting those things on. So. So the future is just continue to dive into the big truck stuff, the Toyota stuff, and just keep grinding, man, and just enjoying this industry. We have fun. I think we're going to be on the road this year, 189 days, traveling, doing events, shows and things like that. My son runs the company while we're gone, and my daughter and our staff and we go out and do events so well.

[01:09:20.160] - Big Rich Klein

Very cool. I hope that at some point our paths meet and we can shake hands and say hello in person and that'll be, that'll be my pleasure to, to get, to meet you.

[01:09:34.920] - Don Rycroft

Oh, mine too. Are you, are you by chance going to be at Easter Jeep Safari or.

[01:09:39.000] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I'm gonna be, I'll be there. I'll getting in Thursday sometime, out at the vendor show for part of Friday, staying out at Grandpa's garage. And then we rock has a kind of a rock race thing going on, like a trailbreaker type rock race out at area BFE on Saturday. Okay.

[01:10:01.890] - Don Rycroft

Yeah, so we're, we're up there the whole week, and then, you know, we sponsor Mischief Maker and, and her race team, Seat Time Syndicate. Okay, so we're, we'll be up there for that. You're coming in a little later. We're having our. Our Rory is hosting our RPM S' mores night. But if you get there in town, just text me and I would love to shake your hand so I can come down to the vendor show on Friday or something and see you and say hi.

[01:10:28.650] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds great. Well, Don, I want to say thank you so much for. For spending this morning talking and getting to know you and. And hopefully some of your clients and future clients get to know you better through this podcast and hope your phone continues to ring and ring and ring.

[01:10:49.470] - Don Rycroft

Well, I appreciate it, man. I. When I got your message, I was like, I'm honored to be someone you would ask these questions to.

[01:10:56.750] - Big Rich Klein

So it's, it's all about. It's all about capturing the history and hopefully moving, motivating other people to get involved. So.

[01:11:08.070] - Don Rycroft

Absolutely. That's great. Well, Rich, I appreciate you. Let's hook up at ejs if possible, at least to shake hands.

[01:11:15.150] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds great. All right, Don, have a great. Have a great evening. Or great day, I should say. It's not evening. It's not even afternoon yet.

[01:11:22.390] - Don Rycroft

We're just getting started. I'm actually heading to the shop.

[01:11:25.030] - Big Rich Klein

It's still morning. All right, well, have fun at the shop. All right, thanks, buddy.

[01:11:29.230] - Don Rycroft

Have a good one.

[01:11:29.910] - Big Rich Klein

You too. Bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest. Please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.