Tool-maker grabs success from semi-retirement

The Grappler makes a star appearance at the annual Burning Man festival.With a few custom tweaks the creation of three fat fingers it becomes the arms and hands of a stilt performer.

Mostly, though, the Grappler is used to pick up trash, says Jay Thiessens, vice president of Grapplers Inc.

and chairman of the board of B&J Machine & Tool, Inc., the Reno machine shop that makes the Grappler.

It's a single-product outfit and running Grapplers, Inc.

is a long way from managing the multi-production B&J Machine shop that Thiessens ran for more than 30 years.

But the Grappler has grabbed his attention these days.

It's fun, he says, for a semi-retired executive.

He's focusing on the Grappler as he and Bonnie Thiessens president of Grapplers, Inc., chief financial officer of B&J, and wife transition the machine shop to their daughter, Cherie Fisher and her husband, Gregg Fisher.

Retirement is a theme in the Grappler's life.

B&J manufactured parts for the Grappler for years.

Since 1984, says Thiessens.

The Grappler's Truckee-based owner and creator, Jim Wilson, assembled the Grappler's pieces in his garage,working under the name ofWW Diversified.

Then he began to think about retirement.

His move out of the Grappler business came at a good time for Thiessens.

It was early 2000 and Thiessens had just built a 54,000- square-foot building to house his burgeoning machine and tool shop.

With the new building, B&J had the room to assemble the Grappler, in addition to machining its parts.

Thiessens a man who enjoys making toys and machining parts made some immediate changes to the Grappler.He engraved the name on the shaft, changed the expensive red rubber tips to blue, and remachined the side-plate into a single piece.He thought the changes would take a few months, but they took nearly 18 months to implement.

He was selling 12,000 Grapplers a year when he purchased the product in 2000.

By 2003, he was selling 18,000, and expects to hold at 18,000 this year as well.

Customers such as CalTrans, park departments, and schools pay from $18.99 to $29.99 each for a 33-inch Grappler, depending on volume.

And Thiessens offers four Grappler lengths, from two-foot Grapplers to eight-footers, all clocking in at price points ranging from $26.99 to $72.99.

And marketing strategy? It's not going into Wal-Mart, says Thiessens.He had that opportunity a few years ago, an offer to sell the 33- inch version into the mega-store at a $14.99 retail price point.

"I would have lost all my customers to Wal-Mart," says Thiessens."Wal-Mart would have owned us."

Selling into the store would have made a big splash and produced sales in the multithousands.

But after the splash settled down and Wal-Mart moved on, his Grappler would have been a cheap orphan he says, adding, "I'd rather have a little splash for a long time." Grapplers are sold nationally, chiefly via the Web, referrals, and word-of-mouth.

Since taking on the Grappler, Thiessens has found marketable uses for it beyond picking up trash and acting as a Burning Man performers' arms.

It's handy for lots of everyday jobs, he says, from retrieving pillow shams from behind the couch to picking apples.