If you've enjoyed our light-hearted look at ourselves, then you gotta get a copy of our new "corporate" folder and the technical bulletins that describe our products. It makes for an interesting read.

Fred and Dave
Fred and Dave were “ex-Cons,” ex-Conoco engineers who worked in Casper, Wyoming throughout the 70s. Conoco kept trying to move them to Houston. But Fred and Dave didn’t want to live in Houston. They wanted to elk hunt, fish and drive around in wide-open spaces in four-wheel-drive trucks. (Dave is better at fishing than he is at driving - as evidenced by the picture to the right.) So Fred and Dave retired early from Conoco and ventured into independent production. In the mid 80s, when oil prices collapsed, Fred and Dave started buying Rocky Mountain stripper production. Dave stayed in Casper and Fred moved his family to Billings, MT. But the price of crude kept falling.

By the late 80s, times were really lean. Fred and Dave were getting really pi…ticked off every time they turned around and had to pay for yet another pulling job because a few dollars worth of rings had worn out and messed up another $3000 pump. They needed better sealing components and they had some good design ideas. So they started looking for an oilfield manufacturing company to buy. They also started looking for someone who knew a lot more than they did about managing a business and several employees.

Mike, Fred & Dave
In 1991, Fred and Dave took the bull(s) by the horns. They lured Mike away from his cushy desk job and together these three old oilfield hands bought Darcova and The Dragon. And then they spent the next four years driving to Ohio, learning how to run the machinery, work with employees, design and test new products and keep up with the demand for the tried and true products that The Dragon and Darcova had invented and had been manufacturing for decades.