                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995           TAG: 9509180258
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS          PAGE: 10   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Cover Story 
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Long  :  139 lines

THE JAWS OF SUCCESS: INVENTION GOBBLES UP A NICE PROFIT FOR FAMILY BUSINESS

AS A FORMER repo man, Dave Craze knew all too well the hazards of the job.

Seemed like every time he got out of his tow truck to hitch up a repossessed vehicle, the owner would miraculously appear, often waving a gun or a piece of lumber, or with his fists ready for action, or accompanied by a barking dog.

Sometimes the confrontations got pretty nasty.

``I've been shot at and punched at,'' said Craze, 51, who ran a repossession business in Norfolk during the '70s and '80s. ``They'll hurt you if they can. The less time you spend there, the better.''

So, in 1983, Craze and his father-in-law, Calvin Russ, another repo man, set about trying to find a safer way of doing business.

After six months of development, the two men came up with the Hydraulic Jaws, a remote-controlled device that can be used from inside the truck's cab to clamp under the wheels of a vehicle and lift it.

Instead of spending precious minutes underneath the car hitching a tow, a repo man using the Hydraulic Jaws could accomplish the job in less than seven seconds, without ever leaving the safety of the truck. Because the device only touched the vehicle's wheels, ``the tow is damage-free,'' Russ pointed out.

At first, Craze and Russ used their invention to help the family-run repo business. But before long, word began getting around at wrecker rodeos and trade shows about their device. Tow-truck drivers, fearful of hauling stranded motorists off busy thoroughfares, as well as repo men, immediately saw the advantages and began approaching the men with offers to purchase the jaws.

So the men set up Dynamic Manufacturing Inc. on East Indian River Road to manufacture add-on kits.

The Virginia Department of Transportation became one of Dynamic's first customers after a department employee stopped Craze along the roadside one afternoon. He had seen the repo man using the lift system to repossess a car in Berkley.

``I thought it was the owner coming after me,'' Craze said. ``The guy said he thought it was something the state would be really interested in.''

It was. And others soon were, too. In fact, before long, major truck manufacturers began sniffing around, eager to come up with their own remote-controlled lift system.

It took the two men three years and $8,000, but in 1986 they finally received a U.S. patent on the device. Since then, they've secured another patent for a modification on the jaws that allows self-loading from the bottom of vehicles. Now they're in the process of getting a patent on a third invention, this one for a motorcycle-loading attachment on rollback trucks, the flatbed-type tow truck that has come into increasing use in recent years.

Although business has been steady from the first, it wasn't until 1993, when the family decided to sink $100,000 into advertising, that business really took off. In 1994, Dynamic's sales jumped to $8 million, a whopping 97 percent increase over the year before. So far in 1995, the company already has seen another 40 percent increase in the sales.

Now, instead of the four workers it started with in 1982, Dynamic employs some 62 workers - including Craze's wife, son-in-law, several daughters and a granddaughter - to produce and sell add-on kits for upgrading conventional wreckers as well as five versions of fully equipped wreckers with all sorts of options, including extendable booms and winches.

Five salesmen - located in Norfolk, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania - call on clients in highway and police departments, tow companies and wrecker services. With 32 distributors worldwide, the company's clients extend to such countries as South Africa, Great Britain, Taiwan and dozens of cities across the United States.

Orders are coming in so fast that Craze figures the company is about six to eight weeks behind in filling them.

``We've got more business than we know what to do with,'' Craze said.

His wife, Rebecca, added: ``We're still small, but we've definitely gotten their attention.''

Plans are under way to double the size of the manufacturing plant from its present 29,000 square feet, spread along East Indian River Road in seven shops, to one consolidated operation. Craze is working on purchasing soon a three-acre plot near the company's current location; otherwise, he says he'll have no choice but to move away from the well-established Indian River Road site.

The company also recently purchased a computer-controlled plasma cutter to produce parts, a piece of technological wizardry that replaced three workers. All three, however, were put to work elsewhere in the operation, Craze said.

Although family members say their business is still ``small potatoes,'' major truck manufacturers are taking notice. Russ and Craze have been approached several times with lucrative offers from ``all the biggies'' to purchase the licensing rights to their invention.

``We will never agree to that,'' said Russ, 72.

``Well, don't say that,'' his son-in-law injected. ``If the price was right, we might. But if we did accept these offers, it would bump us off.''

Part of their survival depends on protecting the exclusiveness of the jaws. Craze said the family is working with a Michigan attorney and is considering filing a lawsuit in that state against a business they believe has infringed on their patent.

``It's a constant fight because we have others who are so close to ours,'' he said. ``But we're going to fight them. Our attorney is confident we'll win.''

Meanwhile, Dynamic continues to market its invention at wrecker rodeos and trade shows. And Russ and Craze continue to make modifications and seek new, and even safer, ways of doing business.

As for the repo business, they've had to turn that over to Craze's daughter, Michelle.

``We gave it to her a few years ago,'' he said. ``We just don't have time for it anymore. All this has just taken off. ... We had no idea it would be so big.'' MEMO: The last sentence of this article did not appear in the published

text and the photographer's name who took the color photos on the cover

is Christopher Reddick.