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The
Rookie - In The News
BEND
INNOVATOR LOOKS TO MAKE FIRE WORK EASIER - 'The Rookie'
fire hose roller saves hours of exhausting grunt work
 Publication:
The Bulletin / Anna Sowa
Date: June 3, 2007
After firefighters squelch the last embers of a blaze
and their 100-foot hoses fall limp without water, someone
must roll the roughly 100-pound hoses up, pushing remaining
air and water out, and lug them back to the truck. Bend
resident David Johnston says his Rookie-brand portable
fire hose rollers save rookie firefighters from doing
the grunt work.
David Johnston, owner of
Deschutes River Manufacturing LLC, invented The
Rookie and its many variants, including The Rookie
Sidekick, hooked here to the trailer hitch on his
truck Thursday, for quickly winding up a 5-inch-wide,
100-foot-long section of hose. |
From the first roller he built in 2002, Johnston has created
a business that's sold 100 products to municipal, government
and industrial firms throughout the nation that need relief
from the back-breaking work of hand-rolling thick hoses.
The Rookie name comes from the new firefighters who often
must roll the hoses, Johnston said.
For James Norman, chief of the East Bend Volunteer Fire
Department in North Carolina, The Rookie has saved him
and his crew the two-hour job of rolling mile-long hoses
back on the truck. The hoses need to be long enough to
reach from a pond - or other water source - to the fire
scene. Done in 100-foot increments, rolling the hose back
up takes less than an hour with The Rookie, Norman said.
"I tell you what, that's a great machine that saves
lots of time," Norman said. "It pushes all the
water and air out of the hose, which then lays flatter
on the truck than when you do it by hand."
Johnston's business is called Deschutes River Manufacturing
LLC, which he operates out of his 23-year home off the
Old Bend-Redmond Highway on acreage with unobstructed
views of the Three Sisters.
The Rookie, which rolls hoses up to 1 1/2 inches in diameter,
is one of the company's five products, all of which are
available with a Honda gas engine or electric motor, though
gas machines are the most popular.
Johnston's other products are: The Rookie Sidekick, which
is smaller but more powerful and fits on the back of a
four-wheeler and rolls 3/4- to 3-inch hoses; The Rookie
Sidekick LDH, which rolls a 5-inch hose; The Rookie Reloader,
which allows firefighters to transfer the hose back to
the vehicles; and The Rookie All-In-One, which rolls from
1 1/2- to 6-inch hoses and comes with a reloader and portable
stand.
At the Bend Fire Department, engineer Brian Boyd says
The Rookie saves him some aches and pains when he does
semiannual hose testing. The department doesn't own a
Rookie yet because of budgetary restrictions but hopes
to buy one soon. Two years ago, Johnston offered The Rookie
for the department to try during hose testing.
"Every year, I have 8 miles of fire hose we have
to test," Boyd said. "(The Rookie) rolls it
up faster and saves time and energy. ... (Doing it by
hand) just wears you out."
From the mill to The Rookie
Before The Rookie changed his life, Johnston had been
a 27-year millwright with Kor-Pine/Willamette Industries,
a particle-board mill in Bend. Weyerhaeuser bought the
company in 2001, Johnston said, and the mill closed for
good in 2002.
"It was devastating," said Johnston, 58. "I
had job offers for being a millwright over on the coast,
but I'm established here. It was very difficult for a
person my age to get a job and to change."
Luckily, the Ohio native had a little background in accounting
earned from working summers with his father, who was an
accountant for a large concrete company. Johnston has
lived in Central Oregon since 1972.
"Numbers have always been easy for me, so that part
was OK," he said of starting his own business. "And
I totally enjoy people and getting to know new people.
I like learning, I like running (my own business). It's
not like work at all."
About a year after he lost his job, one of Johnston's
friends asked him to work building fire hose rollers for
the Pacific Northwest Interagency Support Cache, located
at the Redmond Air Center, in 2002. The Redmond cache
is one of only 11 in the country, which aim to provide
timely logistical support to federal, state and other
agencies in the Pacific Northwest for wildland fires,
floods, earthquakes and natural disasters, according to
the U.S. Forest Service Web site.
That first hose roller became The Rookie. Although the
design wasn't Johnston's, the products became so popular
nationally that he began experimenting with new models.
Eve Ponder works for the Northwest Interagency Support
Cache, which supplies firefighting equipment to regional
firefighters. She said Redmond has 22 Rookies, six of
which they purchased from Johnston. While Johnston has
trademarked The Rookie name and later patented his own
designs, Northwest Interagency Support Cache still holds
the original Rookie patent, which they can contract other
manufacturers to build.
"Dave builds an excellent product," she said.
"His machines work well for us."
By 2004, Johnston had a full-time business on his hands
as he developed his own patented products that are lightweight
and easily transported. Since he started, Johnston has
sold 100 products, which range from around $3,000 to $5,000
each.
But getting to this point wasn't easy, Johnston said.
His experience is in mechanical technology, in which he
received an associate degree through Willamette Industries.
But he needed help, which he found in the form of Dan
Rohrer, owner of Rohrer Manufacturing Inc., located at
Powell Butte.
Rohrer does all the metal-cutting and welding for Rookie
frames, which Johnston then assembles with the rest of
the parts in his barn-turned-shop at his home.
The industrial sector - oil refineries and chemical companies
- is quickly becoming Johnston's next hot market.
"(The Rookie products) really cut down on the manpower
and cut down on time," said Becky Gibson, vice president
of sales and marketing for TSI Inc., the company that
distributes Johnston's products to the oil and chemical
companies up and down the Gulf Coast. "It also is
a safety issue for saving people's back, that sort of
thing."
In the two years she's worked with Johnston, Gibson has
sold roughly 10 Rookie rollers to companies along the
Gulf, notably to the industrial facilities of Dow Chemical,
BP and Exxon-Mobile. Her company has bought three it uses
for testing and training purposes. TSI Inc. sells fire
equipment to industrial companies, primarily the major
petrochemical firms.
"He's got an incredible product that the market needs,"
she said from Baton Rouge, La. "It's just a matter
of getting it out in the marketplace."
Anna Sowa writes for The Bulletin in Bend Oregon.
For more product information and to purchase, please contact
us or call toll free 877-868 -1951.
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