In 2003, Rocky Wens was president of ESP Inc., Engineering Support Personnel, in Lynnwood and celebrating an award from the Snohomish County Business Journal as its Executive of the Year.
Today, he still displays that award in his office, but it’s a much different office — in Maltby, not Lynnwood.
Back then, he was overseeing nearly 300 employees in 35 locations across the country who operated and maintained military flight simulators at military bases for such weapons as the F-14 Tomcat, the F-18 Hornet and the EA-6B Prowler.
Contracting with the Department of Defense, ESP also served top-level aerospace and industrial companies as well as state and local government entities.
But in the fall of 2006, Wens sold his thriving business, the headquarters moved from Lynnwood to Orlando, Fla., and Wens retired, suddenly faced with more time on his hands than he could have imagined.
Not one to sit still for long, he found work in October as a draftsman with Tetra Tech Engineering &Design Services, at least until July 2007.
By then, he was ready to launch a new company of his own.
That month, he formed Blue Canyon LLC, named for Blue Canyon Road on Lake Whatcom where he and his wife of 25 years, Ardis, own Blue Canyon Lodge, a bed-and-breakfast for family and friends.
“Ardis is the foundation for this family,” he said. “Without her we’d be a disorganized bunch running around like headless chickens.”
Although he’s been part of a design/build team for the Jersey Street Apartments in Bellingham, a 28-unit apartment complex for Western Washington University students, with ground floor retail space, he’s primarily freelancing with second- and third-tier companies serving Boeing, dealing with machine design, materials handling and ground-support equipment.
Another project involves mining equipment, including a device that can descend 800 feet underground to bring up mined material on a rail by pinching the track as it rises.
“I’m mostly doing Puget Sound-area work,” Wens said over lunch at the Maltby Cafe. “I’m using highly sophisticated drafting software, including programs such as SolidWorks and AutoCAD that produce two-and three-dimensional drafting work. I usually meet with design teams and add on to their work when they’re overloaded with new projects.”
On one project, designed in Seattle for assembly in Alabama, he was asked to help the assembly team understand how to put the part together and show them how it was to work.
“I e-mailed them the design in 3D but I also sent them a video showing how it worked in 3D and that solved the problem,” he said.
Many companies have a spike in their workload but don’t want to staff up and then lay off, so he fills in for the extra work, he said.
Wens is happy that his children are close by and venturing into their own careers.
Kelsie, 24, is married and just opened Fresh Salon + Spa in downtown Snohomish; Haley, 22, is a University of Washington senior studying pediatric occupational therapy and working part-time with autistic kids; and Anthony, 20, is studying animation and game design at Lake Washington Technical College but also wants to share his guitar talents as a teacher in his spare time.
Asked how he’s adjusted to working alone in Maltby after running a multimillion-dollar national company from Lynnwood dealing with highly sophisticated military contracts and equipment, it’s apparent he hasn’t adjusted all that well.
“I mostly work alone in my ‘man cave’ office here in Maltby and I really miss the team environment of working together with others to successfully overcome complex design issues, budgeting and scheduling constraints — even the stress,” he said.
When he was still heading his national firm in Lynnwood in 2006 he was “getting two or three calls a week from people and companies wanting to buy me out,” he said.
Finally, he gave in and sold, but it’s clear — now that he’s had some four year of respite from that fast-paced life — that he still misses it.
“I’m happy with what I’m doing, but I’m feeling the call to jump back into bigger things. If an offer came along with a progressive-thinking small company, with an outside-the-box business model and a unique product development approach, I would jump at the chance to be back in that environment,” he said.
For more information about Blue Canyon LLC, visit www.bluecanyonllc.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
