How an Inexpensive Log Splitter Made Me Rich and Famous

By David Kimball
Published on September 1, 1977
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Photo By Fotolia/Inger Anne Hulbækdal
Taos Equipment's inexpensive log splitter made the company rich.

After Taos Equipment’s inexpensive log splitter appeared in MOTHER EARTH NEWS their business produced a big increase in sales for their manufacturing equipment.

What happens if you start a small business which makes a product (a low-cost, high-capacity log splitter) designed to help people live simpler, more self-sufficient lives?

Well, I can tell you what happens if that product suddenly appears on the cover of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS©. You end up dealing with seven lawyers, three CPA’s, one computer, and forty employees!

Taos Equipment was formed a little over two years ago in a two-car adobe garage 14 miles south of Taos, New Mexico. The company now operates out of 40,000 square feet (including a new plant in Albuquerque), and we’re working with a very much larger corporation (Arnold Industries of Toledo, Ohio) that provides the technical, financial, and marketing support we need to manufacture and sell our log splitter throughout the world.

We Began as Dropout Firewood Dealers

We really didn’t expect all this to happen. My partner, Larry Krogness, and I were both dropout firewood dealers when we started the business. He had been a machinist and mechanic. I had been a college English teacher and a journalist. We had both moved to Taos for the usual reasons: We wanted to live simpler, more self-sufficient lives.

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