D.A.L.E.S. Corporation

About Us (More than you probably want to know)

D.A.L.E.S. Corporation was born on July 11, 1986.

Dale Frantz, President, (that’s me) owned and operated an automotive body repair shop (Dale’s Body Shop - naturally) in Toledo, Ohio (home of the Toledo Mud Hens) and wanted to find a better way to get that expensive paint out of the can into a spray gun. Oh Yeah, I also wanted to play more golf.

Buzz Kutz (that’s pronounced kootz) was a great sales rep with his own company (over 10 years) selling pots and pans for some pretty big guys in the pot and pan world. He played a lot of golf too. (And he’s good at it). He did such a great job of selling the big accounts, they took his sales in-house and skipped over the “pay Buzz” part. Now how’s a guy supposed to pay his light bill (and green fees) if there isn’t any money coming in? (Especially with a new son, Woody)

I needed to invent, produce and market a one-gallon paint can lid to solve my problem (the painting one) in the automotive industry. So I started Dale And Lisa’s (my wife) Expert Specialties, (D.A.L.E.S. Corporation - naturally). After eight years of testing and perfecting the prototype, I sold my body shop (of 20 years) and began working at D.A.L.E.S. Corporation full time. April fools day, 1992. Go Figure.

A simple plan…Call a few automotive distributors, sell Pourit® to the distributors, they sell to the automotive paint stores and I become filthy stinkin’ rich in a year or so. (And golf all I want).

OK – Nobody told me that you had to have more than one product to sell to the automotive market, and it had to be packaged for retail sales. So I bought some packaging equipment and made up a really neat (and expensive) package for the retail market. Oops - not only do the retailers want more than one product, they want a million dollars of liability insurance, my first-born child (Mandy), and a whole line of products WITH NO PACKAGE!!! (I have lost all of my EGO by now).

Three and a half years I struggle with a single line item company and then finally I adopt some new products from other companies with the same problem. Thanks to all of the smaller stores, I got my foot in the door (so to speak) and then was able to get into a few small chain stores. (Let’s see…Three great products + more sales = more $ and golf).

Wrong!…I can’t seem to keep up with the sales or the sales reps. There is art work, advertising, never enough inventory, 12 hour days, and I’m not even going to start on the money. Between the phone calls and the cleaning, I realize that I really need some help.

Hummmmmm. Buzz and I had been playing golf for a few years now and I know he needs something to do. His wife, Susan (who does all of the painting in his house because he’s lousy at it) loves my products and says to Buzz, she says, “Buzz, why don’t you sell Dale’s stuff? I like it so everyone else will too”.
You guessed it, in 1996, Buzz joined forces with me and together we have turned this company into a real job. (Without much golf). He manages the sales reps and trade shows and attends all of the meetings with the really BIG guys. We had to add more people and more products (and keep adding them). Changed our packaging (again). Changed our pricing a bunch of times, and now we are getting so busy it looks like we may never get to play golf.

Ricky (the warehouse guy) handles shipping and receiving, Jodi (I have pictures if you want to see them) takes care of tracking the money, Barb (photos also available) processes all of the orders and shipping documents while Angie (no photos) manages our full production line, and we’re planning on expanding that area too. (Into the basement if they don’t start getting along better).

World headquarters is still located in Toledo (remember, the home of the Mud Hens?). Stop by some time, the beer is always cold and I’ll show you the pictures of my grand son (Greydon - born February 01). Yes I’m gettin’ old, but I’m still inventing things that you will…”NEEDit-WANTit-GOTTAHAVEit” ™.

Anyway, we love our job and I hope you can tell, we have fun at it too. Once you have tried our products, we know that you too will see that we can “Take the PAIN out of PAINting”™.

A SPECIAL “THANK YOU” TO EVERYBODY THAT HAS HELPED OUR COMPANY GROW.

PS - If you call and get our voice mail, we are probably in the warehouse…NOT GOLFING.