Rocketry Planet

TAMPA, Florida USA — Dave Ebersole, owner of Skagit Rocketry of Mount Vernon, Washington, has acquired the Florida business Always Ready Rocketry in its entirety, and will cease the Skagit business operations to operate under the Always Ready Rocketry name, poised to expand the success of Always Ready Rocketry and the Blue Tube product line even further.

Randall Ejma, the prior owner of Always Ready Rocketry and the person responsible for bringing vulcanized fiber airframe products to mainstream rocketry with the introduction of "Blue Tube" followed up later on with his own invention, "Blue Tube 2.0," and is very excited at the prospect of one of his valued dealers taking over the reins with plans of continued expansion.

"I never expected ARR to get anywhere near as big as it got," Ejma said. "It had gotten to a point where it was all-encompassing and was affecting my work/life balance with my wife and 2 year old son. I started only two years ago and the concept of having so many people excited about something has been just amazing and a huge blessing.

"I'm kind of jealous that Dave's got a CNC and enough shop space to grow, but it's just too big for me to handle part-time now. I remember when I first started. My wife and I were thinking, 'Oh, this will be just some extra income to help get by, and to help pay for my rocketry addiction.' We had no idea what we were in for.

"Barry Lynch of LOC/Precision was kind of my mentor and I recall an early conversation back then. 'Well, once you get to about 35-50k in sales, that's about as much as you'll be able to handle as a side biz.' I thought, 'Wow!, I can't even imagine doing that much!'

"Well 2 years have gone by and almost a quarter million dollars in sales later, I don't know how I was able to do it. I'm humbled by it all. I'm humbled by my customers, I'm humbled by my valuable dealers who have invested their hard earned profits into my product and I'm especially humbled by Dave for not just taking over as owner of the 'Blue Tube' brand, but actually becoming ARR. I didn't expect that at all."

"I am excited to take over the operation of this premier rocketry company," new Always Ready Rocketry owner Dave Ebersole said. "Randy will be on staff for a while and with his help I will make the transition as smooth as possible. My recent addition of a custom-built CNC router will enable ARR in the future to offer the Blue Tube line of rocket kits to our dealer network—that's something that [Randy] always wanted, but wasn't able to do.

"In addition to that I'll be able to offer custom CNC work for rings, fins, slotting and kits cut to customer's specifications. I look forward to continuing with the many relationships Randy has begun, and adding some new ones of my own. As my first announcement as owner of ARR, I'd like to welcome RocketsRUs in Ft. Myers, Florida, as a new 'Blue Tube' dealer to replace Randy in Tampa and to service his local customers and the Southeast."

Ejma will continue to be very active in his local Tripoli Rocketry Association prefecture, Tripoli Tampa Rocketry Association. He'll be back to enjoying his research rocketry, acting as TTRA treasurer, land owner liaison and waiver manager. Plus, he'll be able to get back to enjoying boating with his family and maintain a regular work schedule as a system analyst at one of the top cancer research centers in the country.

Website: http://www.alwaysreadyrocketry.com/