Based on what Barry had heard was being discussed in the forums lately, he thought there were going to be other questions asked that weren't. He decided to answer the questions that people didn't ask because he felt they deserved to be answered.

The following is unedited, direct from Barry in an email he sent me earlier today. He has stated that anything he writes to me may be placed on YORF.

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The rocket communities including the organizations have a different attitude towards governmental agencies than we do here at the company. The rocket people think it is great when they sue agencies and win or don’t follow the laws—it is common in this country-and I do it myself in my personal life to give short shrift to the government—over the years I have heard many things about what rocketeers should or should not do vs a vs certain regulations. There is an attitude that the government is wrong whenever they try to interfere in rocketry in any way shape or form. As the President of Estes I cannot have that attitude-we have to live with these people on a day to day basis—we live and die with what they say and do related to rocketry—sure the NAR can go sue an agency and be very proud when they win—but we here at the company are the ones on the front line—if there is any push back it is against Estes—and this is why we have maintained a distance from all the litigation and angers directed towards government.

As long as I am here we are going to keep this same posture—one of your questioners asked why we can’t have USPS increase the amount of shipping BP –we are happy they have agreed to ship any of this at all and without HAZ Mat fees like UPS and FEDEX are doing—if I had one wish to be granted it would be to get the engine classification changed from 1.4 S to ORMD—what that little change would do for rocketry is immense and I have been after this for 18 years—I have failed—what do you think the chances would be if Estes were joining law suits against DOT—it is preposterous to assume we can fight these guys all the time—we can disagree but politely and with knee pads on in the event of an emergency.

The latest law to effect the hobby is the CPSIA law that is now in effect—it more than any other single issue ld me to the decision that I want retirement—I wake up every morning at 3:30 and the first thing I look for on my email is what tests have been completed and what are the results and can we ship an additional SKU to the market—we have more people involved in the testing process than we do making new product—we are spending more money on testing this year than we will on new tooling and equipment combined—and many many companies are in the same position—I hate this law-deep down I know that the people who work at CPSC would have liked for it to be written differently and the timetable longer and the inventory in warehouses exempt from the law—Ms. Nord herself talked about 3 billion dollars of product that will be destroyed and the thousands of jobs that will be lost—we have spent almost 800,000 dollars in testing-destroyed over 2,400,000 dollars in non compliant product and over 500,000 in rework where we could do it to get product into compliance—which of that does anyone think is good for me—no it sucks—but we are going to comply with every aspect of the law because we have to—now I know that some rocket companies are not complying—your members think that is cool—we do not have that luxury—this is nothing to do with what I may want to do or want to say as a person—it only has to do with what this company MUST do—period

I gather your members want Mike ,Mike and Mary to participate in the forum in the future. The three of them typically work 80 -100 hours pr week and since the inception of CPSIA I would say that they would welcome going back to an 80 hour work week. I will not ask them to spend even more time than they do regarding the hobby. If they want to participate then it is there own decision—Christine is an hourly employee and she is not available to take part in the forum—she has a job and a life. Mary as well has the most pressured job in the company right now—everything revolves around her and she has to babysit me when I have anxiety attacks—she also can make her own decision but I wont ask her to do anything on behalf of Estes. What is next—interviews with the shipping department and the engine makers—how about the accounting department—needless to say not very many companies would grant this type of exposure to the public and we will not either.

As for the sale of the company—I am astonished that it has engendered so much discussion. It will be seamless I can assure you of that—that will be one of the contingencies. Everything else about the sale is private and will not be discussed at all by me or anyone else involved—oh yea two other things—we began to charge customers cash in advance last fall because the costs related to CPSIA—which I outlined above—made CIA critical to our continuing and has been abandoned for most accounts. In 18 years we have had two injuries in the engine area—a cut finger and a bad back—when I first came to the company I worked on the engine machines and resolved that if any job in this company was too dangerous fro me to work then no one else could either—

Another issue that I did not answer as fully as I would have liked is the issue of making product in the US—we did the first two years I was here but the Florence prison opened and took most of our people—if we had not moved to China we would never have survived and we were growing so fast then that it made it even worse—three years ago we started to develop plans to move most of the product back here –it has gone slower than I had hoped—but some day that is the plan and over the next 6 months we will be taking steps to make this a reality

I will answer any questions that you want say every 4-6 weeks or so—and none of this has anything to do with the sale of the company at all but it is a way to try to put some context around some issues—there were other questions that were related to my opinions about other people involved in this hobby—I cannot answer them but they can –ask them –or ask them to give me permission to answer and I will.

Off to China.

__________________
Scott D. Hansen
Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe - Your One Stop BAR Shoppe!
Ye Olde Rocket Plans - OOP Rocket Plans From 38 Companies!
Ye Olde Rocket Forum
WOOSH NAR Section #558

My kinda guy.

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Mini Dactyl Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

I take great pride in the fact that at my club launches I and my club members follow the rules - all of them. Whether we agree with them or not. For Barry to gloss all rocketeers to "think it is great when they...don’t follow the laws" is an insult to me and my members. I take that comment personally. You do not know anything about me Barry. I am not a criminal even when the cops aren't looking.

As far as the lawsuit goes I think it's great that we sued and won because we did it correctly. Through the courts.

I can't post how I really feel about Barry's comment because I am quite positive I would be violating some forum rules here on YORF.

Barry, good riddance. If you are going to have that much contempt for the rocket community you can goto China and don't bother coming back.

-Dave Brunsting

I didn't interpret that portion of Mr. Tunick's answer as slighting all rocket fliers, or even the subset who post to web forums, at all. I think that it was just an off-hand bit of sarcasm, and was exactly the same sort of thing that is inserted into posts on this and the other forums all the time. He was making a point about not having the luxury of having Estes take positions in opposition to any of the laws and regulations that apply to the company, or lend support to actions such as the recently-concluded BATFE lawsuit. The lawsuit, for example, was filed by NAR and TRA, two non-profit organizations that consist entirely of private citizens. Neither organization functions as a trade association, and neither one has corporate memberships. As private citizens acting through our national organizations, we were able to take legal action against a federal agency on the issue of AP classification, and that was something that his company was not in a position to do. I think that was all he was saying.

MarkII

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SAM # 0011

Barry,

Thanks a lot for providing your additional thoughts. You alluded to a couple of issues that I'm hoping you wouldn't mind providing a bit more clarification on.

You said that the big box market, like Walmart, has helped grow the hobby market threefold.

I'm not asking you to provide actual dollar amounts (unless you want to ) but could you expand upon this topic a bit. I think there are some here with the impression that the heyday of model rocketry, in terms of participants and sales volumnes, was the early 1970s. Would you mind giving us an indication of the relative volume of kits and motors sold today versus back then.


I'm also really interested in why Estes would be returning production to the US. It seems like plastics production and the manual work involved in bagging kits would be ideally suited to Chinese manufacture. Not that I'm saying that's a good thing, but returning manufacture here seems to run counter to what everyone else is doing so I curious as to what you see as the compelling reasons.

Finally, would you mind telling us what your favorite products produced during your tenure at Estes, and what was the biggest disappointment?

Thanks again for stopping by.

I DO take it as an insult. This man insults our intelligence. If it wasn't for people like us, he wouldn't HAVE a company. He wouldn't have a house in Europe to retire to. He needs to remember that.

As to the matter of moving manufacturing back to the US. I understand the reasoning why it was moved to China. His workforce was gone. Understandable. Sometimes, you have to do things you don't necessarily like in order to survive. I am glad to see the move back to the US. Hopefully, that will bring more badly needed jobs to the area.

__________________
Mystical Rockets
Blasting off into the heavens
http://www.mysticalrockets.com

I don't take Barry's comments as an insult as all. I have been a very safe rocketeer, following all the rules, as most around here do. On the other hand, I know EXACTLY what he is talking about. A quick browsing through ANY model rocket forum will expose MANY rocketeers that Barry seems to be describing perfectly, and they often are quite loud about their "superior" ideas. I KNOW he's not talking about ME.

As one that is in a business that has to deal w/significant government regulation, I completely accept and understand his positions on litigation. It is best to keep a compliant and quiet position concerning lawsuits and let private associations lead the fight on these fronts. If the Feds think Estes is behind all this rabble rousing, it would be quite easy for them to crush Estes right out of existence with some oppressive legislation we haven't even thought of yet.

I also think his explanations concerning big box store operations are spot on. Walmart carries a very limited line of rockets and engines. Almost all rockets are part of a starter kit, getting the launcher into the hands of a potential lifetime rocketeer. Engines available are the most basic models. It is a perfect relationship to feed the hobby shops.

I'm in the camp of people that would like some of my old engines back, like a higher thrust B and the short lived C11-0, but I'm grateful that the A booster engines are making a come back. These engines allow multi-staged launches in fields where a higher powered booster would ensure a lost rocket. The flip side of this would be the longer delay 1/2A6-4's return.

The fact that Barry has participated in this session, and is open to more, is a great gesture on his part. I can tell you, as an employer I would NEVER grant the kind of access some have requested to other Estes employees. One mis-spoken word can cause all sorts of perception problems. If someone wants to talk about my company, they talk to ME, not those that work for me. My employees are deliberately trained to give canned answers to specific questions. If any question requires anything other than their carefully scripted responses, they are directed to forward the questions and the customer to ME. That is not evasive, that is just GOOD BUSINESS.

I hope Barry continues to participate in the format, despite the few that seem as if they wish to antagonize with each and every response.

__________________
"AND I hope they are from the planet of the "Chunk spunky Mary-Lou Retton clones". - Ironnerd

"Those who trade liberty for security have neither" - Benjamin Franklin

"Semroc is almost always the answer" - Stefanj

www.paulsavia.com

www.soundclick.com/paulsavia

Then he needs to learn to write better. It takes only a minute to step back and review how anyone might interpret any given statement. This is the first time for me to see any of his posts so I am obviously missing the required sarcasm filter. Then again, I still think he meant what he said.

Those Quest A, B and C motors are looking better and better everyday.

-Dave

If by "people like us" you mean people who participate in this forum or even all the members of the NAR, you're wrong. The people who buy a starter set at Walmart or the casual hobby store customer are where he makes his money. Serious rocket flyers like us are a drop in the bucket.

People like us were responsible for the beginning of the hobby and in that sense I guess you could say that's why he has a company now but that's ancient history.

__________________
Bill Spadafora
http://www.billsplumbing.com
billspad@comcast.net bill@billsplumbing.com

He was talking about a select few, not everyone. You guys pissing and moaning sound like my 'ex'. Go take a Prozac and chill out...

I have never been a member of a club or been to a national event. But I do try to follow the guide lines and be safe. When I was a kid, there were just a few of us in a small town that didn't have a clue such things existed. But we were smart enough to read the stuff that came with the kits!