If you know any firefighters, you know that most all of them have at least two jobs, & often more. And they are always looking for another "good gig" to supplement their income. And I was no different.
Our family had an old, small, "pop-up" tent trailer. One year while returning from deer hunting it blew a tire & flipped over. The damage was moderate, and relatively easy to repair. But I started looking around for other options. During this search, I obtained a set of plans for a "portable cabin." I didn't like the trailer design that came with the plans, so I set about redesigning it. I have a background in machining & fabrication, so it wasn't that big of a deal. After I had plans that I had confidence in, I began to save up for my project.
Initially it was purely for personal use; however during the design process I began to see that there could be a market for such a unit. Additionally our old "pop-up" continued to require more & more work & repairs to keep functional. One day it struck me that I could apply the "portable cabin" concept to my old trailer. So I designed a set of plans to convert my old "pop-up" to a scaled down version of the "portable cabin." After that I figured we definitely had a marketable product. I was preparing on calling them Papa Bear's Cabins.
Meanwhile, life goes on. After 16 years in the fire service & EMS, I found myself looking for new directions to take my training & experience. Thinking there was a future in EMS education I set up Papa Bear Safety.
Not long after that, I got involved with Utah's Hunter Education program. While that is a volunteer position, it wasn't without expenses, so we rolled that under the Papa Bear Safety umbrella to attempt to cover some of those expenses.
I had been involved with the Boy Scouts of America for years, due in no small part to having 3 sons. Since I have been a Merit Badge Counselor as well as stints as Scoutmaster & Assistant Scoutmaster, I decided that might also be something we could do more of under Papa Bear Safety.
Then the economy crashed, and we found ourselves struggling, just like everybody else. Also my sons were struggling to find good jobs too. I have more than a decade's experience in service work & construction, so I decided I could start doing the handyman thing to bring in a few bucks, & maybe even give the boys something to do.
So all these things were happening at the same time, & I was thinking about a name for the handyman business. And I know I was going to have to start getting business licenses & register business names, etc. And that is when I decided to consolidate all of them under one entity.
And thus Papa Bear Enterprises was born.
