Cops key to business

Ted Morford moved to Montana from Colorado about 20 years ago, burned out from a high-stress marketing job and looking to catch his breath before re-entering the business world. He barely had time blink before opportunity found him.

By GREG TUTTLE
Of The Gazette Staff

Morford was visiting with a new neighbor, a rancher who liked to shoot coyotes while tending his cattle, when the neighbor mentioned his idea for a new kind of gun rack for his pickup truck. Seems the rancher needed to get at his gun quickly when he came across a varmint, and the old rack in the back window was just too cumbersome.

So the rancher came up with the idea to make a gun rack that would fasten to the ceiling of the cab.

Morford was impressed, and knew he could use his marketing background to promote a good idea. The rancher and the former printing company rep formed a partnership and Big Sky Racks Inc. http://www.bigskyracks.com/ was born.

"It was just a tremendous idea," Morford said.

A few years later, Morford bought out his partner, moved the company to the basement of his home near Bozeman and began selling the ceiling-mounted gun racks to hunters. The basement business was small but steady, until opportunity arrived at Morford’s doorstep again.

When the federal government started mandating air bags for all government vehicles, it meant that police officers could no longer carry shotguns on the consoles of their cruisers.

Morford saw a chance for a new market, and decided to test his idea at the annual convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police held in Detroit that year.

The product was a hit, and soon a new line of law enforcement gun racks with electronic locks were being sold across the country.

"The law enforcement really took off into its own world," said John Morford, Ted’s son who helps run the company.

Today, the company sells gun racks around the world through 68 distributors. Big Sky Racks http://www.bigskyracks.com/ products have been used by the military in Desert Storm and in the White House, according to the company’s Web page. Other customers include the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, CIA and numerous state and city police agencies.

"It’s been a really nice niche product and small family business," Ted Morford said.

Morford said he attends the police chiefs’ convention every year, and will be in Minneapolis this weekend. Big Sky Racks is the only Montana company that will be at the convention, where about 200 firms are set to demonstrate and display everything from helicopters and armored vehicles to satellite communications and weaponry.

Morford credits his contacts through the years with top cops from around the country for much of his company’s success.

"It’s just a tremendous marketing tool," he said of the convention, expected this year to draw 15,000 police chiefs. "If you’re not there, you’re not in business."

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