Changing in a Bullmarket

C.H. Bull Co. stands tall with homegrown expertise in specialized tools like hydraulic jacks and an engineered products group

By Ken Brack -- Industrial Distribution, 8/1/1998

C.H. Bull Co.

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

Founded: 1930

Locations: 1

1997 Sales: $9 million

Primary products: Specialty tools, heat exchange equipment, jacks and hydraulics, hoists and cranes

Territory: Northern California

Web site: www.chbullco.com

A salesman named Charles H. Bull left Chicago for San Francisco in 1924 to sell diesel engines and other equipment to the railroads. When the Depression struck several years later and Bull's company recalled him to Chicago, he refused with the reported retort, "California's had me for six years and you're not getting me back." Instead, he founded a distributorship that began by selling to contractors, truckers and industry.

Sixty-eight years and two family generations later, the C.H. Bull Co. thrives. The founder's grandson, Andy Bull, owns the $9 million company along with his cousin, Stan Sheppard, whose father was C.H. Bull's son-in law and also worked at the firm.

The company's customer base has evolved from railroads to include computer manufacturers, facility maintenance and specialty contractors. But its owners' knack for finding innovative products and adopting best business practices hasn't budged.

These days, C.H. Bull sells and rents an array of power and specialized tools to customers that also include electrical and mechanical contractors and utility companies. The company stands out for its expertise in hydraulic jacking.

In fact, C.H. Bull may have the largest rental fleet of hydraulic jacks west of the Mississippi. And on occasion, Sheppard, who is a jacking specialist and company vice president, designs new tools and works as a consultant for international rigging contractors.

C.H. Bull's engineered products division carries on the company's tradition of selling radiators and related gear, and has become an important profit center. Company president Andy Bull has carved out his own niche by conducting product demonstrations and safety meetings at customers' facilities.

"Over the years they've been very clever to develop the needs of industrial commodities," says Fred Young, president and CEO of Young Radiator Co., Racine, Wisc. Young's father selected Charles H. Bull in 1934 to represent his company's line of radiators, and the two firms have remained business partners ever since. "They're very innovative. They're above average.''

Devising solutions

The two owners pride themselves on being systems designers -- whether it's renting 70 ballast pumps to help unload a barge or helping the maintenance supervisor of a new high-rise coordinate supplies and purchase a lift to clean windows and chandeliers.

"The reputation we've earned in the field is we take care of our customers' problems,'' Sheppard says. "We'll take responsibility to make sure our customer gets what they need. That pays off in the long run."

Jay Lorince, a tool administrator at Lucent Technologies in Oakland, has seen C.H. Bull solve his problems many times over nearly a decade.

"Since I've been involved with them nothing surprises me," Lorince says. "They're always there. You ask them to come out and look at something and they will...we can go to them with our needs."

In one case, Lorince's crews were cutting steel wall frames to retrofit a Bay Area building that contained a telephone switching station, but the weight of the saw kept snapping the blades. With three stories to cover, Lorince asked for help. Bull recalls that they "looked at the whole picture and said, 'You don't really need a better band saw blade, you need a better system.' "

Bull and Sheppard devised a new demolition tool, combining products from several manufacturers. The pair started with the Jaws of Life extricating cutter commonly used by emergency crews, and added special seals so it could be used with standard hydraulic oil and an electrical hydraulic pump. Next they added a heat exchanger to dissipate extreme heat caused by continuous use, and a hydraulic balancer to hold the 44-pound tool by attaching it to an overhead structure. The tool, which the firm now sells, shortened the cutting time from 10-15 minutes to six seconds.

Nearly two years ago, Bull and Sheppard designed an engine hoist to lift 900-pound batteries used at switching stations. Lorince says he needed something that would fit through doorways and elevators, and the company designed a hoist with fold-up legs that was low enough to fit underneath a battery platform. The hoist, which has not yet been patented, has drawn interest from other companies.

"They kept modifying it right to our needs," Lorince says. The two partners also give similar effort not only for "large stuff" -- the engine hoist was a few thousand dollars -- but also to modify small tools with much cheaper price tags.

Neil Dodds, CEO of Rigging International-Rimco, a large rigging contractor, has bought or leased jacks from C.H. Bull on numerous jobs, including repairing the Bay Bridge after the 1989 earthquake.

In 1996 Dodds called on Sheppard to help design hydraulic lifts for a particularly tricky job: lifting the seven million pound, 300-foot long I Street railroad bridge in Sacramento. They lifted it five inches to remove and replace a frozen bearing that turns the bridge for boat traffic on the Sacramento River, working in an eight-hour window allowed by the railroad.

"We spent a lot of dirty nights under that bridge jacking it up and keeping it all in balance," Dodds recalls. "We feel we are pretty innovative and I feel that Stan is good support for us in that area."

No silver spoon

Neither Andy Bull nor Stan Sheppard got in the company door for free.

While Sheppard decided at age 16 that he would someday join the company, his burly cousin stayed away at first. Andy Bull worked there during the summers as a teenager, but had no desire to enter the distribution business. He attended a small Christian college with a major in physical education and a minor in Bible literature, and wanted to go into coaching. He became assistant director of a Lutheran youth ministry and it was not until one Thanksgiving back home in 1977 that his father, Charles E. Bull, and his uncle talked him into joining.

He started the next February and his father paid him $25 less than the $650 monthly salary he earned at the ministry. He worked weekend construction jobs at apartment complexes to earn extra money for his family.

Sheppard, meanwhile, had joined the company in 1973 after attending Colorado State University, where he majored in "marketing, business, skiing and partying." Mechanically inclined, Sheppard, 48, enjoys hot rods and owns a Harley Davidson. He also has a small machine shop at home where he sometimes works on new tools and other projects.

Both moved up the ladder into sales and by the late 1980s their fathers prepared for retirement after about 40 years of working. Neither C.E. Bull nor Harry Sheppard would just hand over the business, though. They sold it to their sons for close to $1 million in 1990, with the cousins taking out a 15-year note.

Their first year was rough. On the heels of the October, 1989 earthquake that rocked the Bay Area, California plunged into recession. The two new owners lost nearly half their equity in the business in one year as sales plummeted. Although they supplied jacks used to restore the Bay Bridge and other equipment to contractors repairing earthquake damage, the lift in sales masked the oncoming recession -- for a while.

"We needed an accountant to differentiate earthquake repairs (from other activity)," recalls Andy, now 46. "We had blinders on."

Beating the odds

During those early years of ownership the pair learned lasting lessons about managing the company, tracking their equity and which markets were most profitable. In the mid-80s, two-thirds of the company's business was with the construction trades and by 1990 it was moving more into the industrial end. They knew more growth would come from facilities-maintenance supplying and selling to Silicon Valley, rather than to the volatile building trades.

Bull and Sheppard also realized their fathers had been right. By purchasing the company over 15 years, it forced them to use better business practices and pay sharper attention to the bottom line. Last year, for example, C.H. Bull began using cost-based accounting -- similar to activity-based costing -- which assigns and tracks specific services costs to customers and helps the company determine who its best and least profitable customers are.

In 1995 the owners seized an opportunity. They purchased the assets and hired core sales personnel of another longtime San Francisco distributor, Western Hardware & Tool Co., after it closed. That brought access to new key lines and customers such as cabinet shops, linemen and ironworkers. During the past six years sales revenue has grown steadily, including 10 to 15 percent in 1997 and three percent early in 1998.

"We've beaten the odds," Sheppard says. "When you buy something versus having it given it to you, you have a whole different attitude."

Their distinct personal strengths also make the firm tick. Bull, who remains active in a Christian singing group, enjoys being in front of customers and putting together services and demonstrations that anticipate their needs. Sheppard enjoys being on the phone, solving problems, designing, and tinkering. Both enjoy getting dirty out in the field, too.

"We can fight and disagree like two tubes of epoxy: the catalyst and the hardener," says Bull. "By themselves, they're useless, but together they're strong."