This picture is a couple of years old. Gary is at the back with Travis on the left and Scott on the right. Charlene is up front. Click on the picture to check out a more up to date picture of us.
Shown here sorting out a portion of the 90,000 pieces for this years production. The small pieces are tumble painted. Each colour needs about 150lbs of small pieces to allow the paint to be distributed properly. We use 8 different colours, some colours we do double batches. This adds up to 35-50 banana boxes full of tiny parts each year. That's a whole lot of sorting.
The basement is set up for assembly for 3 months of the year. Putting 20,000 wheels on cars takes time. Once in a while the hammer hits the thumb rather than the axel pin when we get tired. Scott and Travis are putting axel pins into the wheels, while Gary assembles the cars.
We used to log our own lumber, but now leave that up to someone with a small mill. Shown here is my sister's husband Corey, cutting up more lumber for us. This wood will not be used for at least two or three years, as it takes a while to air dry it. We have to be organized to get the right amount of lumber ordered well in advance.
Here is some of Corey's handy work. Corey and Gillian are married now and build timber frame furniture with their mill, when they are not cutting lumber for us.
The wooden toy business has come a long way since 1987 for Gary Owens, Salmon Arm based toy maker. Owens started with a hand held drill and a small jig saw making the odd Christmas present for his two boys, nephews and nieces. "The intention of selling the toys originally was to be able to afford to buy some decent equipment, but that was a long time ago." A few years later Gary eventually did buy some good equipment but it didn't take long to out grow that and start getting into some industrial equipment. The only problem was he was still only working out of an 11' X 15' foot workshop. "I couldn't even rip saw an 8 foot piece of lumber. We eventually built an addition onto the house with a garage on the ground floor and a computer room upstairs. Even that is a little small now as my wife has only been able to drive the car in three times and that was about two years ago." The computer room is now used to design new toys and some of the old ones, as Owens is now into computer operated equipment. "One of my teachers from high school has helped me a great deal with getting my computer operated overhead router up and running." There are designs from the simplest of toys, to a new table top wooden train track board, all predrilled for trees, tunnels, houses, police stations, fire stations and even snowmen. The table top sets either join together or into many of the existing wooden train tracks.

Gary continues to use his original shop and has now started to double up on equipment to increase his productivity. "Sometimes it is quicker to set up two drill presses and do one run of two jobs rather than doing one job and then having to repeat it with a second run. My runs now can be anywhere from 30 pieces right up to 5000 pieces depending on what I am producing." It was a few years ago when Gary was drilling anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 holes in a year, so a second saved on a hole starts to add up pretty quickly. Now every second saved is critical.

Gary is the chief cook and bottle washer of his company, just like most home based businesses. In the past he has done everything from logging his own wood, manufacturing, marketing and distribution of his products right down to doing all the paperwork. "After all" he says "If you want to make it, you have to be prepared to put in your time."

Gary's toys are all over the world now. "I custom made some games for a computer company in Calgary, a couple of years ago and they used them as promotional gifts for some of their customers in 29 different countries all over the world." Over the last ten years Gary has donated thousands of toys to his local Food Bank during the Christmas season, on behalf of the Salmon Arm Volunteer fire department, which he is a 23 year member. A few years ago he also sent some with a Group from his home church, who went to Eastern Europe to work at a Kid's summer camp in Chernobyl. Many of the children and their families were victims of the Nuclear explosion a few years ago. Two different movie production companies have used "Tuff Toys" in their productions. One a commercial company and a second in an actual movie.

1998's donation of three boxes, filled with small cars was donated to The Salmon Arm Rotary club, which Owens is also a member, who sent them to Zimbabwe, Africa to a kids club and school. The teacher who received them opened the box and let out a shriek of delight as she turned one toy over to find the Tuff Toys, Salmon Arm BC logo burnt of the bottom. She had apparently visited Salmon Arm only a couple of years previously. In 2000 Gary custom made some trucks, in a fund raising effort for training nurses in Africa. The nurses were raising funds to buy a truck to transport the nurses for training. These were sold to help raise money towards a $30,000.00 goal.

Another box of toys was donated to a second group from Owens' local church who went to the Ukraine in the summer of 1999. These were also very well received and will be used for years to come.

More recently Owens was contacted by a national television advertising company who wanted to use some of Tuff Toys for one of their commercials which would air across the United States. Tuff Toys has also been used in a full length movie produced in 2007. In 2009 they will again be used the the second version of that same movie.

When asked Owens says "There are so many children locally and throughout the world who have so little, and when you think about it we have so much. It is truly a privilege to know that my toys are all over the world and being enjoyed by children from many different cultures." God has been so good to us, it is only right to share his blessings with others around the world.