Company cleans up: Invention helps take mess out of oil changes
By Jim McBride
jim.mcbride@amarillo.com
Publication Date: 03/14/07
Gary Sage changed lots of oil over the years, but the Panhandle's blustery winds always seemed to get in the way.
Once, Sage placed a five-gallon bucket under an irrigation engine to perform an oil change. He pulled the drain plug and walked away. When he returned, only a little bit of oil drained into the bucket. The rest had blown all over the bucket, creating a sloppy, oily mess.
"I decided right then and there that there had to be a better way to change oil," he said.
Sage began working in his shop and soon developed a prototype oil vacuum device that sucked hot oil out of an engine's oil filter.
Once the oil was removed, it drained into a tank that made it easier to recycle and eliminated the oily mess.
Sage also developed a pressurized system with rapid coupling device that quickly pumps fresh oil back into the engine.
Another benefit to the new system was that users didn't have to wait until the oil cooled to change it. Removing hot oil from the engine removed more contaminants, Sage said.
"You've done an oil change in a safe, quick, environmentally friendly fashion. That was another thing I was concerned about was the environment," he said.
Sage was granted patents for his new technology.
In 1995 to 1996, Sage began initial production at his shop near Dalhart during winter months when farming operations were slow. Then he heard Don Taylor, former head of the WT Enterprise Network, speak at a Dalhart luncheon.
Taylor died last year, but Sage still remembers the Amarillo business leader and how he and David Terry from WT's Enterprise Network helped spur Sage's fledgling business to new heights.
"Out of the kindness of his heart, he drove all the way from Amarillo to 20 miles northwest of Dalhart and spent several hours with us," Sage said. "Looking back, these were the very first baby steps that we took in the right direction we feel to start setting up our business for the future."
The Sages gradually expanded Oil Vac and eventually decided to run it full time.
The company moved into the Enterprise Network headquarters on North Western Street for about three years to build up steam, said Aaron Sage, the company's chief operations officer.
"It helped us financially tremendously because we got into an office space for subsidized rent, very little overhead. We were looking at spending between $500,000 and a million dollars just to get into a building and property. We could just pay a small monthly fee to get in and get started," he said. "You had marketing advice, promotion advice and financial advice at the office right next door."
Sage Oil Vac left the Enterprise incubator nest when it built a new 24,000-square-foot factory in 2005 in east Amarillo.
The company now has more than 20 employees and expects to reap between $3 million and $5 million in annual revenues this year.
Now, the company's customers include oil and gas operations, construction, agriculture and the U.S. military.
"We currently have our systems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Kuwait, Mexico, Canada and at least 29 of the United States," Gary Sage said.
The company now markets about 30 Oil Vac models that cost between $800 and $35,000, largely through retail trade shows and a few select dealers. It also pays Google to sponsor keyword Internet searches for terms like "lube truck," a marketing tool Aaron Sage said has proved very successful in luring in new business.
About two weeks ago, Gary Sage told his success story to a group of would-be entrepreneurs at West Texas A&M University and offered up a wish list for them.
"Very early in your career I hope you can make contact with and develop a relationship with the Don Taylors of the world, the David Terrys of the world and the enterprise networks that are out there," Sage said. "Their only form of payment or payback is your success. That to me sounds like a win-win situation and should be a no-brainer as you start your business."
