Front & Center: Jim Tipke brings racing enthusiasm to entrepreneurship

Jim Tipke’s formal education ended with high school.

His informal education began several years later, after he jumped two stories off a ladder and spent nine months in a body cast.

Already an accomplished mechanic, Tipke passed the time reading everything he could about race cars.

“That hospital stay probably gave me as good a background in engineering as I could have gotten in college,” he says.

Once back on his feet, Tipke began building all manner of racers, from dirt-track sprinters to IndyCars.

Later, he focused on a somewhat slower mode of transportation – the pedicab – as well as maternity beds and collapsible garden carts.

Tipke Manufacturing’s more recent projects have ranged from espresso machines and airline sinks to pizza pans and police vehicle accessories.

“We’re the company you call when other shops tell you something can’t be done,” Tipke says candidly.

During a recent interview, the 77-year-old inventor and entrepreneur discussed his lifelong fascination with finding better ways to build things.

S-R: What were your interests growing up in Spokane?

Tipke: Cars. I had a ’31 Model A roadster when I was 14.

S-R: How did you get that?

Tipke: Actually, my dad had it. I wasn’t supposed to drive it. But we lived next to the railroad tracks. And at night, me and my buddies would wait until a train came by, then we’d push the car off, go riding around, and coast back into the yard later that night.

S-R: Did you ever get caught?

Tipke: Nope.

S-R: What was your introduction to automotive mechanics?

Tipke: My dad was kind of a shade-tree mechanic, so I was around cars all the time. My first job was working at a service station at Market and Euclid. I started there in eighth grade and stayed all through high school, pumping gas and learning how to tune up cars.

S-R: What other jobs did you do before starting your own company?

Tipke: I got into the sign business – hanging and repairing electric signs. I was a pretty good electrician, and I didn’t mind heights. After two or three years, my uncle bought a sign shop in Lewiston and asked me to run it. One day I was working on a big sign – maybe 24 feet off the ground – digging through the wires, when a short lit me up like you wouldn’t believe. My partner couldn’t help me because everything he touched was hot, so I jumped off the ladder and busted my wrist, broke my left leg and crushed my foot. I spent the next nine months in a body cast with a rod between my legs.

S-R: How did you pass the time?

Tipke: I liked cars and I liked racing. The only books I could get were about Formula One cars, so that’s all I read. And that turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it taught me all the math and engineering that I’d never taken time to study before.

S-R: What did you do after you recovered?

Tipke: I built a race car. It was a little crude, but my dad ran it out at State Line, and it got people’s attention. I went on to build race cars for years – first sprint cars, then roadsters, rear-engine cars, and eventually the car Tom Sneva used in Indianapolis for his rookie test in 1973.

S-R: Given your foot injury, were you ever able to race the cars you built?

Tipke: Oh, yeah, I raced hard. In fact, there’s a track in Monroe, Washington, where I still own the record for the highest and the longest.

S-R: Highest and longest what?

Tipke: The highest flip, and the longest tumbling down the track after I hit the wall.

S-R: You own the record for the track’s worst crash?

Tipke: Yeah. There was one bolt on the torsion bar we didn’t get tight, and the car unloaded as I came out of a turn.

S-R: Were you hurt?

Tipke: Not really. The car rolled over and over, and the crash cage collapsed and pinned me in. By the time they got to me the car was upright, but the gear shifter didn’t have a knob, and it had gone right through my arm.

S-R: From your company’s race-car beginnings, how did it evolve?

Tipke: I had an old Chinese pedicab, and someone asked me to build some modern versions for the World’s Fair (in 1974). After the fair ended, those pedicabs ended up in Seattle, and pretty soon I was getting orders from all over the country. We built hundreds and hundreds of them, and I became the pedicab king.

S-R: Then what?

Tipke: The Borning Corporation asked us to build hospital beds. Dr. (Loel) Fenwick came up with a rough idea of how he wanted it to work, and I redesigned and built it.

S-R: Tell me about your Foldit cart.

Tipke: My wife wanted me to build her a wooden cart for the garden. I said, “I’ll make a metal one that you can fold up, so you can store it in the garage.” That was in 1987, and today they’re hotter than ever. We’ll sell 4,000 of those this year.

S-R: How do you market your business?

Tipke: I don’t. Our products sell us. People hear about us and come. For instance, we got into tube bending to make race car exhaust systems. Now we supply all the intake and exhaust systems to Genie Industries. Trick stuff – really neat.

S-R: What qualities do you look for in employees?

Tipke: Hard workers who know quality or can learn quality. We have some of the best welders, grinders and finish people around.

S-R: Has the business seen hard times?

Tipke: The economy doesn’t seem to affect us much. We’re as busy now as we’ve ever been.

S-R: Any changes on the horizon?

Tipke: We’re going to add onto the building (at 321 N. Helena) because we need more space.

S-R: What’s the best business advice you ever got?

Tipke: Take care of your people and be honest with your customers. Don’t ever bullshit someone to get work.

S-R: How do you spend you time now?

Tipke: I’m into restoring old cars. I have quite a collection, including two 1922 tour buses from Glacier National Park. One I bought when I was 18, and the other I picked up last year – everything but the body. So I’m copying the body off of my old one, and then I’ll have two.

S-R: What will you do with them?

Tipke: I have a place at Hauser, so we’ll tour the lake in them.

S-R: What else are you working on?

Tipke: We took an IndyCar we built in 1973 to Indianapolis last year. We had it up to 150 before they black-flagged us – said we couldn’t go that fast. But they want us back next year, because it’s the 100th anniversary. (The first Indianapolis 500 was in 1911, but the race was suspended during World War I and II, so 2016 will be the 100th running.)

S-R: What do you like most about your job?

Tipke: Working with metal – bending it.

S-R: How many hours a week do you put in?

Tipke: Mondays I work 10 hours, and eight hours the other days.

S-R: Are you having fun?

Tipke: Yes. And work should be fun. You’d better enjoy it, because you’re going to be doing it all your life.

S-R: Is there anything you don’t like about your job?

Tipke: Cleaning my office.

S-R: How do you relax?

Tipke: I sit here reading books about cars.

This interview has been edited and condensed. If you have suggestions for business or community leaders to profile, contact writer Michael Guilfoil via email at mguilfoil@comcast.net.