As luck would have it, Bernie was offered an investment opportunity in a new company that manufactured automatic taping tools. The company went under before ever producing a set of tools, but Bernie walked away with the shell of the company at the the price of his initial investment. He got to work creating his own tools by night, still holding down his regular full-time work schedule during the day. He custom crafted drywall tools he personally tested and used and successfully sold them across the United States and Canada for many years. His quality tools eventually built trust in the Columbia brand and took the company from small potatoes to a world-class manufacturer over the span of twenty plus years. Columbia has weathered many housing crashes and economic storms over the years to emerge even stronger each time through strategic equipment investments and product releases that have kept us competitive.