FlisKits:

The history of FlisKits...  How much of a history can we have, seeing as we've just recently opened our doors?

The idea for FlisKits seeded itself in my brain back in the 80's and early 90's, during the NEMROC and Pearl River conventions.  As I would design and package kits for the conventions, I often thought that these kits could really sell and it would be exciting to own a company that did just that.  In the last years of NEMROC I even went so far as to take some of my other designs and package them up for sale at the convention (NEMROC).

I was very pleased with how well they sold and the feedback that I received from the folks who bought them.  One design that was of particular interest was a micro-Saturn 1B that I had designed and would often fly at local meets.   I had made up about 10 kits and sold all of them.  At a scale of 1:284, it was the smallest flying scale replica of that rocket ever made (at the time), using 13mm motors.

This caught the attention of Jay Marsh who asked permission to use my design for Peanut Scale in an upcoming NARAM (national competition meet).   I gladly gave him permission and proceeded to supply Jay with documentation and drawings which he modified as needed for his competition effort.

Jay took this design and built a model that took first place at NARAM earning the highest number of points ever for that event.  Jay was so appreciative of my design effort that he sent the model to me.  Since then, the model has been requested by the Smithsonian Institute for inclusion in their historical model rocket display in D.C.

It was a wonderful collaborative effort and further convinced me that these kits were marketable.  And so it sat, as a dream in the back of my mind, as it does with many rocketeers no doubt.

In 1999 I revisited the thoughts of launching (no pun intended...) such a company and began gathering my rocket designs from years past.  A year later I was convinced that I was going to do this, but not sure how to start, how much money I would need or how long it would take, but I was beginning.

I started talking with friends about my ideas, while trying to figure out what to call this company and what the initial product set would look like (not to mention trying to understand where to get materials).  A long time friend, Jim Meyer, called me one day and said "FlisKits!".  I loved it!  That is how we came to be known as FlisKits.  Thank you Jim.  Around that time I had also discovered online auctions and began selling my large collection of old model rocket kits.  Not being a hard core collector, I had often told my wife that I was saving these kits to sell and now had a perfect venue to do so.

These auction sales allowed me to raise the seed money that I would need to start this new company.

In early 2001, with an idea of what kits I wanted to start with, a company name and a whole lot of dreams, I realized that this could not be a one man operation.  My goal was to build a "company" that could truly serve the model rocket community, not some mom-n-pop operation that sent out a couple of kits here and there.  It was then that I approached my long time rocketry friend, Brian McCarthy.  Brian and I (along with many other of my rocketry friends) had often talked about starting a model rocketry company.  Well, now was the time for the rubber to hit the road, as it were.

I was surprised, but deeply pleased that Brian had also maintained the dream of starting a model rocketry company, and he quickly agreed that he would like to be a part of this.  That's when we began hammering out some of the details that have only been fuzzy conceptions up till now.  We had the name, I had a friend (Dan Danahy) design the logo for me, so the sugar coating was done.  Now we needed to define the "meat" or structure of this company.

We worked for months defining the initial kits, defining the corporate look of our product, the layout of instructions, vendors for the many components, even defining a part numbering scheme for our records.

All of this had lead to this point, where we have launched FlisKits, Inc. and are now working hard to be a major contributor to this hobby that we all love so much.

We hope that you enjoy your visit to FlisKits.com, we hope that you purchase your model rocket products from FlisKits, Inc.  We will be working continuously to bring you the best that model rocketry has to offer, while at the same time doing our part to help the hobby grow and reach new heights.