March 29, 2021

Most people didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year hoping to catch a glimpse of an industrial-strength cart on the sidelines.

But Ron Heiman isn’t most people.

The Sioux Falls-based president of Heiman Fire Equipment is a dedicated entrepreneur, with multiple new ventures and what he believes are more opportunities ahead.

“I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire,” he acknowledged.

Fittingly, this entrepreneurial journey did all start with fire – his father, Jack, started Heiman Fire in Iowa after World War II, selling fire extinguishers to the local farming community.

It has grown to nearly 80 employees and does business in all 50 states, with “a really big web and catalog presence,” selling or manufacturing everything from rubber boots and helmets to trucks and tanks.

That led Heiman to form G3 Fire, which has been custom fabricating products for the fire service industry since 2005, including copolymer water and foam tanks.

“I saw there was a need for it, so we just went up and starting building tanks out of plastic,” he said.

He later patented the G3 REACH, which stands for Rotational Extension and Control Handle. It’s a compact, heavy-duty addition that increases the useful abilities of any tool it is attached to, he said.

For instance, in the fire service, it allows a firefighter a better grip when pulling ceilings and wallboards with a pole to make sure the fire is out.

A big idea guy, Heiman has the engineering background to bring his products to life – like that cart he watched for during the Super Bowl.

It’s part of Sherpa Wheels, which he designed as a cart to haul “big, heavy Yeti coolers,” he said. “We sold those across the country. Our strongest points are down in South Texas, Louisiana and Florida.”

The product caught the eye of Hypervolt, the massage product used by many professional athletes.

“Their industrial engineer contacted us, and we sat with our engineers and thought … is there a way we can put half a dozen Hypervolts in there and have a charging station and make them relatively waterproof, kind of a tank, so we can roll these out to every NFL team, and when a player is injured, they can get right at it and use the Hypervolts,” Heiman said.

“They’re very much industrial strength, like a tank with wheels you can’t flatten.”

And they did, in fact, get caught on camera along the sidelines during the Super Bowl.

“We built these carts for Hypervolt, and they will be in all the stadiums across the country,” Heiman said. “In every playoff game, you saw them. And the NHL and MLB are looking into it. NASCAR and the NBA also have them.”

The carts are built at the same G3 facility as the fire tanks just north of Sioux Falls.

“We just have some fun doing it,” Heiman said.

His latest product also fits the “fun” category, though he thinks it could be one of his biggest hits.

It’s called Arctic Sombrero, a replacement lid for a 30-ounce stainless steel tumbler that “will actually snap (the top of) a beer can or seltzer can or soda can onto that lid, and then what you can do is fill up your tumbler half-full of ice. You open it, snap on the lid and then take that whole can and put it inside of the tumbler filled with ice already. So then your beverage stays at exactly ice-water temperature as long as you wish.”

The product was conceived on a road trip he took five years ago and involved lots of design work, he said.

“We didn’t want to bring it out until it was fully patent-protected,” Heiman said. “We’re right at the precipice, but it’s going phenomenally.”

Arctic Sombrero is sold online for now, but he’s talking about potential retail opportunities. It’s made at Falcon Plastics in Brookings.

“As soon as it starts getting warm, it’s going to get nutty,” he predicted for sales.

His kids, age 13 and 14, are helping with fulfillment from out of the house.

“Every day, I wake up, and the kids go ‘What did you sell last night Dad? What do we need to fulfill today?’ So they’re learning about the business world and marketing. It’s been a great venture for them.”

Arctic Sombrero recently was named a business qualifier in the Governor’s Giant Vision Business Competition and will be judged in late April for the chance to win $20,000.

And Heiman’s next venture is never far from his mind, either.

“I’ve got some prototypes done for what I think I’ll add to the Arctic Sombrero site going forward, but it’s been going really well,” he said. “I’ve got some grassroots marketing coming up, and … I’m just having great fun with it.”

He half-jokes that it’s probably attention deficit disorder that drives him to so many business ventures, but it’s possible because “I’ve got a lot of great people who run my business here,” he said. “It gives me the freedom to venture out into different products and lines. I’m a better starter at getting things going, a better entrepreneur than anything.”