Now back to SPD history. Bill Dohl was the Zedelgem [NH plant in Belgium] operation manager (he originally was a service dept head or other). Quickly ----- he was replaced and returned to New Holland after about 3 years there. Management had to find something for him to do and there was a push from New York [Sperry headquarters] for NH to diversify. Bill was put in charge of this quest. Many things were looked at - decision was recreational vehicles and products. He initiated a search for opportunities. Since Fiberglass of Ohio was looking for growth and had this 3-wheeler, which was one of many things looked at, including snowmobiles, 4-wheelers, water-type devices other than boats, bicycles, skis (minibike type, Larry Halls had one he built) early sea doos, paragliders, 6-wheelers and the list goes on. To make a shorter story,6-wheelers and the Tricart were pursued. There were several 6-wheelers available but early on it was decided to design our own. At the same time negotiations were started to get the 3-wheeler. This was done by NH purchasing and employing all of Franklin Moore's (FofO) employees (including John Plessinger). Then SPD was created to pursue this market. I started working on the 6-wheeler, Larry Halls worked the 3-wheeler. We both worked with John P to finalize design details. At the same time Sperry was working on a metal detector (weapons) for the airline industry. New York decided that the weapon detector should be vertically integrated and FofO was the choice to produce the fiberglass side panels which were the heart of it. New York also decided a top of the line fiberglass manufacturing facility was required. Such a facility was fast tracked with one of Sperry Corp construction outfits. Construction started immediately and was to be open by mid spring. Ralph Mentzer from NH facilities was in charge under Bob Ressler and Clarence Binkley. This was a state of the art hand/spray facility. Included a completely new building huge!!! Joe Shriver, Dick Hebbe, Larry Ruble, Earl Moats, Phil Buzzard, Jay Brubaker, Vince Hemmings, Larry Estes joined the pack. We pretty much all moved shortly to Ohio commuting every three weekends back to NH until spring. Larry Halls continued at New Holland but elected not to go to Ohio. We suffered a major setback in early spring with the fire in the old cannery FofO worked out of as they built the new building. Joe and Larry Estes worked on snowmobiles and machines plus a bunch of lawn and garden stuff. I also worked on a two track industrial snow machine which was to compete with Bombardier. We all had a good time at SPD and were sad to see it end.
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