“It was a Thursday night,” he recalled. “By Friday, I was on the phone calling as many people as possible.”
Ryan wasn't calling friends and family to pass out cigars, he was calling manufacturers who could carry out the research and development necessary to bring his product, Armor Coat, to market.
Armor Coat is a spray-on urethane-based protection that prevents rock chips and paint damage when applied to the leading edge of a car's hood.
It also stands alone.
The problem of rock chips from road travel was originally addressed and solved by 3M when it created a clear urethane adhesive film introduced at a trade show in Las Vegas seven years ago.
“But it was awkward,” said Ryan. “I saw all the negatives and knew there had to be a better way to apply it.”
He also remembers thinking that a market for it would surely take off if someone could only liquefy urethane.
And that's when he had an epiphany.
“Take a baseball bat and try to wrap paper around it,” said Ryan. “I knew the answer was going to be found in a more aggressive adhesive and a more seamless application.”
Ryan wasn't the first person to think of a spray-on urethane product, he admitted.
“Big-boy companies like Dupont and BASF had tried it and failed,” he said. “But it was a timing thing - the raw material they needed to make it viable didn't yet exist when they tried it.”
Had he known that at the time, he said, he might never have endeavored it.
Once appropriate materials did come into existence, Ryan stepped in and deftly nabbed a market share.
A UM graduate in criminology, Ryan briefly tried law enforcement and marketing, but quickly realized he “didn't play well with others” and needed to find a way to be the boss.
“I was never cut out to be an employee,” he said.
So Ryan went about the business of querying paint manufacturers from Sherwin-Williams to Dupont throughout the day, just hours after his idea had been hatched.
He came up empty-handed.
And then at 10 p.m., he found the contact he needed in a small paint manufacturer with an ambitious company president by the name of Eric Rosenthal.
“I figured anyone who answered his own phone at 10 p.m., and offered to do the research and development in exchange for a piece of the pie,” said Ryan, “was the right person.”
Both men were good at finding obscure elements of research, but it was Ryan who stumbled across a Web site for the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program - a division of NASA.
“President Bush put into place the idea that the assets the government has should be made available, selectively, to small companies,” said Ryan. “Theoretically, the idea is that resources small companies might not be able to afford will provide them with the leg up they need to succeed and create jobs.”
Ryan applied for the program and was one of four companies to be chosen.
“The verification of our claim that the product worked was carried out by SATOP - which then enabled me to answer any skepticism with ‘NASA disagrees with you.' ”
In 2000, the product was created. By 2002, the product was completed and ready for market. Ryan did a small rollout in 2004, and by 2005 Armor Coat picked up an original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, in the motor home industry, and now business is booming.
“If we pull down the top seven motor home manufacturers,” said Ryan, “we'll be at $7 million annually.”
Not too shabby for a product with no seed money.
In Missoula, 4 Seasons Subaru sells Armor Coat as an option for new cars to protect their high-gloss shine.
Auto paint shop House of Colors applies it for local car dealers and customers alike.
“We use it because it's a way better product and alternative to the film sheets, and because it is the only product of its kind,” said House of Colors owner Lee Frank.
“I'd say that 40 percent of our business comes from customers off the street, and 60 percent from car dealers who send their work to us and request applications for new car buyers.”
Armor Coat finally outpaced manufacturing handled by Rosenthal's company. In the end, Ryan bequeathed the existing shares to Rosenthal and found someone else.
He justifies the move by considering his future had Rosenthal not picked up the phone at 10 p.m. on a Friday night.
“I figured that I could never have gotten this done without him - at least not in a time frame that it wouldn't eventually have been developed and patented,” he said.
Today, Armor Coat has found its way into the hands of distributors in Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, South Korea, China and Kuwait - a result of many successful trade missions lead by Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., on behalf of Montana businesses and in conjunction with the Montana World Trade Center.
Reporter Lori Grannis can be reached at 523-5251 or at llgrannis@missoulian.com.
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