Skedco is a family-owned and operated business based in Tualatin, Oregon, just south of Portland.

Bud Calkin, the Vice President and Founder of Skedco, is a veteran of the U.S. National Guard and U.S. Army. While enlisted, he was stationed in Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Fort Ord in California, and at bases in West Germany. Bud trained as a combat medic and later, a dental technician, fabricating bridges, crowns and dentures. He also served as an instructor at the Dental Technology School.

In 1980, when Bud’s sister stalled on a design for a game carrier she was working on, he suggested she transform it into a rescue stretcher for injured people. When she didn’t develop that idea, Bud took on the project himself. He re-designed it to be essentially the Sked as it is today.

Skedco was incorporated in 1981. Bud bought his sister’s patent after Desert Storm in 1991. During those 10 years, Bud and his wife, Catherine, each worked two jobs to build the business.

The original—and still the best—rescue stretcher, the Sked is made from a proprietary formula of E-Z glide polyethylene plastic. In trials, it has proven to be tough enough to withstand being run over by a 56-ton tank, and then used afterward to drag a soldier around a military base for 10 miles over extremely rough terrain.

Bud has designed other products over the years to make the Sked even more capable in the field. He invented the Oregon Spine Splint to immobilize patients with spinal injuries to prepare them for transport. He added the flotation system to self-right the Sked into an almost upright position during capsizing in water. He has worked with the Army to develop many new products—including the line of several military Skeds—designed and built to the colors and specifications needed to save the injured on the battlefield. Bud currently has 9 patents granted to him, with another 6 applications pending.

When asked what keeps him working 7 days a week, Bud says he “thrives on a challenge” and that he has so much fun teaching military and civilian rescuers rescue and emergency medical techniques that it doesn’t feel like work. Actually, Skedco has never had a sales force. The training and Skedco’s products are so effective a sales team is unnecessary. Instead, the company lets the products sell themselves.

Bud says that in 30 years he “hasn’t met one G.I. who is unappreciative,” which motivates him to continue doing what he does at no charge to save military and civilian lives.