For Springs man, losing everything helped turn around life

Dan Clark is proud of his failures.

Even the Corvette that went back to the bank.

“I lost everything,” says the 44-year-old executive-turned-carpenter. “It sounds like a sad story, but it’s not.”

His years of six-figure incomes running a precision sheet metal company in Ohio ended after 2001 when, he says, “the tech industry went down the toilet.”

He rolled into Colorado in a 42-foot motorhome four years ago to start a venture in propane fireplaces.

That business deal went belly up. He lost the motorhome and lived in a Colorado Springs campground with his wife and three teenage sons.

“We cleaned cabins and bathrooms to pay our rent,” he says.

“A jam sandwich was two pieces of bread jammed together. One winter we lived in a 12-by-12 cabin with no plumbing. It is so weird going from one side to another, to have everything and take it for granted.”

The lanky, ponytailed philosopher laughs. Rather than losing his mojo, he believes he’s found it.

These aren’t bad memories for his sons. The workaholic dad never home in their old life in Ohio was now there for them. They pulled together as a family. It made them close-knit and cost-effective.

Dan is cheap and proud of it.

He rolls his own cigarettes. He buys beer by the keg and meat by the hunk. He pays with cash — don’t get him started on the evils of credit cards.

He trumpets every drag, swig, bite and penny saved. “I don’t understand why everybody isn’t doing it,” he says.

He bought the $30 rolling machine last year to beat the rising cost of cigarettes. “It was that,” he says, “or quit.”

It costs 70 cents a pack for the filtered smokes he also rolls for his wife and oldest son, Danny, 22, a chip off the old block who chases grocery deals for the daily meals shared around the family table.

“We talk for hours,” Dan says. Unlike before.

Dan and Danny run D&D Custom Home Remodeling. It’s word-ofmouth. Pay for ads? No way. He says he has plenty of work.

The only thing Dan saved from bankruptcy are the tools that enabled them to pull their way out of the campground. These tools now pay the rent on the Broadmoor-area home they got at a cut-rate price.

“If someone offered me a job paying $200,000 a year to run a company, I’d turn them down. I don’t want the headache, the worries, the ulcers,” he says.

He wants time to smell the popcorn in the basement home theater he built — he’s not about to pay for theater tickets.

He even found a way to copy the movie popcorn recipe.

“It’s just as greasy and buttery,” he says.

It doesn’t get better than that.

Tell me your stories: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com.