Jarod Opperman / The Bulletin Dorian Hartfield, left, and Tristan Hartfield, right, owners of Buckstop Truckware, stand in the Prineville production facility.

PRINEVILLE — The Hartfield brothers, Tristan and Dorian, moved their business to the industrial park in the southwest part of the city in June 2014.

It was a good move on several fronts, Tristan Hartfield said. One, the company, Buckstop Truckware Inc., doubled the amount of space it previously occupied in Sherwood, southwest of Portland. Two, it put them in proximity to the right kind of people.

“Prineville is a good spot for this company,” he said. “There are a lot of welders, a lot of guys who use their hands.”

Buckstop makes heavy-duty truck bumpers, the kind you see on personal vehicles, state police cruisers or tactical vehicles rolling through trouble spots. Their biggest customer is the city of Chicago, which puts the bumpers on its ambulances, Tristan Hartfield said. Once in a while, he said, he catches sight of Buckstop bumpers on vehicles in places like Afghanistan on TV.

“You get a certain amount of security-type stuff,” he said. “You never quite know who you’re selling to.”

Buckstop has been in business since 2001, said Tristan Hartfield, a mechanical engineer. He and his brother, an industrial engineer, founded their business after both tired of moving from job to job as their employers moved, merged or downsized.

Eventually, they seized the opportunity to move from the Willamette Valley to Central Oregon and now operate in a 43,000-square-foot factory on High Desert Drive.

“We thought it would be a good move for the business and the family,” he said.

Each bumper is made to order, Hartfield said. The company keeps no inventory of finished product. An order tag is affixed to each unit as it makes its way from a steel slab to finished bumper in chrome or powder coating. Each bumper weighs from 240 pounds to 280 pounds before they’re affixed with accessories like winch kits. Buckstop sells about 2,000 units every year, Tristan Hartfield said.

“A number of people have called saying their lives were saved by our bumper,” he said.

One such story involved a Marion County sheriff’s deputy who struck a deer on the way to a domestic violence call. The bumper took the impact, rather than the windshield. The deputy removed the deer carcass from the cruiser and reached the call on time.

The next move for Buckstop is to expand beyond bumpers.

“We’re as deep as we can get right now,” he said.

Hartfield said the company is making a kit to turn a heavy-duty truck, the prototype is a dual-axle Ford F-550, into a brush rig like those used by rural fire departments. The kit comes with wheels, carbon-fiber flared fenders, a bumper, a lift kit and tires. Hartfield said it’s ideal for fire departments and other agencies that need tough, off-road vehicles.

Buckstop is as durable as its product, he said, and it’s no surprise its bumpers are common sights on the highways of the American heartland.

“From Texas all the way up to Canada,” he said, “that’s a big chunk of our market.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com

Q: How long does it take to manufacture a truck bumper?

A: Tristan Hartfield: It takes two weeks to go through the plant from order to delivery.

Q: Where do you obtain your steel?

A: From American Steel. The price of steel is generally stable, but because of the low price of oil and less need for tanks (and other steel equipment), it’s a good buy.