TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Ewa Beach drywaller
on his way to win
one screwy contestEwa Beach drywaller Steven Bonifacio has a million-dollar opportunity ahead of him. He was the top winner in a screwy contest at the 2003 BIA Home Building & Remodeling Show earlier this month.
The "Slim's Power Tools Presents the DeWalt Challenge," contestants had to drive five screws into a piece of lumber with a cordless DeWalt drill. Bonifacio's time was 8.9 seconds. His prize is a trip for two and $500 to spend, perhaps at the Texas Motor Speedway next month. There, during the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 Nascar event, he will participate in a preliminary for the "DeWalt $1,000,000 Challenge" which is to culminate later this year.
At the Building Industries Association show Bonifacio bettered Paul Guncheon, Ryan Miguel and Walden Butay, but they didn't go home empty-handed. They won DeWalt tools valued at $500 for Guncheon, $300 for Miguel and $100 for Butay.
The jointly sponsored contest is so far Hawaii's only chance to send a challenger to DeWalt's second annual big bucks challenge, according to Rand Okemura, Slim's comptroller and member of the family-run business established in 1972.
PHOTO COURTESY SLIM'S POWER TOOLS
Ewa Beach resident Steven Bonifacio, second from right, will travel to the Texas Motor Speedway to compete for $1 million in a screw-driving contest. He won a preliminary round this month. With him are Tony Solis, from radio station KINE, and DeWalt power tools representatives Mike Dalton and Eric McKelvie.
DeWalt doesn't stage a Hawaii preliminary but Slim's long relationship with the Baltimore-based toolmaker paved the way for Bonifacio to test his cordless screwdriving mettle at a higher level.
"We're hoping to make this an annual event," Okemura said.
Last year's million-dollar winner, Ohio contractor Jon Smith, drove the five screws in 6.77 seconds to gain the "King of the Drill" title and the money.
Being a promotionally minded company is not an inexpensive proposition.
Okemura said such contests often involve shared expenses, though he would not divulge figures. "We get a lot of support from our vendors," he said. "They support us in most anything we try to do." Promotions vary, but vendors will usually kick in tools to give away as prizes.
Slim's has to hold up its end of the bargain through product sales, he said. Should sales slack off, vendors would likely feel less generous.
On its own, Slim's stages a "He-Man" contest where entrants must unscrew a single two-inch drywall screw in less than 13 seconds with a hand tool. Winners receive a Slim's T-shirt which the company has made for the event, as it did at the recent BIA-Hawaii show.
The company works hard to stay top-of-mind. "It's hard work, we've gotta keep in the public constantly, any way we can," said Okemura.
After 9/11, many companies slashed advertising budgets as a way to offset losses. "We didn't cut our budget at all. We just kept pushing hard and we're going to keep punching away," Okemura said.
Meanwhile, back to Bonifacio.
Okemura is certain his winner will find a way to get the time off from work. "I'm sure he's going to go," he said. More difficult than the challenge itself, perhaps, is the question of who he'll take. The whole family was at Bonifacio's side when he won the Slim's-DeWalt contest.
"He said the son was helping him the night before," Okemura said, "but I don't know if he's taking the son or the wife."
"Oh yeah, I'm taking my wife," Bonifacio told TheBuzz.
He has some more talking to do, as he had not told his bosses or co-workers at V & C Drywall Contractors Inc. He wants to stay focused, he said.
Bonifacio is seriously training on the apparatus he built the day before his BIA-Hawaii show win. He's seen the tale of last year's winner at www.dewalt.com and has printed out some of the pages to keep himself psyched.
With his new stopwatch he's clocked himself at "five or six seconds," but does not yet own the tool that will be used in Texas.
"For a million dollars I'm going to spend some money," Bonifacio said. "I'm going to buy the gun."
Huh? Oh, gotcha -- the 14.4-volt screw gun which could become his weapon of mass monetization.
The 18-volt tool used for the local contest is bigger, heavier and 400 rpm slower, while his impending investment is smaller and lighter and has more power.
More power?
"The new gun is three-speed with 400 pound-torque," said Bonifacio, patiently answering the girl-question.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com
