Our Story

Don Henthorn approached machinery with equal parts curiosity and determination. He did not simply want to know whether something worked. He wanted to understand why it worked, where it fell short and how it could be improved.

That mechanical instinct followed him throughout his life. As a young man, Don served in the United States Army and was stationed at a Nike Ajax missile site in Connecticut. It was there that he met Virginia Ann “Ginger” Eib. The two married in 1959 and eventually made their home in Southern California, beginning a partnership that would become closely intertwined with the company they built together.

In 1965, Don founded Quality Machine & Associates, commonly known as QMA. While Don focused on machinery, product development and operations, Ginger became an important part of the growing business and would later serve as vice president of Bend-Pak. Together, they helped guide the company through its earliest years, when every new customer, product and opportunity mattered.

QMA earned business from major aerospace organizations, including Rocketdyne, Rockwell and Hughes Aircraft. The work involved precision-machined components created to exact specifications, often for applications where consistency and reliability were essential. There was no room for casual tolerances or improvised quality control. Dimensions had to be correct. Processes had to be repeatable. Finished parts had to perform as intended.

Those early years shaped the company BendPak would eventually become. Long before vehicle lifts carried the BendPak name, Don and Ginger were building a business grounded in hard work, precision and trust. Those qualities were not added later as marketing language. They were present from the beginning because the work required them.

The automotive industry changed significantly during the 1970s. New emissions regulations and increasingly complex exhaust systems created a growing need for muffler shops capable of fabricating replacement tubing for a wide variety of vehicles. For technicians, exhaust work could be difficult and time-consuming. Replacement systems were not always readily available, and shops needed a reliable way to form tubing accurately.

QMA saw an opportunity.

In 1979, the company developed a hydraulic exhaust tube bender designed specifically for muffler shops. The machine became known as the Burgundy Bullet and was introduced to the automotive service industry at a trade show that same year.

The Burgundy Bullet brought together much of what QMA had learned during its first decade and a half in business. It required precision machining, hydraulic knowledge, structural fabrication and a practical understanding of the technician’s workflow. More importantly, it was a product the company could truly call its own.

The machine helped move QMA further away from its identity as a traditional contract machine shop. The business was becoming increasingly focused on automotive service equipment, and the Quality Machine & Associates name no longer captured where it was headed.

The company needed a name with greater strength, greater focus and a direct connection to the products that were driving its growth.

The BendPak name was created by combining two of the company’s most important early product lines.

“Bend” came from QMA’s pipe-bending equipment, particularly the Burgundy Bullet exhaust tube bender.

“Pak” came from the 5ivePak, the multifunction specialty tool that had helped establish QMA as an automotive equipment inventor rather than only a contract manufacturer.

Together, the two became Bend-Pak.

The original name was written with a hyphen, and its meaning was immediately connected to the company’s history. It represented the tools that had helped QMA enter the automotive aftermarket and the practical innovation that distinguished its products from ordinary machine-shop work.

Bend-Pak would remain the company’s identity for more than two decades. In 2005, the brand was refreshed and the hyphen was officially removed, creating the BendPak name used today.

By then, the company had grown far beyond the products that inspired its name. Pipe benders and specialty tools remained part of its heritage, but car lifts were rapidly becoming the center of the business.

By the early 1980s, BendPak had built the machining, hydraulic and fabrication experience needed to enter the car lift market. Its first four-post lift arrived around 1983, opening a much larger chapter for the company.

The early design was only the beginning. BendPak continued refining its lifting systems, expanding into two-post lifts, four-post lifts, alignment lifts, scissor lifts, parking lifts and heavy-duty equipment. What started as a move beyond pipe bending quickly became the center of the business.

BendPak earned its place one shop at a time. Independent repair facilities, dealerships, fleets, tire stores and home garages adopted the equipment, while customer feedback helped shape each new generation.

As Don said in 1982, “To be competitive with everybody and to start off from ground zero, we had to come out with something a little better than everyone else.”

As the lift business expanded, BendPak grew with it. The company added new products, larger facilities, stronger distribution and the systems needed to support customers long after the sale.

BendPak moved to Santa Paula in 1995, where its operations would eventually grow to include more than 100,000 square feet of warehouse space. Ranger launched in 1997, giving wheel-service and general shop equipment a brand of its own. QuickJack, MaxJax, Autostacker, Cool Boss and other specialized brands followed, extending BendPak into new categories and reaching new kinds of customers.

The company later expanded east with a 250,000 square feet warehouse and distribution center in Mobile, Alabama, followed by a new global headquarters in Agoura Hills in 2023. Today, BendPak continues to operate across Santa Paula, Agoura Hills and Mobile, supporting a global automotive equipment business that began with a single Southern California machine shop.

In 2022, Don handed day-to-day leadership of BendPak to Jeff Kritzer, who had worked alongside him for approximately four decades. Jeff became president and CEO, while Don remained chairman emeritus and continued advising the company until his passing in 2024.

Today, BendPak serves professional shops, dealerships, fleets, collectors and home garages around the world. Its products span car lifts, wheel-service equipment, parking systems, portable lifting solutions, air cooling, shop machinery and equipment for a changing automotive industry.

In 2025, BendPak opened the 33-acre Donald R. Henthorn Industrial Complex in Mobile County, Alabama. Named in honor of the company’s founder, the campus carries Don’s legacy into BendPak’s next era while expanding its manufacturing, distribution and operational capabilities.

The company is larger, more advanced and more global than it was in 1965. But the philosophy remains the same: understand the work, build something better, stand behind it and never stop improving.