Company Timeline

2011
Mid-2012		David Botkin experiments and makes a holster for his wife with a popcorn maker and Kydex that his older brother, Isaac Botkin, had bought for a drone project.
2013
Early 2013		David B. shows Lucas Botkin how to make Kydex gear. Lucas starts experimenting, quickly comes up with better designs, and his parents encourage him to try selling his work on eBay. His workshop is simple — starting in a spare bedroom and then moving to the family garage, melting Kydex with his brother David’s (now famous) toaster oven. Lucas begins to seriously develop his shooting skills.
OCT 2013		Lucas hires a church friend to build a website and launches T.REX ARMS.
2014
FEB 2014		Lucas starts paying David B. to help make holsters. Now, T.REX is two people.
MAR 2014		David B. sees the potential in T.REX to become a serious business and mentions the idea of a partnership to Lucas.
JUN 2014		David Noor (David Botkin’s brother-in-law and a longtime friend of the family) has an idea and asks Lucas to make him a holster with mag carrier attached for appendix carry. Lucas creates it, likes the concept, and puts it up as a new product on the website. Lucas’s mom suggests the name “Sidecar”.
JUL 2014		David Noor starts working for Lucas part-time, between remodeling houses. Now, T.REX is three people. At this point, T.REX sales are still under 1 order/day.
AUG 2014		Lucas starts asking David B. and David N. to commit long term and more hours a week to the company. Later that month, while on a road trip, they sit down and all three agree that a partnership is the next step. They all recognize that their different gifts and skills working together can take the business to the next level. They agreed Lucas will focus on branding & marketing, David B. will handle finances & compliance, and David N. will be responsible for logistics & operations.
Late 2014		David Noor and Lucas independently invent a new Sidecar that is “pancake-style”. This design is fondly remembered by old T.REX customers as the “original Sidecar”. The design was not substantially updated until August of 2021.
2015
FEB 2015		Lucas, David B., and David N. start drafting a Partnership Agreement using a collaborative text editing platform to revise and edit. They also have in-person meetings to discuss and negotiate specific components.
APR 3, 2015		The Partnership Agreement is signed so that they can set up a bank account. It is two pages long and written in plain English, dividing ownership and responsibilities in the company. For decisions that impact the direction of the company, Lucas agrees to have a 50% say, and David B. and David N. each agree to have a 25% say. So big decisions will need at least 2 partners to agree. For profits in the company, Lucas is to be compensated and recognized for his startup efforts and personal investment by receiving 60% of the profits until he has received $50k in profits, with David B. and David N. each receiving 20% of profits during that time. Once Lucas has received his $50k in profits, they will move to a profit distribution of: Lucas 35%, David B. 25%, and David N. 25%. The remaining 15% of profits is to be allocated monthly to each partner as appropriate. No one had any lawyers. (A lawyer would have cost around a month of sales to hire.) You can read the Partnership Agreement here:
APR 2015		T.REX hits a daily average of 3 orders/day for the first time.
JUL 2015		The first non-family employee is hired.
AUG 2015		Average daily orders double to 7 orders/day.
2016
JAN 2016		Orders hit 30/day average. The Ownership team mutually decided to offer Isaac Botkin (already married) a 10% ownership stake to develop CNC-automated manufacturing. The first CNC Machine is purchased. Isaac begins working to earn his share via “sweat equity” in the company. Lucas, David B, and David N. work out over the next few months that they will each give up, proportionally to their respective amount of shares, 10% worth of shares for Isaac.
JUL 2016		Lucas publishes the first T.REX ARMS YouTube video.
AUG 2016		T.REX ARMS is restructured as a corporation to protect the owners’ personal assets.
2017
MAR 2017		Mark Dahl (LtCol, USMC, Ret.) is hired as a CNC operator. His leadership skills are soon recognized by the owners.
JUL 2017		T.REX hires an attorney to represent the interests of all the owners (Lucas, David B., David N., and Isaac). He drafts a new Shareholder Agreement based around the original partnership agreement. The attorney worked with them to answer all their questions, assist with edits, and explain how the Shareholder Agreement would work. With the attorney present, all the owners signed the final agreement. The lawyer advises the owners to assign traditional C-titles to their positions in the company. They are given titles as follows: Lucas, CEO; David B., CFO; David N., COO; Isaac, CPO. However, they continue to operate like they had as partners—keeping the same job responsibilities and reaching decisions via meetings and agreement among the owners.
2019
JAN 2019		Isaac, David B., and David N. get interested in political lobbying. T.REX sends a team member to the capitol during the 2019 legislative assembly, and we successfully remove Tennessee’s special privilege tax on ammunition.
SEP 2019		T.REX outgrows the family garage and moves to an old clothing factory building in Centerville’s industrial park.
2020
Early-Mid 2020		COVID-19 and summer riots. T.REX grows explosively during this time, doubling in size over the next year.
NOV 2020		Lucas gets married and signs a pre-nuptial agreement.
2021
Early 2021		There is rising conflict between the three brothers. The owners all agree to add LtCol Mark Dahl and two other older men who have experience both as pastors and in business management are added to the regular owner/officer meetings to act as impartial decision-makers and provide mentorship and coaching to all of the owners.
JAN - APR 2021		It is uncovered that some of our initial AC1 plate carriers might be made in Mexico. This leads to an investigation, customer notifications, and the launch of the “AC-Uno.” To learn more, read here.
MAY 2021		Lucas’s wife expresses interest in a role at T.REX and submits a job description proposal (not applying for an existing position). Although a non-traditional approach, the job description is reviewed by the board/officer group out of respect for Lucas. The proposal is for part-time work that would encompass responsibilities similar to the Chief Operating Officer/Director of Operations as well as some analyst responsibilities. It is referred to Mark Dahl and the Admin Director for follow-up.
DEC 2021		David Botkin and Isaac both complete post-nuptial agreements with their wives.
2022
Early 2022		Mark Dahl joins the 4 owners as an officer with equal authority in day-to-day running of the company. Traditional C-titles are abandoned due to confusion because they do not reflect the owners' actual responsibilities or authority. Instead, they adopt non-traditional titles that better match their roles in the company. Their titles are as follows: Lucas, Vision & Marketing Officer; David B., Finance & Strategy Officer; David N., Future Operations Officer; Isaac, Technical & Education Officer; Col. Dahl, Current Operations Officer.
2023
APR 2023		David Noor gets married and signs a pre-nuptial agreement.
SEP 2023		A true, empowered CEO position is created for the first time in the company’s history and Col. Dahl is asked to fill it. Lucas drives this process, citing frustration with brothers around slow decision-making and the belief that Col. Dahl would help alleviate some frustrations.
2024
Early 2024		Lucas and Isaac are removed from the executive team and other non-owner executives added.
Late 2024		Lucas starts taking Fridays off to work on other businesses. (Around this time he is still saying that the other owners “earned their shares”.)
2025
JAN 30, 2025		Lucas tells the other owners that he no longer wants to be in business with them and will either buy or sell.
FEB 2025		Buyout negotiations begin.
MAR 2025		Inappropriate images incident is reported, investigated, and disciplinary actions are taken.
APR 2025		Leading up to the buyout negotiations, Lucas had signaled that if he bought the other owners out, he would remove 5 out of the 7 executives and 10% of the other team members. With this context, David B., David N., and Isaac prayerfully decide not to sell.
APR 30, 2025		Last buyout offer is emailed from Isaac, David B., and David N. Lucas goes silent.
MAY 27, 2025		Isaac, David B., and David N. send an email to Lucas suggesting 5 options for moving forward, including crafting a better position for Lucas in the company, finding a 3rd-party buyer for his shares, or letting him keep his shares while going to work on his other companies.
MAY 28, 2025		Lucas hands in his letter of resignation.
MAY 31, 2025		Lucas posts on instagram that he resigned.
JUN 2, 2025		“A Message From T.REX ARMS About Lucas Botkin” is posted.
JUN 7, 2025		Lucas posts a video entitled, “Why I Quit My Company T.REX ARMS”.
JUN 27, 2025		This timeline is published in hopes of providing greater clarity for those interested and to ensure we live into our values of truth and humility.

2011

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025