Wolf Rigs sells the Patton, built on a refurbished Humvee, for $350,000. (Photo courtesy of Wolf Rigs)
An Englewood company that converts Humvees into campers has gone bankrupt, a few months after it was ordered to pay $630,000 to investors who accused it of fraud.
It’s the latest entrepreneurial setback for Wolf Rigs’ CEO, a convicted thief who has filed for bankruptcy several times and has a history of unpaid court judgments.
“I know how it looks to someone who doesn’t know me,” Reed Gerdes, 51, said. “But I know how I feel about it, I know I’ll make things right, and I know that we’ll come back.”
Reed Gerdes
Michelle Smith, one of the Wolf Rigs investors owed $630,000, isn’t counting on that.
“His legal history displays — and decision-making with regards to Wolf Rigs displays — the actions of a serial fraudster in my opinion,” she said of Gerdes, a former friend.
Wolf Rigs welds aluminum frames on refurbished Humvees to create a $350,000 camper that it calls the Patton. The company was founded in 2020 and has never turned a profit.
In October, Wolf Rigs was ordered by Judge Philip McNulty in Golden to pay $630,000 to Smith and her husband James, who accused Gerdes of using overly rosy projections to fraudulently induce them to invest $500,000. Gerdes has denied doing anything wrong but didn’t respond to the lawsuit in court, so McNulty sided with the Smiths and awarded them money.
On Feb. 5, Wolf Rigs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has $750,000 in assets — mostly unsold Pattons and camper parts — and $900,000 in debt. In addition to the Smiths, it owes $100,000 to lenders, $100,000 to an Arkansas woman and $61,000 to its landlord in Englewood.
The Arkansas woman, Gayla Koehn, sued Wolf Rigs in Jonesboro in 2022, claiming that she borrowed $110,000 from a bank and paid it to Wolf Rigs in exchange for a “Skoolie,” or old school bus converted into an RV. But she never received the Skoolie or a refund.
“Plaintiff has received only sporadic communication from defendant,” Koehn’s lawsuit said of Gerdes. “Plaintiff had to rely primarily on defendant’s Facebook page, where he would post pictures of his projects, none of which appeared to depict plaintiff’s Skoolie.”
Gerdes ignored that lawsuit, so a judge awarded Koehn $99,000 last year, records show. Through a lawyer, she declined to comment on the case and Wolf Rigs. Gerdes said that Koehn demanded a refund when gas prices increased and he’s working to get her one.
“I’m not running from the debt,” he said, “I just haven’t had the money to pay the debt quickly enough. If things turn around, and I believe they will, everyone will be made whole.”
Not listed among Wolf Rigs’ creditors is JCC Lending, a Denver company that sued it Jan. 26 for allegedly not repaying a $100,000 loan. JCC is trying to collect on what it says is the collateral for that loan: a Patton prototype. Wolf Rigs hasn’t responded to the lawsuit.
Wolf Rigs reported gross revenue of $780,000 for 2023, up from $350,000 in 2022. It anticipates selling six Pattons this year at $350,000 each, for a net profit of $420,000.
“The camper is still something to be sought after, it’s an expanding industry, and what caused all the problems to begin with is that we just didn’t have enough sales,” Gerdes said by phone. “The Smiths got indignant with it and decided to do what they did. It is what it is. We’ll get through it. I’ve been through worse. We’re going to make things right.”
On Feb. 25, Wolf Rigs told a bankruptcy judge that lower-than-anticipated sales, combined with the Smiths’ lawsuit, “caused the business’ (bank) accounts to be shut down and garnished.” The company said that its “ideal plan for reorganizing is to bring in an investor” soon.
“The bankruptcy filings are the reactions of a cornered animal,” said Michelle Smith.
“Looking at legal documents, you see that (Gerdes) has a history of this back to the 2000s. He takes money, he can’t pay it back, he files bankruptcy to get out of it,” she said.
Gerdes has declared personal bankruptcy five times since 2001. That happened most recently in December, but the case was thrown out when Gerdes didn’t pay a filing fee.
Before Wolf Rigs, he was the operations manager at Schutzengel, a now-defunct construction company. A judge ordered Schutzengel to pay $57,000 to a Denver couple who accused Gerdes of not doing work he was paid for in 2017, ordered to pay $36,000 to a subcontractor in 2018, and ordered to pay $46,000 to a lender in 2019. It didn’t pay the couple or lender.
Gerdes also co-owned the similarly defunct 11B Construction. In 2020, that company was ordered by a judge to pay $103,000 to an Arvada man who accused Gerdes of doing incomplete work. The year before, it was ordered to pay $58,000 to a Denver woman who accused Gerdes of incomplete work. 11B hasn’t paid either judgment.
“It’s hard to say what his initial intentions were but I’m pretty confident that after that last payment I gave him, (Gerdes) had no intention of doing any more work,” said David Mayeranderson, the Arvada man who hired Gerdes for a fix-and-flip in 2019.
The interior of the Patton has teak woodwork and a bathroom with a shower. (Photo courtesy of Wolf Rigs)
Mayeranderson paid Gerdes $43,000 before “the work came to a screeching halt,” he said. So, he sued and won the court judgment, but then watched as Gerdes filed for bankruptcy.
Mayeranderson pursued his claim in bankruptcy court without a lawyer — “I was wronged and I was mad and I wanted justice,” he said — but lost and still hasn’t been paid.
Gerdes said that he and Mayeranderson don’t see eye to eye on what happened but vowed, “I will make him whole as well.” Like Smith, Mayeranderson isn’t banking on that.
“I’m not a legal expert,” Mayeranderson told BusinessDen, “but taking money from people with no intention of doing what you took the money for — how is that not stealing?”
Sometimes it is. In 2019, Gerdes was arrested and charged with felony theft of $5,000 to $20,000 from a couple in Highlands Ranch who hired him for a kitchen remodel that he never finished. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in 2021 as part of a plea deal, was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution. He has not paid.
“I owed them five grand when I walked away from it,” Gerdes said of the job. “I didn’t pay it in a timely manner and they were able to get the DA to say, ‘Oh, you stole this money.’ So, yeah, they are ones who flat out took advantage of me, not the other way around.
“I didn’t have the money to go to trial, so I pled to a lower charge.”
Michelle Smith knew that suing Gerdes last year likely wouldn’t result in a refund — “It’s obvious that he has nothing,” she says — but believed that it was time to take a stand.
“It would be nice to recoup our money at this point but it takes money to stop someone like this and no one has had the ability to do it, so that’s what we’re trying to do,” she said.
“He’s gotten away with this for so long that he thinks he can keep doing this.”
Wolf Rigs sells the Patton, built on a refurbished Humvee, for $350,000. (Photo courtesy of Wolf Rigs)
An Englewood company that converts Humvees into campers has gone bankrupt, a few months after it was ordered to pay $630,000 to investors who accused it of fraud.
It’s the latest entrepreneurial setback for Wolf Rigs’ CEO, a convicted thief who has filed for bankruptcy several times and has a history of unpaid court judgments.
“I know how it looks to someone who doesn’t know me,” Reed Gerdes, 51, said. “But I know how I feel about it, I know I’ll make things right, and I know that we’ll come back.”
Reed Gerdes
Michelle Smith, one of the Wolf Rigs investors owed $630,000, isn’t counting on that.
“His legal history displays — and decision-making with regards to Wolf Rigs displays — the actions of a serial fraudster in my opinion,” she said of Gerdes, a former friend.
Wolf Rigs welds aluminum frames on refurbished Humvees to create a $350,000 camper that it calls the Patton. The company was founded in 2020 and has never turned a profit.
In October, Wolf Rigs was ordered by Judge Philip McNulty in Golden to pay $630,000 to Smith and her husband James, who accused Gerdes of using overly rosy projections to fraudulently induce them to invest $500,000. Gerdes has denied doing anything wrong but didn’t respond to the lawsuit in court, so McNulty sided with the Smiths and awarded them money.
On Feb. 5, Wolf Rigs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has $750,000 in assets — mostly unsold Pattons and camper parts — and $900,000 in debt. In addition to the Smiths, it owes $100,000 to lenders, $100,000 to an Arkansas woman and $61,000 to its landlord in Englewood.
The Arkansas woman, Gayla Koehn, sued Wolf Rigs in Jonesboro in 2022, claiming that she borrowed $110,000 from a bank and paid it to Wolf Rigs in exchange for a “Skoolie,” or old school bus converted into an RV. But she never received the Skoolie or a refund.
“Plaintiff has received only sporadic communication from defendant,” Koehn’s lawsuit said of Gerdes. “Plaintiff had to rely primarily on defendant’s Facebook page, where he would post pictures of his projects, none of which appeared to depict plaintiff’s Skoolie.”
Gerdes ignored that lawsuit, so a judge awarded Koehn $99,000 last year, records show. Through a lawyer, she declined to comment on the case and Wolf Rigs. Gerdes said that Koehn demanded a refund when gas prices increased and he’s working to get her one.
“I’m not running from the debt,” he said, “I just haven’t had the money to pay the debt quickly enough. If things turn around, and I believe they will, everyone will be made whole.”
Not listed among Wolf Rigs’ creditors is JCC Lending, a Denver company that sued it Jan. 26 for allegedly not repaying a $100,000 loan. JCC is trying to collect on what it says is the collateral for that loan: a Patton prototype. Wolf Rigs hasn’t responded to the lawsuit.
Wolf Rigs reported gross revenue of $780,000 for 2023, up from $350,000 in 2022. It anticipates selling six Pattons this year at $350,000 each, for a net profit of $420,000.
“The camper is still something to be sought after, it’s an expanding industry, and what caused all the problems to begin with is that we just didn’t have enough sales,” Gerdes said by phone. “The Smiths got indignant with it and decided to do what they did. It is what it is. We’ll get through it. I’ve been through worse. We’re going to make things right.”
On Feb. 25, Wolf Rigs told a bankruptcy judge that lower-than-anticipated sales, combined with the Smiths’ lawsuit, “caused the business’ (bank) accounts to be shut down and garnished.” The company said that its “ideal plan for reorganizing is to bring in an investor” soon.
“The bankruptcy filings are the reactions of a cornered animal,” said Michelle Smith.
“Looking at legal documents, you see that (Gerdes) has a history of this back to the 2000s. He takes money, he can’t pay it back, he files bankruptcy to get out of it,” she said.
Gerdes has declared personal bankruptcy five times since 2001. That happened most recently in December, but the case was thrown out when Gerdes didn’t pay a filing fee.
Before Wolf Rigs, he was the operations manager at Schutzengel, a now-defunct construction company. A judge ordered Schutzengel to pay $57,000 to a Denver couple who accused Gerdes of not doing work he was paid for in 2017, ordered to pay $36,000 to a subcontractor in 2018, and ordered to pay $46,000 to a lender in 2019. It didn’t pay the couple or lender.
Gerdes also co-owned the similarly defunct 11B Construction. In 2020, that company was ordered by a judge to pay $103,000 to an Arvada man who accused Gerdes of doing incomplete work. The year before, it was ordered to pay $58,000 to a Denver woman who accused Gerdes of incomplete work. 11B hasn’t paid either judgment.
“It’s hard to say what his initial intentions were but I’m pretty confident that after that last payment I gave him, (Gerdes) had no intention of doing any more work,” said David Mayeranderson, the Arvada man who hired Gerdes for a fix-and-flip in 2019.
The interior of the Patton has teak woodwork and a bathroom with a shower. (Photo courtesy of Wolf Rigs)
Mayeranderson paid Gerdes $43,000 before “the work came to a screeching halt,” he said. So, he sued and won the court judgment, but then watched as Gerdes filed for bankruptcy.
Mayeranderson pursued his claim in bankruptcy court without a lawyer — “I was wronged and I was mad and I wanted justice,” he said — but lost and still hasn’t been paid.
Gerdes said that he and Mayeranderson don’t see eye to eye on what happened but vowed, “I will make him whole as well.” Like Smith, Mayeranderson isn’t banking on that.
“I’m not a legal expert,” Mayeranderson told BusinessDen, “but taking money from people with no intention of doing what you took the money for — how is that not stealing?”
Sometimes it is. In 2019, Gerdes was arrested and charged with felony theft of $5,000 to $20,000 from a couple in Highlands Ranch who hired him for a kitchen remodel that he never finished. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in 2021 as part of a plea deal, was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution. He has not paid.
“I owed them five grand when I walked away from it,” Gerdes said of the job. “I didn’t pay it in a timely manner and they were able to get the DA to say, ‘Oh, you stole this money.’ So, yeah, they are ones who flat out took advantage of me, not the other way around.
“I didn’t have the money to go to trial, so I pled to a lower charge.”
Michelle Smith knew that suing Gerdes last year likely wouldn’t result in a refund — “It’s obvious that he has nothing,” she says — but believed that it was time to take a stand.
“It would be nice to recoup our money at this point but it takes money to stop someone like this and no one has had the ability to do it, so that’s what we’re trying to do,” she said.
“He’s gotten away with this for so long that he thinks he can keep doing this.”
