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Get Crackin' Darringtons blow up their Work Space |
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Written by Erin Frustaci
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Wednesday, 28 June 2006 |
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 When Larry Darrington of Pierce was a little boy, sadness would fall over him every year come July 5th. He knew he would have to anxiously wait for another year.
“I just always loved fireworks,” he said.
Now at 31, the owner of Angel Light Pyrotechnics said it all makes sense.
“I swear I was designed for this,” he said. “I got my start as a kid who lit bottle rockets.”
Larry and his wife Ginger started their own fireworks company eight years ago.
“I absolutely love what I do,” Larry said.
And this time of year, business is booming, literally.
“We are booked completely for the Fourth of July,” he said.
Angel Lights Pyrotechnics will perform the fireworks displays for Loveland, Wiggins and the Brush Pro Rodeo.
Ginger said they will have the help of a 20- to 25-person crew. The Loveland show will be choreographed to music broadcast on Max 94.3 FM.
Their shows feature a mix of hand-fired and electric-fired fireworks. The majority of Angel Light’s fireworks are imported, but Larry said they do manufacture some of their own. The result is a colorful show where firewalls, streaking rockets, multiple-shot barrages and large aerial display shells light up the sky.
And the best part for Larry is the sparks don’t just burn out after the Fourth of July.
“Our slowest time is January to March, but even then we are busy preparing and getting equipment ready,” Ginger said.
In addition to big outdoor displays, Angel Light Pyrotechnics offers indoor shows and special effects for any occasion, including weddings.
VITAL STATS
Name: Larry and Ginger Darrington
Company: Angel Light Pyrotechnics
Title: Owners
How long have you worked there? Since 1998
IN THEIR WORDS
 What is it about this job that makes it challenging?
Larry: That’s pretty easy — the regulations. It would take a small miracle for somebody else to start a fireworks company because the red tape is so thick. It’s not just playing with fireworks anymore.
Ginger: That’s probably the part we have to stay on top of the most. We are constantly realizing the regulations are changing and we need to change with them.
Makes you get out of bed in the morning?
Larry: Our alarm clock, especially after a show, we are just wiped out. To take the question seriously, I get to blow things up for a living. I love what I do. I have a huge passion for the business and the industry.
Ginger: I’m really busy. I have to get out of bed or I won’t get everything done. Right now I have three jobs.
Things that impress you?
Ginger: I think I have been impressed by the really great people that we have on our side and on our team. We have some very intelligent people who work with us and for us. I’ve been grateful and impressed by the people that surround us. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. We know some really great guys. We are well prepared for our business and have some great engineers on our side too.
Larry: That really is true. They’ve put in a lot of hard hours for us.
Things that don’t?
Larry: The competition. There’s a lot of people out there who just like to throw fireworks up in the air, we call it burp it up, and not put choreography and work into it. They charge the same for a show and get away with it.
Ginger: The people that don’t put their passion into what they do and are lax on regulations because they don’t care that much. We really do care about all parts of the business and that’s why we take regulations very seriously. We have a lot of passion behind what we do. That’s the defining piece to us.
If you weren’t doing this, what would you do?
Larry: I’d probably be doing something else crazy, knowing me. That’s hard to think of because without a doubt, I’m supposed to be doing this. I was designed for it. If I wasn’t, I’d probably do a mix of skydiving and playing the tuba. Those were my other hobbies. That’s a funny mental picture.
Ginger: I’ve had a lot of jobs. When I think back on my resume of jobs, it’s pretty crazy. I’m still pretty young to have that many things I’ve done in my life. I’m guessing I’d still be in banking. But Larry’s helped me because he’s following through with his dream, and I am too. I don’t think I would be giving voice lessons if it wasn’t for Larry because he has inspired me to do that.
Did you ever think in a million years you’d work here?
I would be giving voice lessons if it wasn’t for Larry because he has inspired me to do that.
Did you ever think in a million years you’d work here?
Larry: Absolutely not. There’s just no way. Just about daily, I’ll sit back in awe and look at what we are doing and chuckle. The scale of shows we do and the style of show we do blows my mind. It’s just really fun. It’s certainly not the most common job. There are only a handful of us.
Ginger: If Larry says not in a million years, I’d say not in two million years. It is not what I had planned at all. I was going to be a singer. I am a singer. I do voice lessons, but this is something different. But I’m glad to be doing it.
Smartest?
Ginger: Following through with the passions of my heart.
Larry: Being a man of integrity. I get more comments on that. Being a man of my word is probably one of the smartest things in business and almost rare now a days.
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever done to make money?
Larry: I blow things up. I mean that’s a pretty crazy way to make money.
Ginger: When I was growing up, my family hung out at the hospital a lot. My brother has Cystic Fibrosis. When I was really bored at the hospital, which was often, we would go down to the vending machines. Somehow we would reach our arms under the vending machines to get all the change that had fallen under it. We’d make enough to get anything we could want out of vending machine. We probably even had leftovers in our pockets.
Pets? Family?
Larry: We have two indoor cats, Black Powder and Quick Match and four outside cats Star, Tiger Tail, Ashes and Crossette.
Ginger: We also have 53 chickens.
Favorite TV shows?
Larry: It used to be “E-Ring.” We don’t get to watch a lot.
Ginger: We enjoy documentaries on PBS. They do interesting documentaries on World War II. We also enjoy “The American Inventors.”
Movies?
Larry: “Princess Bride” is right up there. Any Jackie Chan movie. He just rocks.
Ginger: We both like those.
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done while at work?
Larry: Luckily there’s not room for error or stupid things in this business. There really isn’t; you do it, you die. In normal life, the list goes on. It wasn’t this line of work, but I was doing heating and air conditioning. I was helping cut out some studs out of a wall. I had my ladder leaning against the wall and did the whole cartoon thing where you cut out each side of the wall except where your ladder is leaning. The only part that broke free was where the ladder was, so I went through the wall. That was very comical. It was more funny than anything. I pictured Wyle E. Coyote cutting off the side of the branch he’s on.
Ginger: In high school I was working for a motel and was helping with the continental breakfast in the kitchen. I had to be there at 5 a.m. and was the only one in this huge dark kitchen. I learned that was definitely not a good fit for me. I found myself talking to the fruit. It was a very depressing job. Probably the stupidest thing I’ve done is talk to fruit.
Books.
Larry: The Left Behind series
Ginger: I’ve read a lot of technical books. My day job us a counseling job. I read lots of books about counseling.
What Web sites do you have bookmarked?
Larry: There’s way to many to list. Competition sites to new ideas to potent clients to current clients. Lots of regulation sites.
Ginger: Mostly music and coffee sites.
Where do you play?
Ginger: The really sad thing is people with their own businesses don’t play very much.
Larry: We are building a home theater right now, a real thrifty way of doing it. That would be the next fun project.
Go out to eat?
Larry: Los Conastas Mexican Restaurant in Ault and The Ranch Restaurant in Greeley.
Ginger: There’s a really great dessert at Johnny Carinos.
Favorite spot?
Ginger: We are pretty blessed to be in Colorado, aren’t we? There’s a lot of favorite spots. We visited Victor and that was very enjoyable. It was beautiful.
Larry: Anywhere we can see mountains.
Any interesting anecdotes?
Ginger: Larry always says you know it’s a good show when you set off the car alarms for several blocks.
Larry: The Bible, we live by that. I think in this business you have to have God on your side. We are definitely a praying family and business.
How do young/new employees get ahead?
Larry: A lot of hard work and lot of commitment, that’s for sure. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere in the heat working, you’re either committed or not. You have to have a passion for it. I think that says a lot. If they don’t have passion, they won’t pursue this stuff.
Ginger: It really does have a way of weeding out the people who don’t have passion. It’s just too much red tape, to much work, too much heat and too much rain.
What’s the one thing you wish you could do on the job that you can’t right now?
Larry: More specific choreography. My mind has exceeded my firing systems. We’d have to have huge computer system to get everything to fall together and even that would be pushing it. I have some great ideas for stuff but the expense and time to do it would be amazing. But it would be cool stuff. I think it is a good thing. It means I always want to do more than I’m doing versus just doing what I can to get by.
Ginger: The first thing I thought of is I wish budgets were bigger so we could do more. There is a lot more we can do that costs money. We still just have to stay in our budgets.
What do you do during your breaks?
Ginger: At firework shows when we take breaks it’s usually a lunch break or water break. People are sitting around in shade sharing stories.
Larry: Pyros have a lot of good stories to share. During the day not during shows, I don’t really get much of a break between manufacturing and office stuff. On the field, that’s where it’s fun.
What’s one thing about your job you would do, even if you weren’t paid to do it?
Larry: The job. I would keep it as a hobby. It’s in me. I’m not a pyromaniac. I’m a pyrotechnician.
Ginger: One thing I do is totally support Larry. You can’t put money on that.
Name one thing in your life that really prepared you for your job.
Ginger: Marriage counseling before we got married. I think it really has helped us be successful in our relationship and business decisions. The really good lesson we learned is to be in agreement. We operate our business that way. If we don’t agree then we probably shouldn’t make that decision until we agree.
Larry: That does wonders. I agree.
What’s the biggest payoff in your job?
Larry: Well lets see. Is it the blowing things up, getting paid to blow things up or having my wife help me blow things up when she is right there with me? It’s all of the above. It’s an absolute dream job and it’s totally a patriotic job on top of that. I always have guys tell me they wish they had my job. I feel very blessed and don’t take it for granted, that’s for sure.
Ginger: Probably for me it’s the creating. I do like that the most. I like coming up with ideas.
Are you the boss? Do you think you should be?
Larry: Yes and I think our crew would agree. Not one of them wants to be in our position of owning a fireworks company. They say we must be crazy to do this because of the liability, regulations, insurance and safety all comes on us.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
Larry: Think about work. That’s hard because I’m here all the time. The one bad thing is I can’t get away from it because it’s a home office.
Ginger: We have a couple hobbies. One is building water features. That’s kinda fun. I really enjoy gold panning. For me it’s relaxing. I don’t find a lot.
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