About us
Hello. My name is Chance Blaker, Owner of Beach'N Buggy's
My love of creating started when I was very young. My father was a "do it yourself" kind of guy. Some of my earliest memories of him are in the garage, restoring foreign sports cars, building a BD5 jet airplane, and for my 16th birthday we restored a 65 cutlass convertible, which I still own to this day. My father showed me that nothing is impossible if you just have the want to.
Three months after graduating from High School I joined the Marine Corps as an Avionics technician, this is where I obtained an understanding of electronics.
I became involved in this venture by initially building bicycles. After building a few bicycles, I decided to put electric motors on them. From there I started making electric recumbent scooters and this kind of thinking lead me to designing electric powered beach buggy's. It has taken me a long time to get to where I am today, I do not claim to have invented this idea, but I do claim "designing the coolest looking" and most functional Buggy's around.
Donations to wounded warriors
As of 2020 we have donated 22 chairs to disabled veterans.
How it all started
An old boot camp friend of mine named Eric Wooten, contacted me when he found out I was making Beach Wheelchairs. He asked if I would be willing to work with him on donating a single wheelchair to a disabled Veteran; Eric raising the funds to cover the necessary parts and I donating the time and skills, to custom make the chair for whomever was selected. The suggestion sounded great, but in all honesty, I didn’t believe he would be able to come up with the funds for all the electronics, so I told him, “Sure, go ahead!” About 3 months later, Eric called again and said everyone had generously contributed, and all of the funds needed for the parts had been raised.
Now, this was during a period in my life when time was in high demand, I had just purchased my first home and was in the middle of fixing it up, I had a 60hr a week IT job, and my Father, my hero, was now in Hospice. So it goes without saying, that for the next couple months, I was struggling to find time to build and design and often worked well into the nights, trying to finish this chair and fulfill my promise.
My father passed away before the chair was completed; it was the last thing he saw me create. It was truly bitter sweet, giving a person a life changing gift, but not having my father, teacher and mentor, there to see it finished. Alan Earl was the recipient of this chair that Eric and I had collaborated on for so many months; donated to Alan in my Father’s memory.
A year later, Eric called again...I bet you know where this is going, and asked, if he raised the funds, could I build another chair. Well, at that moment, I was right in the middle of building two chairs for a company, interested it duplicating and mass producing them; Eric’s timing is impeccable. Eric wanted to donate this one on the Marine Corps birthday, which was only a couple months away. I really wasn’t sure if I could make the deadline. I tried explaining my time dilemma to Eric, the fact that the company I was making the other two chairs for wanted them ASAP, so the date he needed the chair completed by might not be feasible, Eric’s reply was simply, “Can you or can’t you do it, MARINE?” So having said that, my answer was, “See you in November."
Eric Wooten has now started a 501c3 charity Called Other Side of the Dunes for the soul purpose of raising money to help Veterans.
