Garland Sagen's Story

Garland Sagen

Proud Inventor and CEO (retired) of Sagen Incorporated

“To think that this business is totally by accident.  It just happened because I hurt my hand.” 

The sun was going down on a cold fall day in North Dakota.  Walking was tedious in the foot of new snow and he still had one tag to fill when he spotted a nice 4 year old doe at the edge of the woods.  Taking a breath and steadying his aim, Garland Sagen dropped a nice 4 year old doe.  “This will be good eating”, Garland remarked to his son, Rodney, as they made their way to the deer.  But now the hard part, field dressing the deer.

He scanned the ground but was unable to locate a rock to pound his knife through the pelvis bone and since they had forgotten the hatchet in the truck, he had to use his hand.  Breaking the tip off of his and Rodney’s knives and hurting his hand.  “There has to be a better way!” Garland said to Rodney.   The next day while rubbing his bruised hand; Garland began dreaming up a tool to cut the pelvic bone and rib cage of large game animals.

 “It has to be small, lightweight inexpensive and tough.” he thought.  Something you can easily carry without burden on all your hunts.  Something that will quickly cut through the pelvis bone without cutting into the guts and spoiling the meat.  Sitting there with his bruised hand wrapped around a warm cup of coffee; a tool began to visualize.  “A bone saw” he thought.  “One sharp enough to cut the hardest bone.” “With a bumper to protect the colon and bladder.”  A picture was forming in his mind.  It was 1991 and the start of a long journey to build the perfect big game cleaning tool.

Over the next two years Garland designed and with Rodney’s help, tested hundreds of combinations of handles, blades and bumpers.  They tried the tool on every road kill they could find.  All this testing paid off.  They found the perfect combination; a “T” handle, large bumper and saw teeth that cut on the up-stroke.  There in the SagenSaw was born.  Garland had his design patented and began to sell them out of the back of his pickup and at trade shows.  “I never thought it would be this successful” Garland says.  “Everyone wanted one.”  To date, over 300,000 SagenSaws have sold throughout North America and 8 countries worldwide.  “Some hunters report using it on 50 deer and it’s still as sharp as the day they purchased it.” Garland says.

In 1995 Rodney and wife Trudy began working part-time with Garland packaging and distributing the SagenSaw.  In the year 2000, business growing, Trudy began working with Garland full-time.  From 2003 to 2006 son, Kenneth, was brought in to help out with marketing and advertising.  The year 2005 brought the new SagenSaw II.  The SagenSaw II, being 30% larger and stronger, was developed to better field dress Moose and Elk. 

When Garland decided to retire as CEO at the end of 2006, Trudy was promoted to that position.  With Rodney helping out part-time, as General Manager, they are carrying on where Garland left off, providing the best field dressing tools for hunters.