Before Infinite Patriot, there was Puck Fuddles
Our story starts in 2010, with an off-road military group and a name that probably tells you something about our sense of humor. We called ourselves Puck Fuddles.
Any time somebody spotted a puddle, a fun, slightly controversial saying would get yelled. We’ll let you figure that one out.
We started making apparel for the group. Then we started looking at what we were paying screen-printing companies and realized we were getting raked. So we decided to do our own printing.
Buying our first screen-printing press seemed like the answer. We had no idea how much we still had to learn.
Grandma’s basement became the shop
A woman we’ll call Grandma, to keep her identity to ourselves, let us set up operations in her basement. It was the kind of help that makes starting from nothing possible.
The laundry room became the darkroom where we made screens. A bedroom became the print room, and the main room became the place for the vinyl cutter and whatever ideas we were trying to turn into something.
It was perfect for where we were. We had room to work, equipment to learn on and no shortage of things to get wrong.
Six months later, after a lot of learning, we finally printed our first real shirt. It was horrible, and the print fell apart after a couple of washes.
That wasn’t the success story we had pictured. But it was the failures that made us who we are today.
We kept learning and started putting on events. Before long, shirts were going out the door faster than we could print them, and we needed a bigger press and more room for inventory.
The garage years
Growth wasn’t as simple as needing more equipment. One by one, the crew fell away as life got busy, and we didn’t have the funds to push the business forward.
Reno took the equipment and put it in his garage. He did odd jobs, kept printing and kept trying to build a business that meant something.
There wasn’t one straight path from that garage to Infinite Patriot. College, other jobs and the rest of life happened along the way.
Reno’s background had already taken him through the Marine Corps as a combat videographer, including deployments to Iraq. His service ran from 2006 to 2011, and telling stories through photographs and video was part of the work long before there was a podcast.
He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurial Studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2015. He also completed a Master Certificate in Applied Project Management through Villanova University.
His career included camera and broadcast-production work with Fox Sports, followed by project-management and creative-production work with Boeing. It was a mix of business, media, equipment and figuring out how to get complicated work done.
Later, as a manager at The Home Depot, he also coordinated Team Depot projects renovating facilities serving homeless and at-risk combat veterans. Work and service kept finding ways to overlap, even while the printing business was still trying to find its direction.
Infinite Ink Apparel, and a different kind of success
Then came COVID, and the birth of Reno’s first son, Odysseus. He was managing at Home Depot, but he wasn’t happy with the direction his life was taking and wanted to become his own boss.
He got a beautiful house on 20 acres and started a custom screen-printing company called Infinite Ink Apparel. After the basement, the garage and all those years of trying, there was finally room to build.
But being your own boss can turn into working every hour you have. Reno was putting in 20-hour days, seven days a week, and found no glory in it.
He didn’t just want a business that could print somebody else’s order. He wanted a purpose of his own.
The first walking memorials
Reno paired up with Rick Baker and Hoodies for Heroes to build what we call walking memorials today. The work was becoming more than apparel: it was a way to carry the names of people who had made the ultimate sacrifice.
At the time, the project was called American Hometown Heroes. Reno was commander of the Laurel VFW, and Jon Jay Holmquist was a VFW commander in Livingston.
They met at a commanders’ meeting, where Reno showed Jon his new rendition of the walking memorials. Jon loved the idea and went to bat for it.
The late Jon Jay Holmquist helped pursue funding and connect the project with Murdoch’s and the Livingston Rodeo. When donors came in, there was enough money to print almost 1,000 shirts.
The rodeo put the project front and center. People loved the concept, and the shirts sold quickly.
It was a chance to see the idea connect with people beyond the print shop. The names mattered to them, and they wanted to carry that remembrance with them.
Rick and Reno eventually went their separate ways. Rick wanted to build a memorial in Billings, while Reno wanted to continue the passion project and recognize those across the nation who had given the ultimate sacrifice.
That became the direction of Infinite Patriot’s American Fallen Heroes project. The purpose was national, and the work ahead was enormous.
Rock bottom didn’t end the story
After an arduous divorce, Reno hit rock bottom. He was broke and without a home, but he was determined to keep building something that gave veterans, first responders and their communities both purpose and a voice.
He was also working to advance his firefighting career. He took a job on a helitack crew and ultimately became a Helicopter Manager.
His fire-service work included volunteering with Laurel Fire Rescue and working with Montana DNRC’s helitack program. Those responsibilities were part of his life alongside the effort to keep Infinite Patriot going.
The tribute work kept moving, too. Cedar came into the picture as a colleague and is now Reno’s business partner.
After thousands of hours and years of work, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Tribute artwork for all 50 states was completed with Cedar’s help. It was a major part of the purpose Reno had been trying to build toward.
Once Reno had a somewhat steady income, he rented a small warehouse. It gave him and Cedar a place to continue printing operations and keep building Infinite Patriot.
There was still a lot ahead of them. But they had a place to work and a purpose that had survived some difficult years.
No name, no money, and an idea for a podcast
Somewhere in the middle of all that, another idea started coming together. Reno, KC and Shane, veterans and active firefighters, joined up with Donny, an old county-road-grader operator and business owner, because they wanted to start a podcast.
There was no name, no money and a collection of handed-down equipment. They were filming in kitchens and garages, and the podcast wasn’t ready yet.
It needed time, equipment and room to develop. Like the printing operation before it, the idea was ahead of what they had to work with.
A major sponsor eventually made it possible to buy equipment. That support helped bring Boomtown Crew Podcast into being.
The camera and production experience was already there, but the podcast was becoming something the crew could build together. It gave them another way to bring people, stories and conversations into the work.
This is just the beginning
Reno also decided to continue American Fallen Heroes into firefighter and police tributes. The firefighter walking memorials are actively in progress, with the police series still to come.
The work is not finished, and neither is this story. There are more details to add about the people, the places and the moments that helped get us here.
But the beginning matters. Grandma made room for us, Jon went to bat for an idea, Cedar helped carry years of tribute work forward, and crews, donors and sponsors helped make the next step possible.
We started with an off-road group and a shirt that couldn’t survive a couple of washes. We kept going because the failures taught us something, and because the work grew into a purpose bigger than printing another order.
That is the background of Infinite Patriot. What comes next is still being built.
