By most external measures, Pat Crossin has a brutal job. The owner of a small business in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Phillips Pump, he often works seven days a week and comes home at 9 pm. Many years, he earns less than some of his employees. He is forever faced with difficult problems posed by demanding clients.

He loves it.

"I play hard," says Pat, "But I really don't work hard. I'd rather have a new welder than a new car. For me, this company is a giant playground filled with great toys."

It wasn't always this way.

Pat started his career as an apprentice tool and die maker in southern Connecticut. He was sent to a training program; after three months he was twelve chapters ahead of his class and the teacher told him he was wasting his talents and suggested he become an engineer. Off he went to school down south, tending bar to pay the bills, and in 1979 he returned to Connecticut working as a machine engineer for a manufacturing firm named Burndy.

"Along the way, I became enamored with personal computers. My interest was in integrating PCs into the manufacturing process. Then in 1984, the industry hit its first downturn, and a guy who owned a local computer store asked if I was interested in buying his store. I gave it some thought but decided not to make an offer."

Just as many manufacturing firms did, Burndy left Connecticut and Pat's former boss got him a general management job at a firm that manufactured aircraft parts. On the surface, it was the job Pat always wanted.

"At age 35, I was finally in charge of something. I earned $80k a year. I hated it with a passion. The job I had wanted so badly was worse than hell.

"I was the guy in the middle. Every Friday at 3:30 my boss would call to ask how much we shipped that week. It was being the guy in the middle. Everyone bitched. People were poking me all day long. It was constant Monday morning quarterbacking. I had all the responsibilities, but none of the perks, and I was working for some guy in Texas who was literally draining the company dry.

"One Sunday morning I saw an ad for a computer store for sale. It was the same place, and had already changed hands a few times. The business broker tried to get me financial documents to review, but it was very difficult. The whole time, the broker kept saying he had the perfect business for me, a little motor repair shop in Norwalk. I kept shrugging him off, until the PC deal fell apart and I let him bring me over to the repair shop.

"As soon as I walked in the door, I thought: I can do this. It was a little machine shop that fixed pumps; they had two or three employees. We made a deal that let me pay for the place over five years. Sales were just over $150 thousand a year when I bought it."

Things went well the first two years, but then a recession hit Connecticut. His shop was a Granger reseller; Granger opened a showroom locally and started competing with Pat. Sales plummeted. In 1992, a flood hit his shop.

Feeling under pressure, Pat went to a trade show and met a guy who had collected all the instruction manuals and catalogs for compressors. This made it possible for him to find and sell any part made for compressors. Pat decided he could take the same tactic for pumps.

"All the pump manufacturers buy from one another. If I could buy the parts, I'd have my own pump line." So in 1996, with sales down to $125 thousand, Pat assembled a nine-page catalog called Phillips Pump.

"We made slow progress. In 1997, we added $60 thousand of sales in just pumps. Then clients started asking me to solve problems. One asked whether I could put the pump in a base. Another wanted a control for the pump. Every time, I did what they asked."

Pat didn't realize it then, but his playground was taking form. He loved solving problems, and the more problems he solved, the better he could justify buying better "toys" to solve problems.

"I decided to spread out a little bit. We brought on manufacturer's reps. We got a job from a government entity to design a system for offloading fuel. We never had done anything like that before. The engineer sent drawings and asked for a quote, which turned out to be $8,000. We built it, and got paid.

"Then a client told me about a competitor of mine in the Midwest that was giving him bad service. I got a hold of the competitor's catalog and started carrying and promoting everything they offered. Business really started taking off."

Pat's business now brings in over $1.6 million a year. He describes it as a typical small business that lives off its receivables, which means you can never really relax. Except that Pat loves it.

"Not once did I ever say I was sorry I did it. It's not work. I don't know why. I love doing the design work, and the interactions with my customers. I love seeing my equipment out in the real world."

His challenges keep getting increasingly interesting. "We did the pumping system at the Statue of Liberty - five generators and two storage tanks. Our systems are in the Mohegan Sun casino, and at the local Darien High School."

Customers find him today thru distributors. But increasingly engineers are now "specing" his firm into jobs, which means their plans call for systems to be supplied by Phillips Pump. As clients move from place to place, they start calling Pat from their new companies.

At 53, Pat has his money and his neck on the line.

"The difference is I get to make the decisions for this company. To me, this is fun. I'll probably be working here when I'm 75. My wife asked what I like about it, and it's the creativity of the job. I've hired engineers, technicians, and sales people, but I still set up how each system should be designed.

"I don't golf, I don't have any extracurricular activities. I come in on a Saturday morning, it's nice and quiet. By the time I Iook up, it's time to eat."