Our Story

Extreme Sandbox is a family owned and operated business, started in 2012. The founder, Randy Stenger, is a family man with 3 young boys. Many years ago while driving by a construction site one of his boys stated, “Dad, wouldn’t it be fun to go play on those trucks”. And from there an idea was born!

Contrary from what most people would think, Randy had no background in construction or operating ANY heavy equipment (unless a lawn mower counts). Randy was a corporate guy who daydreamed about playing on these big toys, so after the idea came from his kids he decided to make it a reality. From there, years of work went in to locating the best site in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and then working with the local municipalities to obtain the proper site approvals (more challenging than one might think…..ha).

We officially opened in early 2012 at our original site in Hastings, Minnesota.  We strongly support the local community and have had the opportunity to be advocates for the construction industry; helping local high schools provide tours and camps for teens exploring the construction industry careers.  As much fun as this equipment is to operate, we think our customers ultimately walk away with a greater appreciation for the industry that keeps our economy growing (trust us….it’s tough work!).

As our business has grown over the past few years, so has our team, equipment fleet, and facilities.  From remote controlled vehicles to bulldozers to even a firetruck!  We provide interesting and amazing ‘toys’ for you to ‘play’ with. Our focus has always been our clients, and we are continuously working to improve the overall experience with added activities and amenities on site.

In the winter of 2014 we built our first facility at our original Hastings, MN location.  This gave us much needed equipment storage but also provided us with a state of the art executive conference room and more importantly, space to accommodate social gatherings and corporate team building events.  We now have a four season facility that can host groups of 5 to over 100!  Group events has quickly become one of the fastest growing parts to our business.

After perfecting the “Sandbox Concept” over our first 3 years of business, we decided it was time to expand the concept nationally. We had the great opportunity to make an appearance on Shark Tank in January, 2016 (see episode here) and since then we have seen tremendous growth. We opened our 2nd location at Tanglewood Resort in Pottsboro, TX in April, 2016. We relocated our Pottsboro site to Sachse, TX to be closer to the Dallas market in September 2020. The Sachse location thrived, but unfortunately the developer sold the site, so our lease was not renewed. We will be closing our DFW location on April 10, 2022, but hope to return to a new location in the future. We will also continue to look for new locations across the country.

Additionally, we were excited to secure an official equipment sponsorship with Komatsu America (see press release here) in early 2016 and have been excited to be able to represent their brand with state of the art Komatsu equipment. Komatsu shares in our passion in bringing the construction experience to the general public, and more importantly they have been crucial in helping us engage students and show them the career potential in the construction industry.

We want to thank you for visiting us and look forward to fulfilling your dreams!

“Age is an issue of mind over matter.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” – Mark Twain

 
Notice: The views stated herein are those of Extreme Sandbox and/or the applicable individual only , and do not necessarily reflect the views of Komatsu or its personnel.