Ambulance maker gets intensive care.

• Position: Ashley Emergency Vehicles and Equipment, financing

A rescue operation by 16 investors has saved Ashley Emergency Vehicles ["Living on Borrowed Time," March 1989] from collapse.

"We were in critical condition," says founder Rick Ashley of the Jefferson-based ambulance manufacturer, which had sales of $9.7 million in 1989, compared with $6 million in 1988.

Faced with a cash crunch in 1988, Ashley first turned to bankers, who all turned him down. Finally, Greensboro's Lighthouse Financial Corp., an asset-based lender, extended a $700,000 line of credit. The loan was secured by the company's inventory, accounts receivable and a second mortgage on Ashley's house. But that still wasn't enough to keep the ambulance maker healthy

Ashley says the company suffered "pretty hefty losses" in 1989, and by early 1990, he was looking for another transfusion. The investors, led by Edward Bauman, former chairman and CEO of...