Manufacturer builds AR-15s in Yorkville

If Yonas Hagos had chosen kitchen patrol in basic training when he got in trouble, the 32-year-old Plano resident might not be manufacturing AR-15s in the Fox Industrial Park in Yorkville.

“When I was in basic training, I would get in trouble so either you are going to get kitchen duty or you’re going to go to the armor room and clean good old A-2 old M-16s,” Hagos said.

He explains he wouldn’t get into trouble for anything major and it was just how basic training works in the Army.

“The first week of [basic training], everyone is asking themselves – what did I get myself into?” he recalled. “Once you get past two or three weeks, you get the hang of how things work.”

With the way things worked, Hagos said he wanted to avoid scrubbing large pots in the kitchen and in doing so he found his passion for firearms.

“If I had a choice I’d say armor room because I get to be around guns. It wasn’t just M-16s but all kinds of stuff,” he said. “My first exposure to firing any type of gun was in the military.”

Hagos said he hated going to the armory at first but eventually learned to love the guns and learned about how they were assembled and how they worked. He took pride in cleaning them, and the sergeant running the armory occasionally would change out parts and clean them.

“I was mechanically inclined and it took me to a whole different world,” Hagos said. “Fast forward to Iraq and I had first-hand experience with the M-16s.”

Hagos joined the Army in 2003, just as the war in Iraq was beginning. The Army was in the process of switching from the M-16 rifle to the M-4 rifle, which later were adapted into the AR-15.

“I fell in love with it because it was a tool I needed to save my life in Iraq,” he said.

Hagos had the AR-15 with him the day in April 2004 when the Howitzer tank he was in was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Hagos said his body flew into the air after the grenade hit and medics on the scene said he died, but they was able to bring him back to life and get him out of the ambush.

Hagos said he made a full recovery, though he still has a deep scar on his back to remind him of that day. He says he also battles posttraumatic stress disorder.

Once he got back to the U.S., he said he had dreams of owning his own business and opened a gym in Glendale Heights. It was around this time he volunteered for an organization called The Mission Continues, where he would train with other wounded veterans at his gym.

He sold the gym business and now owns two Dunkin’ Donuts in central Illinois. Hagos said he enjoys running the Dunkin’ Donuts but wanted to combine his passion for firearms with his drive to be an entrepreneur.

Hagos moved to Plano a few years ago and, last May, he founded Civilian Force Arms with his partners, Ernest Johnson and Major Armando Velasquez, an Army veteran. In February, Hagos moved his company into the warehouse in the Fox Industrial Park in Yorkville.

“Once I moved out to Plano, Kendall County, which is more gun-friendly, I realized this is my passion,” he said.

Hagos’ journey to Plano starts in Africa. He was born in Ethiopia in the early 1980s and his parents were refugees from Sudan. The oldest of five children, he came to Chicago in 1992 and grew up in the Carol Stream area.

Hagos and his partners received an economic development loan for $90,000 from the Kendall County Board on July 7. The loan money comes from the county’s economic development revolving loan fund. The revolving loan fund originally was funded through a state of Illinois grant to foster job creation.

The company, Civilian Force Arms, is located in Yorkville in the Fox Industrial Park, Hagos said, where they assemble customized AR-15s and other weapons.

Hagos explained they are a “class 7 FFL manufacturer” and they make “AR-15s, AR-10s and we’re getting into 1911s.”

Right now, Hagos said they assemble the weapons at the warehouse but plan to buy equipment to be able to start manufacturing the gun parts from raw materials. Hagos says he designs the weapons himself and they are custom AR-15s. His custom guns have names like Dakota-15, Hagos-15 and Katy-15.

“I design the weapons, everything on that website,” Hagos said.

Hagos said he personally assembles the guns, which can be therapeutic.

“It is an art and when you’re assembling it, for me I’m so focused on that weapon because if I don’t do it right I can hurt someone or damage the weapon,” he said.

Hagos rents the building and he shares it with another tenant. He is hoping to expand the business with the loan and hopes to use that to buy equipment and hire more people.

When asked about how dangerous the gun is or the bad press the AR-15 gets, he said that people need more education.

“I’m a big Second Amendment guy but that was thanks to the military and I was trained the right way and showing respect to weapons,” he said. “If we want to have a Second Amendment, we have to get people trained and understand the safety and respect to firearms. It’s just like the Founding Fathers say: it’s to keep a tyrannical government in check. It’s up to citizens to protect themselves and I know it gets controversial.”

He continued: “A shotgun is more devastating than an AR-15, but what gives the AR-15 an advantage is that you have a magazine that’s semi-auto and you can shoot more one round. They look scary but they are simple to operate.”

Hagos added that the guns are a tool but they are still dangerous and people need to practice responsibility.

“It’s a tool and if it’s used wrong, it can hurt people,” he said. “Even the people that I grew up with and my parents always said, ‘Guns are bad, guns are bad’ but they were never educated on firearms.”

Hagos sells to distributors and stores but most of the customers on his website are also first-time gun buyers.

“People always say you woke me up to a whole different type of thing,” he said.