A-Locksmith-Craig is a mobile locksmith company that is locally owned and operated. The owner, Christopher Craig, also known as “Craig”, has been involve in the locksmith business for over twenty years in the Santa Cruz Area. Chris says he fell into locksmithing because of an incident that occurred in 1998.
In 1998 Chris was working as a security officer for the UCSC College. His regular shifts were from 7:00 PM till 3:00 AM. One morning, at the end of his shift, Chris walked from the security office to his truck, parked in the main parking lot of Porter College. Chris had a heavy backpack on his right shoulder. At the time Chris only had one key to his 87 Ford F150, but as most people, he didn’t think anything of it. Chris slid his key into the passenger side door of his truck and turned the key to unlock the door. This action caused his backpack to fall off his shoulder and strike his forearm. When Chris’ backpack hit his forearm, he bent his only key in the door of his truck. Chris was able to turn the key back to the natural position and remove the key. After the key was extracted from the door, Chris tried to bend it back straight which caused the key to break.
Back in those days, people didn’t carry cell phones so Chris returned to the security office and called a locksmith in Felton. Chris told the locksmith what had happened and further stated that he had both sides of the key and only needed them copied. The locksmith told Chris that if he responded up to the college at 3:30 AM, there were additional emergency fees. Chris chose to wait until after 8:00 AM the next day so as to save some money.
After hanging up the telephone, Chris remembered that the College had a locksmith shop. Chris reacquired the security keys and went to the locksmith shop. Upon his arrival, Chris quickly found the correct blank but was unable to find a key machine. Today Chris will tell you he looked right at one but didn’t recognize it.
Chris ended up placing the broken key and the blank in a vise he had found and began hand-filing the blank to try to match the broken key’s cuts. After working on the key for about 2 hours, Chris gave up and returned to the security office to wait for 8:00AM to arrive.
After 8:00AM, Chris called the locksmith who responded to the college. Upon the locksmith’s arrival, Chris told the locksmith everything that had happened and then showed the locksmith the sad key Chris had created. The locksmith took the key and after making a few more file cuts with his file, the locksmith made Chris’ key work. The locksmith asked Chris if he had ever entertained the thought of becoming a locksmith to which Chris said no. The locksmith told Chris he should think about and then offered to train Chris.
Long story short, Chris took the locksmith up on his offer and began apprenticing with that locksmith. In 2000 he moved to another local locksmith where he worked full time as a road technician for three years.
Chris always loved public service and helping people (Chris worked security (Proctor) at UCSC, worked as a “Force Protection Security Officer” at the DLI military base in Monterey, and volunteered as a Felton Fire Fighter from 1996 to 2001 where he obtained his EMT training).
In 2001 Chris put himself through the police academy and began working as a Police Officer. After becoming a Police Officer, Chris’ old supervisor, at the full-time locksmith company, asked Chris if he would come back as an on-call locksmith and Chris agreed.
From 2002 to 2015, Chris worked as an on-call locksmith. During this time Chris began building his tool supply as well as his locksmith knowledge. In 2015 Chris left law enforcement and returned to the locksmith company full-time as the company’s manager. After managing the other local business for some time, Chris has decided to begin his own adventure in the form of A-Locksmith-Craig.
Chris is a sought after locksmith, well known for being creative and thinking outside the box when it comes to repairs and lock work. This creativity led to our motto being born, “We are lock-SMITHS, not just lock-mechanics. We at A-Locksmith-Craig look forward to serving you in any and all of your lock needs.
Thank you.
