Jesse D. Simmons, son of a share-cropper, was born and raised in Augusta, Arkansas. He learned what it was to work at a very tender age of twelve picking and chopping cotton. His first public job at age 16 lasting a span of 10 years, was in the local grocery store, thus instilling a foundation for his desire in later years to create his own recipe of an all purpose dry seasoning. After two and a half years with the Arkansas Game and Fish, he got into the tool business, first with Snap-on-Tools lasting almost twenty years and then he started his own business, Arkansas Tool Care, Inc. in 1990.

In 1991 he started selling that product to customers on his tool route, friends and family members. As time went on friends and customers suggested that he should develop some kind of a BBQ rub and/or dry seasoning with a different kind of taste along with a spray marinade. It took him over a year to get the dry seasoning, "What's This!" on the market. "It just takes a long time to get it exactly how you want it to be", he remarks. "I have been asked by people from Florida to Oklahoma to create other products, but have chosen now not to do so. I never wanted to get big - just something to play around on Saturdays", he continues.