Meadow Lakes Rod Shop LLC | Application Preview
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General Information
Business Registration Number: 87-2730682
Location: Eagle River, AK, United States
Length of Operation: 1-5
Number of Employees: 1-10 Employees
Annual Gross Income: Less than $100k
Annual Gross Expense: Less than $100k
Open to Loans: NO
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Funding Usage
the Funding requested will be used to primarly buy inventory, parts, complete marketing projects and place reserves in the bank to begin the hiring process. We need approximately $100,000 to finish marketing plan that has been initiated which will showcase capability and quality to our market segments. $100.000 will be placed in reserves for the hiring process, $75,000 will be used for training for new hires. $100,000 will be used to purchase inventory needed as we have secured several vendors that are currently not represented in Alaska. $75,000 will be used to purchase remain needed equipment, machinery, tools required to outfit the shop to enable full production capability.
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Business Plan
The plan for growth in the next five years is to finish our marketing projects to show capability, hire on an additional 7 to 8 Veterans in the near term to create profitability for our 5000 sq ft shop. Expand tooling capability to cut shipping costs and use our established education plan to get our employees more proficient in the skills required for the work performed. Once new hires are brought in based on what each individual is hired for and their current skill sets a training plan will be iniated to ensure they are proficient in those areas ie Metal workers will be sent to a week long metal shaping class. Painters will be sent to various manufacturer seminars, classes for product classes etc. Office personnel will be sent to the appropriate classes as needed to fulfill requirements, or expand capability. Online concurrent training is built into our training plan. I am a US Army veteran that joined the U.S. Army from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, to attend automotive school (WTI, UTI, or something similar) and build cars. I kept re-enlisting and ended up serving an entire 20 year career. Now that I'm out, there are other challenges we (veterans) are running into, which even surprised me. We propose using this business as a solution to some of these challenges. I fell into the perfect job as a Team Leader of a real estate team here in Alaska. I got out of the Army and made good money though struggling to make sense of life without the Army. I had spent my entire adult life in the military, and getting out was quite the shock. Even after making it into the top 100 Real Estate Teams in the State of Alaska with only two producers, I was still so depressed that I couldn't make sense of things. I didn't have a purpose, and I didn't have anyone to share my feeling. I felt utterly alone and invisible. Real estate did not bring me the joy and sense of accomplishment that I should have been feeling for my team's achievements. My struggles were compounded by how other real estate professionals treated people… The scripting and narratives being used to acquire business or recruits felt wrong, and I didn't feel comfortable using them. After spending 20 years jumping out of airplanes and surviving five combat deployments, I started to think that every struggle I encountered was due to a failure of some of my part. We have this mentality that civilian life should be easy compared to what we have been through, and when we can't make sense of it when we are out, it leads to some of the issues we encounter. I propose to employ veterans struggling with employment or fear of jobs due to the unique issues we face as Veterans and give them a purpose through rebuilding and restoring old cars. PTSD, the anxiety of being around people, and the fear of losing a job due to medical appointments (more along the lines of if you go to sick call, you're weak type mentality.) These are just a few of the reasons this population can come up with. I briefly mentioned my challenges previously faced. Most of us have spent our entire adult lives learning how to destroy everything. I was in the infantry... Most folks have heard me say my little adage: If you took two infantrymen and locked them into a room with two bowling balls, you could guarantee three things. They will lose one bowling ball, find a game to play with the other bowling ball, and you will probably get hurt playing the game... We used to call it pushball in the Army! Many have already fallen to this emotional turmoil and depression through suicide. In December, I talked my old roommate out of suicide by police officer situation after his demons became too much to endure. He is safe, and so are the officers that responded. On the other hand, we have lost an "American Badass" like Col Scott Green, a Field Grade commissioned officer, and my Brigade Commander. There are countless more, but these last two have shifted the gears of our focus . With funding, Meadow Lakes Rod Shop will be set to complete our equipment and material needs and employ 7 to 8 vets. Most of these guys (and one gal) are struggling with finding purpose or just not able to feel like they belong in the civilian employment sector. Some of these folks are employed but are looking for what they had in their "old unit," the "crew" they had at a specific duty assignment or deployed with. We (Veterans) need the company/community or camaraderie, but it isn't enough. Even when we have people around us, we don't have a focused purpose that everyone around us is bought into. Additionally, most of us don't know what we want to be when we grow up. This is a chance, for those who would otherwise continue to struggle, to have purpose by taking old cars that most overlook and think are junk, irrelevant, underperforming, etc., and making them matter to the general public as a custom work of art. If you look at Veterans positively, you may be thinking that doesn't sound super inspiring. So many of us don't know how to fit into the environment where we feel like we matter. We used to jump out of airplanes and lead Soldiers, and now it is hard to go to the store, get a job, or keep a job. The cross-section of skillsets we have recruited varies widely, but the commonality is that they are all veterans. Here are some of the examples of the talent that we've found. Our first hire, who will be my Chief of Operations will be signing out on Terminal Leave this spring after serving 23 years. We have another candidate who was an Army-trained mechanic (diesel/Stryker/small engine), and she is H8 (vehicle recovery) certified. A third candidate just moved back to Alaska from Ohio used to paint F22s in the Air Force. A fourth candidate is another Army-trained machinist/welder who hasn't been able to work due to his post-traumatic stress issues since 2013. A fifth candidate is a retired Sergeant First Class who expressed a desire to bring a box here and work; notable because he hasn't wanted to get a job since he got out two years ago because of the environments he found himself in. These folks have a ridiculous amount of skill and talent but need a place and a purpose to use it. With funding, we will be able to provide both. With our 2.86 acres lot, we have a plan to grow and continue to do this with more veterans
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Self Identified Competition
Northern Rats, custom car shop that has made a name for itself, their facility doesn't enable them to work on custom projects and maintenance at the same time. They are booked out for a longer period of time than we are as we have a larger facility and can continue work on the day to day money makers as well as the custom built projects. Jay Childs Race Cars, Exceptional fabricator that has a very niche market with race cars more than street cars, is also a machine shop so most of their work is around chassis fabrication and engine building. He is booked out almost a year as of writing this and due to his specialized nature we fill a gap that he is not meeting. HP performance, Machine shop in Eagle River, They just expanded to a much larger facility but due to their workload are no longer accepting business that isn't from professional shops. They are very specialized to engine building and performance needs for the shops not instead of the independant owners. This again opens a piece of the market for us. We are the first rod shop in the area to offer modern technology integration with old school style. We provide dealership style capability at an independent shop with a lower cost and increased quality. We are Veteran owned and operated. We use dealership style software to give our customers the same level of technology they have come to expect from a major dealership service department without the higher cost associated with those businesses. Our shop rate is competitive with our small business independant shop competitors, yet we still offer the service that is expected at a larger corporate dealership.
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