“A peek into the mind behind Wildfire Motors” |
| A peek into the mind behind Wildfire Motors Posted: 11 Dec 2010 09:43 PM PST STEUBENVILLE - The founder of Wildfire Motors is always thinking one or more steps ahead, leading to a host of products and ideas and advanced engineering concepts at the plant at the Jefferson County Industrial Park, such as the tall wind generator that recently was erected there. John Turziano, future product development and marketing director, offered a glimpse into the mind of Don Snyder's operations that led to the creation of Wildfire and its growth into a company with hundreds of dealers for its powersports and other products. Turziano was the guest speaker at the December session of the Be Jefferson County Proud breakfast series of Progress Alliance, held Wednesday in Bella Hall at the EM-Media Center on Sunset Boulevard at Braybarton Boulevard. Turziano said Snyder began with an auto and tire business in 1963, creating a venture that continues on as Snyder Tire today. He formed a computer company in the 1970s to serve point-of-sale software needs in the tire industry. He formed Snyder Distributing and became the nation's largest distributor of Uniden products, including scanner radios. Snyder formed JBS Technologies, whose chief product was the Bulldog remote starter device. The Bulldog starter became the first automotive product in Sam's Club history to sell more than $1 million worth of product in a week, Turziano said, and JBS went on to sell products at a number of large retailers. Snyder took much of the work in-house, including printing circuit boards, plastic parts manufacture and other items for the starters. Snyder's JBS was the first private-built building in the Jefferson County Industrial Park. He sold JBS in 2003 and began in 2004 working upstairs at the Snyder Tire building on Cadiz Road in Wintersville at growing Wildfire, an importer and seller of small motorized products, first targeted toward youth but eventually including over-the-road scooters and motorcycles and full-sized ATVs and more. The company grew and Snyder built a 36,000 square-foot facility at the industrial park in 2006, adding a 50,000 square-foot building in 2008, dealing with a product assortment of 60 motorized vehicles plus parts and accessories, imported as kits from China and sold thorough more than 600 dealers across the United States. Turziano explained the company considers itself as a second line for dealers in many cases. "Someone comes in and buys a new motorcycle and wants to buy something for their kid," he said. Wildfire offers the low-cost second vehicle for the dealer to sell. "That's our niche in the marketplace." Snyder now is working on growing the renewable energy products side of the business. The 10-kilowatt windmill in front of the building is part of the development of what Snyder hopes will be an easy-to-install system for home power generators. The concept is that a homeowner could install a windmill without having to call for a crane to install the tower, using instead a crank-type hydraulic system on the tower kit itself. "You'll notice there's another concrete pad poured near that tower," Turziano said. "He wasn't pleased with that tower. It took a crane to install it." Snyder also is working on developing solar-thermal systems, where water is heated in a solar panel and fed into a water heater in the home. Air from the device is fed to the home heating unit, meaning a furnace won't have to work as hard because it's receiving pre-heated air, Turziano explained. He said he always knows when Snyder has been working on a new item with the Chinese suppliers because he'll get a message from an engineer saying, "You've got a shipping container coming. "Don says we will always be in business doing something," Turziano said. "He's a really interesting character, it's a really interesting business and there's never a dull moment. He's really a neat guy." (Giannamore's e-mail address is pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Content Keyword RSS To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment