Scavenger Cycles picks Pottstown for its HQ
POTTSTOWN » When Stan Alemaskin started Scavenger Cycles in November 2015, he set up shop in a 5-foot-by-15-foot storage unit in Malvern.
Two years later the company has grown significantly — and now occupies about 5,000 square feet of space in the former Nipple Works building on Laurel Street in Pottstown. The company moved into Pottstown in September.
Scavenger Cycles, according to Alemaskin is a “mix of a parts locator and manufacturer” — finding and re engineering parts for motorcycles around the world.
What started as a part-time business for Alemaskin, 34, and business partner Dan Samanen, 29, has turned into a full-time operation. The pair typically works 80-hour weeks and field telephone calls at all hours from clients around the world.
“We really have two markets,” Alemaskin said during a recent interview. “In the U.S. it’s more motorcycle restoration and in southeast Asia, Africa and South America motorcycles are the way people commute to work.”
Some parts they may have on-hand already — the storage area is full of bins that house parts from individual “donor” bikes they have purchased and then taken apart. A sophisticated inventory system lets Alemaskin and Samanen know exactly where in storage a particular part might be. If they don’t have a requested part, they will search for it.
Samanen said they are confident that if they buy a full motorcycle when they just need the wheels, for example, requests for other parts will come.
The pair has also been known to work on motorcycle restorations, as well.
Both see 3-D printing as a
technology that will enhance their business.
“If we had the ability to recreate a part and not have to warehouse it, but just have a file and say ‘print’ and then send it out — that’s something we’ve been talking about,” Samanen said.
“It’s the way to manufacture parts,” Alemaskin added.
Neither Alemaskin nor Samanen started in the motorcycle industry. The pair met while working in banking.
Alemaskin studied international commerce in Europe then owned a sign shop for about seven years. He has a marketing degree from West Chester University.
“I was a business banker, an investment banker, a manager. It wasn’t for me,” he said.
Samanen studied engineering at college, but didn’t finish, returning to North Coventry.
“I had a friend working for a bank, who suggested I give banking a try,” he said. He went back to school — earned a degree in economics and finance from West Chester University, but realized he wanted to do something else. Samanen started working with Alemaskin, then asked if he would be interested in having a partner.
Both men own their own motorcycles and have worked on their own cycles, and said they are selftaught.
Alemaskin the decision to take Scavenger Cycles full-time was made when they saw that if could be a success.
“We weren’t thinking about cash when we started — it was fun. We did it because we liked it. When you really like what you do, the money will come,” he said.
The company has grown quickly, from that first storage unit — where Alemaskin said he worked by the light of flashlights — to bigger storage units, and then a 1,200-square-foot barn in Malvern.
“We outgrew the space in about six months and had to start the search for a bigger space,” Alemaskin said.
The pair spent more than six months looking for a location, but said they either found themselves priced out, or couldn’t find the right size space. Then they turned their search to the Pottstown area.
Samanen grew up in North Coventry and still lives there; Alemaskin lives in Exton. Samanen repeatedly told his business partner they should be looking in the Pottstown area as a site for their new location.
“It (the location) needs to be commutable for both of us, we need easy access to get on the highway. And we need somewhere with large enough space, that is cheap enough and that wanted us. Pottstown met those needs,” Samanen said.
“We are in the middle of four major markets. New York, New Jersey, Reading and Philadelphia are all within similar distances,” Alemaskin said. “For shipping purposes, it’s easy to access. And being right off of Industrial Highway, it’s convenient.”
They started to look for a property in the area, but still weren’t finding the right kind of space.
A June introduction to Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of Pottstown Area Industrial Development Inc., changed that dynamic.
Lee-Clark made a call to one of the owners of the Laurel Street building — John Jones, owner of Budget Maintenance — to see if he had space available. Jones called Alemaskin the same day, and within days the pair was looking at the space.
It took some imagination the first time they saw the space, to see what it could be. There was no roof, the floor was uneven and it needed paint. The first time they visited, Alemaskin and Samanen had to enter the building through another tenant’s space.
“Once we saw the building we knew this was where we were going to be,” Samanen said. The space was pretty much a blank slate.
“Everything in the shop is the way we want it,” Alemaskin said. “Now we have all top line LED lighting, a new roof, new floors and fresh paint.” In addition, there is space for a second floor, which Alemaskin said he envisions eventually serving as the company’s offices.
The most pressing project, he said, is the addition of a parking area at the entrance. That project is moving through the approval process with the borough.
The build out took longer than expected, but Scavenger Cycles made its move into Pottstown just about three months after finding a space.
Lee-Clark said the responsiveness of the investors that own property in Pottstown is making a difference.
“They get it. They know that if they wait, they may lose out on a business opportunity.” She added that Paid Inc. helped facilitate the connection between Scavenger Cycles and an investor with available property.
“This was a business that was already up and operating. These guys already had their model, their business plan. They knew what they needed,” she said. “They didn’t need a lot, but they needed the information.”
Scavenger Cycles has four employees and is located at 412 Laurel St. in Pottstown. For more information about Scavenger Cycles visit www.facebook.com/scavengercycles .