Small Business Opportunities Magazine
http://www.sbomag.com/2014/01/amramp-provides-modular-ramps-wheelchairs/
Amramp Modular Ramps For Wheelchairs
Amramp modular ramps for wheelchairs is a booming business opportunity. Here is the story of how Amramp was founded. Amramp founder Julian Gordon was living the good life in Boston in the 1980s as he found himself right in the middle of a speculative bull market in the construction industry.
Condominiums and high-rise apartment buildings were sprouting all over the city and Gordon couldn’t have been happier. In 1970, Gordon, an aeronautical engineer with a degree from Boston University, had founded Gordon Industries, Inc., which manufactured metal architectural products such as doors, railings, stairs and more.
The Launch of Amramp
“In the heyday of all this speculative building I was a prime beneficiary because I made all the stairs and railings for those buildings. Speculators were throwing money at me,” Gordon recalled. “My wife and I would fly regularly on the Concorde to Europe. I was collecting old Mercedes. I didn’t work on Fridays and Mondays and spent winters in Florida. It was crazy.”
It all came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the Bank of New England in January 1991, a fall that had begun in the 1980s “as it aggressively expanded its lending for speculative office buildings, hotels, shopping malls and condominiums that could not pay back their loans when the New England economy collapsed,” the New York Times reported.
“It all ended in 90 days,” Gordon said. “I fell into this… I wouldn’t say poverty, but I couldn’t cash paychecks. Business fell to nothing.”
Despite the weakened economy, Gordon’s company survived, in part by developing new products since customers weren’t buying metal stairs, fire doors or railings. He even tried building kickboxing machines to be used for martial arts training.
In the late ’90s Gordon realized a need for ramps to aid America’s aging population and began building them primarily for his existing clients: contractors and architects. However, a strange thing happened along the way.
“Passersby would stop and ask if they could get an Amramp for their mother,” Gordon recalled. “The need actually addressed us, especially the major players in health care, who wanted ramps quickly and at low cost with a national distribution network.”
After doing some market research to confirm the viability of the market, Amramp was launched in South Boston in 1998. Franchise sales began in 2002 and today there are about 50 Amramp franchisee partners. For more information, contact Amramp.
