Scooter maker in overdrive

May 1, 2009

Austin Business Journal

A New Braunfels-based business plans to add 500 employees to accommodate rising demand from the growing number of baby boomers.

The Scooter Store Ltd., a supplier of scooters and power chairs for people with limited mobility, plans to add those jobs by the end of this year, said spokeswoman Lynnette Gonzales. Of the 500 new jobs, 250 will be based in New Braunfels, about 48 miles south of Austin. The new hires will span almost all the company’s departments, she said, from call center workers to executives. The Scooter Store has about 1,500 employees in New Braunfels now, Gonzales said, and roughly 2,000 nationwide.

To accommodate its planned growth, the Scooter Store has signed a lease for 56,000 square feet in a retail-turned-office plaza in New Braunfels, Comal Plaza.

That lease breathes new life into the plaza, which had once been anchored by a Kroger grocery store, said Nick Tarantino of real estate firm Tarantino Properties Inc. Tarantino represented the owners of Comal Plaza in the Scooter Store lease. The Scooter Store had internal representation.

The center had been largely vacant for some time, and ownership group Unicorn Plaza Ltd. started nearly two years ago repositioning it to accommodate office space rather than retail, Tarantino said. That took the plaza “from a run-down retail center to being able to attract a business like The Scooter Store,” he said.

New Braunfels was among several Central Texas cities and states to compete for The Scooter Store’s planned expansion. The Scooter Store is the largest employer in Comal County, and its job pay scale is about 25 percent above the average county wage, said Michael Meek, president of the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce.

“This was a big deal for them, during a national recession, to increase by 500 jobs,” Meek said.

“It was really in our best interest to grow close to our world headquarters,” said Doug Harrison, CEO and founder of the company.

Gonzales said The Scooter Store is seeing demand for its products rise as the number of senior citizens increases and they seek mobility options that will let them avoid nursing homes. She declined to give the company’s revenue, but said The Scooter Store expects to gain about 100,000 new customers by the end of 2009, a 50 percent growth in nationwide operations compared with 2008.

Among the growing numbers of aging baby boomers, many are looking to mobility devices such as scooters to avoid a more costly move to institutional care, said Michael Reinemer, vice president for communications and policy with the American Association of Home Care.

Reinemer predicts that tendency, coupled with a trend among hospitals to discharge patients more quickly, will continue to increase demand for devices such as scooters.

But, he said, the difficult Medicare reimbursement process will make it hard for some mobility device suppliers to thrive.

The Scooter Store works with customers to help navigate the Medicare system and use Medicare benefits to pay for its products. Reinemer said companies like that are debating a national competitive bidding program that Congress adopted last year. The program currently has the effect of reducing the number of competitors who can bid for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, he said.