Our first year operating the Lee Manufacturing Company also came to a close on December 31, 2013. We added the business as a "part" of Mt. Pelia Innovative Solutions LLC (it is actually named as a secondary name or dba of Mt. Pelia). The year went well, with hardly any loss of sales volume from the previous owner. Many lessons were learned and we even managed to turn a very small profit after the government gets its share. I think 2014 will bring some solid improvements and hopefully a better profit. We are working on getting our corn cutters and pea shellers into some larger stores and markets. We also hope to develop some new products that we can add to our lineup, maybe with a better profit margin.
As far as Mt. Pelia Innovative Solutions goes, not much materialized in 2013. Many projects were visualized and placed on the drawing board, but with the addition of the Lee portion of the business, most of the projects were put on the back burner. Especially when I began work at the university.
Some projects we are looking at are:
1. bird scaring robotic boat (licensed from LSU a few years back)
2. propane cannon (bird scaring product)
3. duck decoy (motorized)
4. numerous bird scaring devices
5. lots of websites
6. nutcracker devices
There are others too. Plus I do some periodic consulting for other companies.
I'm also working with the university to design and install a small irrigation system at a local farm for vegetable plots. Good project, jut not much time to do it.
We lease a warehouse over in Union City to handle storage of our products. I would like to in the next year or so get a structure ready to be able to house everything here in Martin. The photo below shows the inside of the Union City warehouse with not much in it, early last year.
I would like to get one of the big barns on our property fixed up enough to use it. It is a barn that was once used for equipment storage, tractors and maybe hay. It is in bad shape now, but could possibly be repaired enough to get by. I might put in a gravel floor, as it is now dirt, and put in a gravel driveway up to it. The big problem is unloading semi-trucks. Maybe a good all-terrain fork truck can be found or possibly a skid steer with forks. That will be something to look out for this year.
There is much to do this year. We hope this is the year that Mt. Pelia Innovative Solutions LLC will begin to really spread it's wings. There is much to do....................
John
