Agility Training Equipment Article

At Lamphere, company founder, and his wife Irene, president, bought the brown steel and concrete building from Key Bank for $275,000 on Oct. 10. Nastri Real Estate handled the sale. The property's listing price was $465,000.

Max 200 will begin production in its new home and close its old one by year's end, says Al Lamphere.

The Lamphere's are moving their company to Central New York, and this site in particular, for several reasons.

Max 200 had outgrown its 8,000-square-foot New Jersey plant, and to buy a similar-size facility there would have cost three to five times as much, says At Lamphere. The firm also believes the labor pool is better up here, because of the area's manufacturing job losses.

"People are having tough a time getting jobs here," Lamphere says. "In New Jersey, we're competing against large companies for workers."

The move is also a return home for Lamphere, a Weedsport native. He credits his sister, who still lives in the area, with finding the site.

"My sister said 'how about that Reva building?... he says. "It'd been open for a while and Key Bank was not getting any bites on the building. It all worked out."

Max 200, which generates annual revenue of more than $1 million, financed the purchase with a 20-year loan from Charter One Bank. Max 200 has been approved for a $50,000 worker-training grant from the State of New York, says Lamphere. He also expects to receive low-interest loans for machinery-equipment purchases through a program run by Cayuga County. He couldn't provide the details.

Max 200 currently employs 10 people in New Jersey, and will start with the same amount in Mentz. Two employees are moving with the company, three have been hired so far, and five more will be hired soon, Lamphere explains.

Eventually, the company could employ 17 to 20 workers in Mentz, as Max 200 plans to build another structure on the site to hold dog shows. Plans are in the preliminary stages but the building could be as large as 30,000 square feet, says Lamphere.

The company also plans to open a small outlet store within the existing building to sell and rent its equipment.

The equipment Max 200 makes is often used in dog shows or competitions, such as the ESPN Great Outdoor Games, where canines can showcase their agility skills on five-foot high jump bars as well as ladders, tire stands, seesaws, and doghouse tunnels, and exhibit obedience skills by retrieving dumbbells and other items.

Lamphere first got the idea for starting the company in 1979 when he had a hyperactive German Shepard. Lamphere who at the time worked for the machine-tool-manufacturing business that his wife's family owned - took the dog to an obedience-training school run by Diane Bauman down in Sussex, . After training Lamphere's dog to be an obedient house pet, Bauman suggested that he look into making the products she used to train dogs.

"It all started because of my bad dog," says Lamphere.