SafetyStore News and Press Releases
Title: Green Construction efforts save "Greenbacks"
Date: June, 2010
Ruckersville, VA
After 3 months of working from folding tables in a hallway, our offices are finished (for the most part) and we made an effort to do things a little more green than most companies. Here are some things that helped to not only save the planet but saved a lot of "green" in our check book.
We had lots of leftover wood from our last warehouse. In the old warehouse, 4x8 sheets of plywood and 8 foot 2x6s were used as shelving by the previous tenants. When we moved to our new facility we had so much reusable building materials that 95% of the wood studs and plywood sheeting was reused for our offices. This is wood that might have been thrown out by other companies.
We pulled out all that left over paint from previous projects in our old facility to see what could be used throughout the new building. This greatly reduced sending this paint to a landfill later.
We still needed a little more paint and so off to the paint store we went. We always look at the “mis-tint” shelf first. That’s the shelf of the paints that the customer did not want or was the wrong shade. You would be surprised to learn that half the time, a customer asks for paint to be mixed and then doesn’t come back to pick it up. We got the premium quality (low VOC) paint (over $30 per gallon) but was sold to us for less than $5.00 per gallon. We found great colors and this paint was once again was used instead of being tossed in the landfill.
We also reused much of our Ethernet wiring and telephone jacks and connectors for our new offices. Also we made an effort to use up those extra electrical receptacles, plates and connectors that have been sitting (new but unused) in maintenance boxes.
In short, using just a few simple green building procedures to create our offices really paid off. We estimate that we saved as much as $4,000 by reusing surplus and left over building supplies and cabling.
An additional side benefit is we also got a much stronger and protected space should we have a storm threat. Together with our emergency power systems and other disaster contingency plans, we know our facility (and company) should do much in a disaster than our neighbors or competitors around the country.
Title: The New Building
Date: APRIL, 2010
Ruckersville, VA
As of April, 2010 we moved into our new facility in Ruckersville,
Virginia. We can set up a Will Call Pickup for local customers that want
to save on shipping, however we do not have showroom
filled with items to browse. Please call if you would like to schedule
an appointment for pick up or to meet with us.
Our location on Googlemaps
currently is a little off but you will see a title for Crisis Management
Systems, Inc., this is the true location of the building on Highway 29
Seminole Trail on the West side of the highway between the Subway
Sandwich shop and the BP Gas Station. Please use the driveway for
Subway as you pull in.
We moved our facilities to a Ruckersville, VA about 7 miles from our old warehouse. Moving has afforded us the
following benefits:
- Reduced leasing costs for our space in a county that is more business friendly.
- Allowed for greatly enhanced broadband connection and VOIP phone systems that have drastically lowered our communications costs.
- A closer relationship with our third-party IT provider (In fact, they now rent space from us)
- We will now have a training space to offer a variety of First Aid, CPR emergency response and disaster management classes)
If you are interested in locating your business in this area please feel free to contact us as we can refer you to several great opportunities and businesses.
Title: Switching to Voice Over IP Phone System
Date:March 20, 2010
Ruckersville, VA
You may have noticed it was difficult to reach us by phone during our move in period in March. We have been short
staffed and are taking the bold step of also changing our phone system to Voice of IP or (or "Voip"). After
looking over several leading players in the small to midsized phone market, CMS, Inc. has selected Phone.com as
our new provider. The customer satisfaction, features offered, sound quality and the pricing is outstanding. We will talk more about our phone change on the blog in a few weeks.
Here is a link about the service
We are learning to program our needs into the system and we hope to have all of our lines back to normal and feature rich by the end of the May. Should you have any problems with the new system please
email us.
Title: GearMax® Bags for Fire, Police and medical uses
Date:March 3, 2010
Charlottesville, VA
We are very pleased to announce adding GearMax® bags to our line of high quality products. GearMax®
has made us a national lead for the Fire, Police, EMS and Rescue market. There line of backpacks is unique
in its' functionality, durability and versatility. They have built in hook systems to hang the kit and keep the bag open for use without it sitting on the floor. They are also being used as more comfortable jump bags medial calls or remote First Responder duties.
We will be offering these as stand-alone gear bags, bags with custom embroidery and with our nationally-own medical and emergency preparedness kits. They will really keep you organized and come in five sizes to meet almost any need.
Title: Our Main Office and Fulfillment Building is Moving
Date:March 28, 2010
We have decided to move our main office and facilities up the road to Ruckersville, VA. We have greatly enjoyed
our production space in Charlottesville, VA but need to move to be more in line with the realities of a new
business climate. Besides a more business-friendly environment in Green County, the new space has some advantages and opportunities that were unavailable in our current location.
- Faster Internet services with more options.
- A stand alone building, with a better maintenance and snow removal program
- An opportunity to add health and safety training classroom. We hope to add complete First Aid , CPR, AED, Advanced and Wilderness first aid training classes by the end of the year.
- A more naturally-lighted space that is more comfortable and lowers costs, (our former building had no windows or skylights
so artificial lighting has always been necessary.
Our schedule will be crazy this month moving tens of tons of product, equipment and furniture into a new space (
this is more than a weekend with a friend's pickup)
Note: None of our phone numbers, fax lines or emails will change. We will have pictures up shortly.
Title: SafetyStore.com Announces its Newest Generation of Websites
Date: Sept 25, 2009
Charlottesville, VA.
Testing of our newest generation of websites is now complete and we moving the last of our legacy websites
over to our new home with AmeriCommerce.com. It's
multistore capabilities are impressive and in line with budgetary needs. We have found the AmeriCommerce e-commerce
engine offers the features that we were promised for many years (by BVcommerce and StoreFront by Laguarde)
but were never properly delivered. Once all product lines are completely published, we will have more time to add
features and benefits for customers and less time fixing legacy website problems.
New Website Features:
- It has motivated us to completely review every product we sell and update thousands of pages of product
information, added pictures (many newly taken), product reviews and other unique features that help the customer
make an informed choice when purchasing our products and services.
You may still see missing pictures and descriptions here or there (for just a few more weeks) on some of our
products. Please feel free to call our customer service department and we will be happy to help with
features, descriptions, email over pictures etc. as we are completing the catalog.
- Reorganizing our first aid, medical, safety and emergency preparedness and response categories to make
things much easy to find.
- Integrated IT systems between our websites and Order Management Systems to help speed orders to our
customers. When completed, some received orders could be processed, filled and waiting for the shipper to pick
up in as little as 6 minutes.
- Shortly we will be adding new innovations for our products including video product demonstrations and an
opt-in Expiration Program that can remind the customer when certain products are near the expiration dates in there kits.
- Slowly we will be adding product videos and demonstrations all in a effort to help the customer choose
the best products and effectiveness
Title: SafetyStore.com Announces removal of Hydrogen Peroxide
Date: Sept 25, 2009
Charlottesville, VA.
After the rash of reports regarding the possible use of Hydrogen Peroxide in bomb making, CMS, Inc. the parent company of SafetyStore.com,
AllThingsFirstAid.com and many others will no longer be selling this product. "Contrary to what older generations
were taught, their is little use for the hydrogen peroxide in most first aid applications", said Steve Hull,
Co-founder of the company. "We understand several clinical trails have shown over the decades that hydrogen
peroxcide shows little ability to reduce bacteria in topical wounds. First aid grade hydrogen peroxide is sold at a low concentration. To make the product more dangerous, one needs to process and concentrate the chemical to increase the potency. Household hydrogen peroxide usually looses its potency within 12-18 months and turns back into water. In fact, if you check American families medicine cabinets most of the those brown bottles expired years ago. Their are many other wound cleansers and topical barriers that are more effective and present less of a hazard for misuse."
For some time now, all CMS websites have chosen to not sell instant cold packs that contain Ammonium Nitrate
because of its' potential for bomb making. Our websites only sell Urea based cold packs that are also much
friendly to the environment as a whole.
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Our company welcomes press inquires and information. Please feel free to contact: Steven Hull at (434) 973-8030
email