Q) Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
A) Safety Rail Source was started in 1999 out of necessity due to a roof top fall and the need to have fall protection when someone is working on the roof, hence KeeHatch railing was created and patented for the business market. Safety Rail Source was originally headquartered in Harleysville, Pennsylvania and has since relocated to Norristown, Pennsylvania. The company also has remote offices in Florida and serves the whole country with manufacturing facilities in Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
Q) Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
A) My name is Jan Carl Vanning
I have been in sales and marketing for 40 years with a master’s degree and have taken my entrepreneurial spirit to several companies achieving great success. One such success was from 1993 to 1999 where I took a struggling business doing $500,000 per year to $8,000,000 by the time I left in Delaware. I came with Safety Rail Source, LLC as a start-up company and today we enjoy a thriving business form zero customers and zero revenue.
Q) What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
A) Simple, a patented product that had a great need in the area of rooftop fall protection. The inventor, my current business partner had an employee that survived a fall, and the product became available to businesses that had people on the rooftops.
Q) To what do you most attribute your success?
A) Great business partnerships and an amazing amount of creativity with over-the-top energy to get our needed product to the market place
Q) What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
A) Have a business plan and follow it!! When we planned how we would go to market we worked that plan with new market strategies as they came available.
Q) Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
A) I see a company that is well established with people in key positions working our business model… a successful company!
Q) Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
A) Can’t pick one but I most admire a company that starts with an idea that morphs into a success story
