Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Local company equips patrons with customized wheelchairs

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Tuesday, May 16, 2000

Local company equips patrons with customized wheelchairs
Also: William's Shoes celebrated Web site's expansion, Internet growth

John Kennedy/Caller-Times

Helen Roland opened Scooters and More Inc., after watching John Madden (right), who is now a salesman for the store, trying to obtain a wheelchair for his quadriplegic son over a period of nine months.

Helen Roland decided to leave real estate to open her own business with her daughter four years ago after watching a good friend anguish for nine months while trying to acquire a wheelchair for his quadriplegic son.
   The result is Scooters & More Inc., a small business at 4531 Ayers St., that works with patients one-on-one to fit them with scooters, wheelchairs and other mobility products.
   "I figured we could do better," Roland said. "I thought as a small business we could give better service."
   Her friend, John Madden, is now a salesman there. The empathy Madden can provide has helped him cope as a single father to his 7-year-old son and has also helped his business, he said.
   "Parents know the lifestyle I lead is the same they lead," Madden said.
   Getting a wheelchair requires jumping through several hoops, Roland said. And Madden's experiences in that regard often help his customers.
   "A lot of it gets into doing documents, paperwork, who is paying for it," Madden said.
   The company is now working on launching an Internet site to expand sales and expertise beyond the region. Roland and Madden have a plan to personalize their services so that their customers will still get a customized chair, even if they order it from far away. "When you sit in something all day long, the more comfortable you can make someone, the better," Madden said.
   Roland is using a scooter herself these days because of an ankle injury that persists from a car accident a year ago.
   Both Roland and Madden have a catalog of war stories about getting the chairs and glow when they arrive at the point in the story where they get to deliver them.
   "We delivered a chair to one elderly lady who hadn't been outside of her house in five years," Madden said. "She was so excited and asked us to help get her outside to a tree that she had planted 60 years ago. So we left her underneath the tree because that's all she wanted to do."
   "It's very good therapy," Roland said. "Its very rewarding to see someone unable to get a chair have one."
   Expanded Web site
   William's Shoes found the Internet to be a good fit for its 17-year-old growing pains. Three years ago, the store launched a Web site, said owner Bill Jue. But demand swelled beyond the retailer's Web page resources, so it enlisted the help of Farenthold Consulting, a local computer networking company.
   To celebrate the size-up, William's held a wine and hors d'oeuvres reception at its shoe store at 3849 S. Alameda St., on Saturday. Local politicians and business leaders big and small were invited, Jue said, "to make local business people and politicians have vision, to move forward. If we think in terms of the future, I think that would make Corpus Christi a more viable place for other companies to move in."
   The expanded site, at www.williams-shoes.com, will offer all the men's and women's shoes sold in the store, said Deborah Wimbish, buyer and fashion consultant for William's Shoes. In coming months, the store hopes to add clothes and accessories to the online sales.
   "This is going to push it to a new dimension," Wimbish said.



On Retailing is published every other Tuesday in the Caller-Times business section. The column includes news of new, relocated and expanded businesses in the Coastal Bend, plus retailing trends and profiles. Ideas may be submitted to: On Retailing, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, P.O. Box 9136, Corpus Christi, Texas 78469; e-mail Tara Copp at coppt@caller.com; fax items to (361) 886-3732; or call (361) 886-4316.

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