Alaska Mining Superstore

[Steve Herschbach]

7 hours ago, GeoBill said:

I have to ask.

When I was working in Alaska, I'm guessing in the early to mid '80s, I picked up a T-Shirt from a mining supply store in Anchorage that had in large letters "SUCK ROCKS" and in smaller letters "with a Keene Gold Dredge". My wife coveted that shirt and it went with her when we parted. I missed that shirt (I guess more than the ex) and went over to the Keene Engineering store in in LA to see about getting another one. Their answer, was Nope, only available in Alaska.

Any chance that was your store? Would love to get another.

Cheers

That was us. And thanks for the great idea. We have not had those shirts made for many years, but I’ll look into it today. I am almost certain it will happen as we are doing anything we can to help launch the new location. Dudley and I have talked about bringing the shirts (and little miner hats) back for many times, but it never quite happened. Now is the time to do it.

[Steve Herschbach]

6 hours ago, Cris said:

very nice products. Steve, do you sell your products online? 

The https://www.akmining.com site has a limited selection that is laid out very poorly and not up to date. Like the Manticore they have is not listed, etc. That site is designed for power equipment and frankly I hate the way it works for mining gear. As soon as I get home I will be working on bringing my old custom site back to life. We used to do huge volume to the Lower 48, but to be honest the shipping issues these days will make us less competitive with many large low cost items versus the Lower 48 vendors. I plan on putting up an online catalog that shows what we have, but a lot of it is geared more for local sales. Only a smaller selection of items will be geared for direct internet sales, like metal detectors for instance.

I’ll have something much better up and running online in a couple weeks, basically a separate website within a website custom made for the mining and metal detecting.

[cobill]

Steve, 

I thought you sold AK Mining, are you back as an owner in the business, a consultant, or??? I went into the store several years ago, very impressive for AK and a great asset for miners. Wish we had a brick & mortar store like that in the USA. Thanks,

Bill

[LuckyLundy]

Wow!  Great looking One Stop Shop!

[Steve Herschbach]

4 hours ago, cobill said:

Steve, 

I thought you sold AK Mining, are you back as an owner in the business, a consultant, or??? I went into the store several years ago, very impressive for AK and a great asset for miners. Wish we had a brick & mortar store like that in the USA. Thanks,

Bill

 

8 hours ago, snakejim said:

Wow! Your store has really grown since I was there in 1980!

Dudley and I started the shop while in our senior year in high school in 1976. By 1980 it was still pretty small, just mining gear and wood stoves. Over the decades we added product lines to build a year round business as mining is too seasonal. It’s morphed now into a local institution and is a nationally recognized premier power sports business. Boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, and a whole lot more are the core business, hitting 30 million in sales last year. We bought the dealership down the street a few years ago, and the mining store is now our third location in a two block stretch. Besides AMDS (Alaska Mining & Diving Supply) we have AME (Alaska Motorsports & Equipment) which is the old Arctic Cat dealership, but we added Mahindra tractors and more to the mix there. The Mining Superstore concept was formulated then as it’s never been a good fit in the old facility as it got overwhelmed and pushed aside by the power sports business. We decided the only solution was to separate it with a dedicated staff, so here we are.

Dudley and I created an ESOP and sold the company to the employees with a note funded entirely out of our pockets, allowing them to purchase the company over 15 years. They have exceeded our expectations and paid us off early a year ago. It’s a wholly employee owned company, and it shows. The people really care about and love what they do. Just ask any of them. It is and will be the crowning achievement of my life outside of my wife and daughters, creating a company coming up on 50 years now that has provided a livelihood for a huge number of Alaskan families over the last 46 years, with many more to come. 

Dudley and I together are the Board of Directors and Trustees acting as guardian angels and mentors. Which is why I am on site now.

The AMDS Story

[Hard Prospector]

Nice to see a family type prospecting/mining store still flourishing someplace. They've about gone extinct in many states.

 I'll be in Anchorage this summer,  looking forward to stopping by.

[Gerry in Idaho]

Go Big or Go home... with a truck full.  I'll make sure not to stop in, as I would end up buying way to much Gold Hunting Supplies.  Well done my friend.

[phrunt]

I really like the idea with the staff, staff are the business, happy dedicated staff is a sure way to success, and a brilliant method of really getting the staff onboard and highly motivated, it's their baby as much as anyone else's.  Every sale, every happy customer, everything is all in their best interests.  A sure fire way to success.

Plenty of owner run businesses do well, until they grow so much the owner can't run them on the front line anymore and then staff come in and the growth is stalled or fades away. 

[beatup]

Good on you Steve , that really is something to be proud of .