Purchase College startup takes off with fliers

Driving down from Dutchess County on a recent weekday morning, Frank Rogers and Michael Kuzmicz left their car with an orange-jacketed valet in a parking lot at Purchase College and hustled to a waiting shuttle bus. They had a flight to catch at Westchester County Airport, a four-minute bus ride from their SUNY campus stop.
“My daughter found out about it,” said Rogers, a first-time customer at Purchase Park 2 Fly, a nonprofit campus business that is close to breaking even after its first year of operation, when 50,000 cars were parked. He stood outside a blue-awninged parking-lot office that had a past life of ponderous travel as a cargo container. “It”™s so expensive to park at Westchester airport.”
At the county airport, travelers pay a $27 daily parking fee. The daily charge at SUNY Purchase is $10. For the vacationing travelers to West Palm Beach, the savings would add up over six days.
“It gives people an opportunity to park at a reasonable price,” said Kuzmicz, a vice president at JPMorgan Chase Bank.
The service also gives the college another funding source, said William Guerrero, executive director of the Purchase College Association, a nonprofit student services organization that has hired 21 employees on a projected $400,000 payroll to staff Purchase Park 2 Fly. “We haven”™t made any money yet, but once we start making that kind of profitability, the money is going to go back to very simple things, like student scholarships,” he said. Driving home to customers that worthy end use, Guerrero”™s wife, Maggie, coined the business slogan displayed on its three-vehicle fleet: “Your travel supports their journey.”
This has been a couple years in the making,” said Guerrero, who also is a professor of entrepreneurship at the state college. He conceived the parking enterprise with Joseph Tripodi, director of campus sustainability.
“We”™re not competing for parking with the county,” Guerrero said. Rather, the campus service, which can accommodate up to 1,200 vehicles ”“ three times its peak demand to date ”“ relieves parking pressure at the airport and keeps it “a viable option” for air travelers from surrounding communities who might otherwise choose to fly from New York City and Connecticut airports, he said.
The service, which includes two electric recharging stations in anticipation of more customers using electric vehicles, also provides an environmental benefit as a parking alternative. “If they were ever going to build another (parking) garage at the airport, it would be an environmental challenge with the Kensico Reservoir there,” Guerrero said. Having done due diligence for his concept, Guerrero brought his business plan to his entrepreneurship class in fall of 2010 as a case study. “I coached them,” said Guerrero, who also is the college”™s varsity baseball coach. “How do you make money? How do you make it a win-win, for the airport, for the college, for the county?”
One of his students and baseball team captain, Philip Sanford, designed the business logo and images of graduating students and high-flying mortarboards painted on the shuttle fleet. Graduating a year ago, Sanford, now an MBA student at Iona College, was hired as marketing coordinator for the startup business and the Purchase College Association.
Sanford launched the marketing campaign last spring with a direct mailing. The business also has posted ads on the New Haven line of Metro-North Railroad. “Over half of our customers are from Connecticut,” he said.
The campus parking also is advertised on the county airport”™s online boarding passes. The business also has offered traveler discounts through revenue-sharing programs with Groupon and Living Social.
Sanford also attracts customers and reservations on Facebook, where Purchase Park 2 Fly has nearly 950 fans, he said.
Guerrero said business startup costs totaled about $250,000. The business bought two 14-passenger buses and an 11-passenger van and invested heavily in a computerized reservations system.
Purchase Park 2 Fly is projected to generate $700,000 to $750,000 in revenue in its first full fiscal year that ends in June. Guerrero said he expects the business to double its revenue in its second year and reach $3 million annually within five years.
Purchase Park 2 Fly offers discount prices in its frequent flier program, called the Dean”™s List. Those regular customers include airline flight attendants and pilots.
Guerrero said the numerous corporations that have their headquarters and regional offices in Westchester and Connecticut”™s Fairfield County ”“ including the college”™s near neighbor on Anderson Hill Road, PepsiCo Inc. ”“ still are “an untapped market” for Purchase Park 2 Fly.
“Corporations need to be conscious of their travel budget. We”™re trying to push that focus, that this is a great way to save companies money on their travel budget.”
“It”™s a nice organic growth,” Guerrero said of the year-old business. “Hopefully as it grows we can hire more staff for the county, and more scholarships and more improvements” to both campus roads and parking areas and the business.