TimesLeader.com

Working hard to be good neighbor

By Rebecca Bria rbria@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Employees of Solid Cactus head outside their workplace on South Lehigh Street in Shavertown with garbage bags and gloves in hand four times a year.

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Inc. 500 company Solid Cactus, founded by Scott Sanfilipo, has refurbished much of the former Westmoreland School building in Shavertown to contemporary specifications.

Charlotte Bartizek/ For The DalLAs Post

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The e-commerce store developer adopted a section of the street to clean up and give back to the Back Mountain community where 135 employees of the company work every day.

“We just want to be a very valuable and good neighbor to the folks out here,” said Scott Sanfilipo, co-founder, president and chief operating officer of Solid Cactus.

Perhaps that’s one reason why Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the “Best Places to Work in PA” for the third consecutive year in 2008.

In 1994, Sanfilipo and his friend, Joe Palko, were both working full-time jobs and started ferretstore.com to make extra money. The two received many requests from other small business owners for help in developing a commercial Web site.

Sanfilipo and Palko started a second business doing just that and, in 2002, the Web design and printing departments for ferretstore.com broke off into a second business named Solid Cactus. Solid Cactus became so successful that, in May 2007, the partners sold ferretstore.com.

Solid Cactus relocated its headquarters from Wilkes-Barre to the former Westmoreland School in Shavertown in April of this year, citing parking, which is limited in the city, as the main reason for the move. Parking space in the city costs money and Sanfilipo does not expect his employees to have pay to park their car while they’re at work. Other reasons for the move to the Back Mountain include less crime, a quiet, rural area and plenty of fresh air.

Complete renovations were done on the building where many Back Mountain residents once attended school. Although the building was gutted, the gymnasium was kept intact and new basketball hoops and ping pong tables were added. A fitness center with locker rooms and showers and a company subsidized in-house restaurant were also constructed.

Yet, Sanfilipo says old classroom areas are still distinguishable.

“We did have a lot of people come through the building during the grand opening who said, ‘I went to school here; this is really neat,’” he said. “We took an old building that basically was deteriorating in a residential area and reinvigorated some life into it. It was a challenge for us. It was a lot of fun. I think it’s a great way to reuse property rather than put up a new building.”

Solid Cactus also supports the local community through its Solid Cactus Cares fund. Administered through the Luzerne Foundation, the fund is supported by employees who donate money on a weekly basis. Solid Cactus matches all employee donations and those who participate in Solid Cactus Cares choose a charity for the company to donate to each quarter.

Through Solid Cactus Cares, the company has donated a new Web site for Kingston Township and is working on the Back Mountain Recreation, Inc. Web site.

“We’ve given away quite a bit of money so far to quite a bit of charities in the area,” Sanfilipo said. “We’re not only working here and paying taxes here, but we feel we should give back to the community.”

And, of course, Solid Cactus employees benefit the Back Mountain economy by frequenting restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores.

Solid Cactus executives have been meeting with officials from the Back Mountain Trail so employees can utilize the trail.

“We try to maintain a very unique work environment." Sanfilipo said. “ Our inventory is our people and, without those people, we don’t have a Solid Cactus.”