Small business spotlight: Regional Distributors

Whether you’re running a business or an institution or a household, you have to keep the everyday “staples” in stock.

Nobody wants to run out of soap or toilet paper, right?

But unlike in households, people in businesses and institutions can’t just run down to the dollar store to load up. That’s where Regional Distributors comes in.

The Mt. Read Boulevard business stocks, sells and delivers a variety of goods, from janitorial supplies and equipment to food-service products and more.

“We are a bundler of goods,” said Dave Scalen, who owns Regional Distributors with his wife, Tracy. “We have products for customers who can’t buy truckloads of goods.”

That could include everything from plastic utensils and napkins for food-service companies to cleaning products and vacuums for janitorial use. Regional Distributors stocks all that and much more.

The Scalens started the business in 1994. He had worked for a distribution company in Rochester and she worked as a socio-therapist at a local children’s center when they decided they wanted to change careers.

“It was a lot less strategic than people might think,” Dave Scalen said with a laugh. “We started with zero customers, then we had one, then two, and then a hundred.”

They started on Elser Terrace, off Maple Street in northwest Rochester. Three expansions and three years later, the business moved first to one site on Mt. Read and then to the current location, which is just south of Lexington Avenue. An expansion in 2011 increased the size of the headquarters to 60,000 square feet and the fleet of delivery trucks to 10. Grants from the city of Rochester helped with the expansion.

Along the way, Regional Distributors bought out other companies, like Rochester Janitorial Supply in 2004, Green Oaks Janitorial Supply the following year and a Buffalo-based paper distributor in 2006. The business also expanded into more food-service industries over the years.

Regional Distributors mainly serves customers in western New York and a bit of northern Pennsylvania. Scalen rattled off a list of bigger customers including Rochester Institute of Technology, Strong Memorial Hospital, the Arc of Monroe, Pontillo’s Pizza and Abbott’s Frozen Custard.

Scalen said he carved out a niche by buying some products from Canadian companies, “things that weren’t being distributed widely here.” Regional Distributors stays successful, he said, by diversifying its inventory over “multiple market segments.” That strategy has led to double-digit growth each year since 2010, Scalen added.

Regional Distributors is part of a buying cooperative based in Charlotte, N.C. Through the alliance, Scalen said participants share a lot of information about buying patterns and challenges.

Scalen said he has learned a lot since starting a business, chief among the lessons, “Common sense is not so common. Some people don’t understand these common-sense business practices.”

Regional Distributors is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise since Tracy Scalen is the majority stockholder. But truth be told, Dave Scalen said, the designation “really hasn’t given us anything. If we were in the construction business, maybe it would give us an advantage.”

He has other ways to explain what determines success.

“If you work hard, treat people fairly and you don’t have get-rich-quick schemes, you can get ahead.”

Alan Morrell is a Rochester-area freelance writer

Regional Distributors, Inc.

Founded: 1994.

Location: 1281 Mt. Read Blvd., Rochester, NY 14606.

Executives: Tracy Scalen, co-owner and president; Dave Scalen, co-owner and vice president; Charlie LaRocca, vice president of sales.

Employees: 50.

Website:www.regdist.com.