Last Updated on January 27, 2024
In the modern age, almost everyone relies daily on the internet for work, communication, and more. Some people like Ryan Greene have cultivated the internet itself as a means for business. For 5 years now, he and his wife have been running Kaniksu, a local internet service provider based in Hope, Idaho, around the Lake Pend Oreille area. With the help of Municibid, Kaniksu has grown in both services provided and in the number of community members they serve.
Hope, Idaho is a town of 200 people with one pizzeria, one gas station, one art gallery, and two marinas. Mountain lions stroll down the main street. Bald eagles nest in the huge pine trees alongside Lake Pend Oreille, the 5th deepest lake in the country that the US Navy tested submarines in. Many homes border national forests, pine, cedar, and maple trees on the steep rocky side of the Cabinet Mountains.
The internet options are limited. Archaic satellite internet with slow speeds and high costs or cell signal boosting to power a mobile hotspot. While Starlink is available further north and across the lake, it doesn’t service this small town.
The Business Idea
By Ryan’s own account, the reason the company came into being was because “I wanted better internet for myself and I couldn’t find better internet myself.”
“I read an article randomly that somebody sent me, not related to starting an internet [company], but about a group in western Washington, San Juan Islands, who had done something very similar. But they’d done it as a co-op just to help their neighbors get internet. I’m like, ‘Well, that seems like that could work.’ So, I kind of looked into it and to make a long story kind of short, all the pieces kind of fell into place to kind of make this work. And I realized though, if I’m gonna go to all this trouble, it kind of ought to be a business ‘cause it’s gonna take up a lot of my time.”
“I looked at it from ‘How would I run this as a business?’ and started talking to the community and found a lot of interest in the community to get better internet and off we went.”
To gauge interest in this business idea, Ryan put up yard signs detailing a website where people could go to and sign up. Much to his surprise, in the thirty minutes after he finished putting up the signs, two people had already done just that. In a week, there was even more.
“Over the course of about a week, or week and a half, we had about 90 to a hundred people. So we were pretty enthused and excited about that.”
That was only the start of all the interest to come. Kaniksu’s initial service was fixed wireless internet, but the business grew to the point where they began providing more. Support from the local Hope community only made sense considering Ryan has family ties to the area that run well into the 1800’s.
“We started out as what’s called a fixed base wireless operator, which means that we install a little dish or antenna on the side of your house, and then that dish or antenna points to a tower that we have somewhere a few miles away. And then we can provide internet service that way.”
“But as we started to grow, we started to realize that there was a great opportunity to do more than just wireless internet. So we started doing fiber as well. Fiber, the way we do it, is we bury it all underground. Every connection point we have, we go through and connect everything and then we also use that when we need to connect the house. We’ve got all these different connection points.”
From Ambulance to Work Truck
Providing internet service involves installation, digging, and plenty of setting up. In order to provide that service, Ryan needed a reliable means of traveling and transporting equipment from one location to another. He needed a work truck, which he found in the form of an ambulance.
“We knew we wanted to get into the fiber optic business, and when we’re doing just the antenna installs, we can do it with just regular pickup. Or even a utility vehicle would be great. But when we’re doing the fiber, suddenly that changes everything. We have a lot of different pieces of parts that we need to stock in there. We have a lot of different tools. The biggest thing is we need to have it climate-controlled because the temperature that you’re doing this work at will really make a difference in terms of how it splices and how easy the fiber strands are to work with.”
“A lot of people use trailers. They’ll use vans, but I’d heard about people using old ambulances and I thought, ‘Well, that, that might be kind of cool way to do it,’ but I never really gave it any serious thought.”
“We were looking at different places for equipment and I was looking more at a bucket truck that we could use if we were going to be putting wires on poles, et cetera. We found at the same auction we bought the bucket truck, we found an ambulance. And we just kind of thought we’ll bid on it and see what happens. We had our limit and we wanted to see where it went, and at the end of the auction we ended up being the winners of the ambulance.”
Ryan was pleased to have an ambulance that was in good condition. He remarked at the sirens, light bar, and other parts which were all still functional. Even the things he didn’t need for the business provided him with an enjoyable auction buying experience.
Ambulances like other municipal vehicles are put up for auction after being retired by the fire department. Municipalities have a regular replacement schedule for their fleets, such as after a certain number of years or mileage. The public can acquire these vehicles and use them for personal reasons such as tailgating, or as in Ryan’s case, for private business.
The Pros and Cons
“What I have is a 1999 Ford F450. It’s a super duty truck.”
“When we bought it had about 98,000 miles on it. I don’t remember the hours, but I knew it was relatively high. From our perspective, we were okay with the higher hours because we knew most of the time that vehicle was going to be sitting there idle without a whole lot of load on the vehicle itself. Most ambulances hurry up, get to a scene, maybe put a mile or two or five miles on the vehicle to get to that scene. Then they may spend an hour or two just idling while they’re taking care of whatever needs to be done with the medical situation.”
Ryan has performed a few repairs since buying the ambulance, but everything has been within his risk threshold for an auction purchase.
“We had to do a glow plug replacement. We are soon going to have to do some transmission work, but we got such a great deal on it compared to what we would have paid for a comparable vehicle, whether it was an ambulance or something else, that we felt like those risks and those costs were worth it to us.”
The vehicle provides him with multiple outlets for electrical power, and enough wattage to power a home. That power and multiple outlet locations are essential for the various tools he employs on the job.
Outfitting the Lights
The process he went through to get the ambulance work-ready also involved repairs to the alternator, replacing the four batteries, and changing the lights on the vehicle. In order to be street legal, ambulances cannot retain the same signage as before or light settings. Ryan wanted to make use of the lights included on the ambulance and opted for an amber color, which was legal.
“I think one of the biggest things that’s been really nice for us is all the lights, and I don’t mean the flashing lights, but it’s got a bunch of what they call ‘scene lights.’”
“Basically you can really illuminate, especially at dark, the area around where you’re working. So what we end up doing is, especially fall or spring when it’s not quite light late enough in the day, we can turn on those scene lights and we can see around us, open up our vaults, and pull out the equipment. We can see how much wider we’ve got in there, what we’re gonna be sticking our hand in, whatever it may be. It really gives us a good work area that we can use.”
“Those few times we’ve had emergency repairs as well, we’re fixing it whether it’s day or night. Having that area to be safer and just being able to see what we’re doing has been really amazing.”
Aside from lights that ensure work productivity during the night and day, Ryan’s ambulance also boasts towing capabilities. It proved useful for moving a reel of fiber cable.
Towing Capability
“We have some tools in there such as shovels and signs and ladders, but for the most part, it’s not a whole lot of weight. Which lends itself well if we do want to tow because we’ve got more weight available for towing. But we really haven’t had to do a whole lot with heavy equipment in the ambulance itself. When we did our first project with the ambulance, we were still trying to figure things out.”
“We have what’s called a reel trailer. We put the fiber on this trailer and then you can easily spool it off. We actually for a while were pulling that reel trailer with the ambulance.”
Conclusion
The need Ryan saw is his own life translated into a need felt by others in his community. Ryan’s story is not all that different from other people who saw a need in their own lives or their community, and sought government surplus to help address the concern. Rob Kelsey used surplus to run a cat boarding business for his community. Sky Fogal uses it to power the world’s largest paintball field. Perhaps, you too can find ways to build your small business or simply use surplus in your personal life, like Greg S. who converted a city bus into a recreational vehicle.
If you have ambitions like Ryan Greene and are interested in using government surplus to build your own small business, then take a look at the Municibid catalog. There you will find options for automotive, landscaping, furniture, and more, all of which can help take your ideas and business to the next level.