Believing in the Power of the Local Economy

Every local business has a story worth sharing with the community. This series is as much about supporting companies as it is about celebrating the places and faces that make our community special.

Our spotlight today is on Sam Saxton of Mylen Stairs

Business: Mylen Stairs
Owners: Sam Saxton
Website: www.mylenstairs.com
Address: 987 Main Street, Peekskill, NY 10566

How did you come up with the name?
From 1945 – 1972 Mylen was located in Yonkers, New York and operated as a family-owned steel fabricator. During this time Mylen custom built various steel structures throughout the U.S. until we eventually transitioned into the staircase industry and moved to our current location in Peekskill. ‘Mylen’ is the name of the family who originally opened the company and the name has never changed.

Why choose that location? Why start a business in this town?
Mylen has deep roots in the state of New York and it made a great deal of sense to choose Peekskill as the long-term location for our business. Peekskill is a hub of skilled and determined people who bring a diverse range of talents to our company. As a custom stair manufacturer, skilled designers, tradespeople and sales professional are in high demand. Peekskill provides access to these high level employees that help us maintain an edge over our competitors.

In addition to its talented workforce, Peekskill also offers an unrivaled work-life balance for our employees. We love the restaurants, shops and budding art scene in Peekskill.

Briefly, what business are you in?
We design custom spiral and floating stairs for residential and commercial uses.

What’s the most difficult moment or challenge you’ve faced as a business owner?
The most difficult reality of any business is trial and error. We’ve come to understand that the first iteration of any decision we make might not always be the right answer.

Were there any challenges that made you second guess your decision to be an entrepreneur?
More often than not, our first implementation of an idea is wrong. However, Mylen’s internal mantra is simply to ‘get better every day’ and with our mistakes come learning experiences that help us grow as a company.

What’s been your favorite moment or proudest achievement since opening?
Years ago we did a large spiral staircase at Shea Stadium, that was very cool to say the least!

What’s the most innovative idea your employees or customers have had that you put into practice?
We place a strong focus on product development. Many of the spiral stair models you see in the industry are fairly standard and compete on better sameness – meaning that there are few, if any, differentiating factors in their models. At Mylen, we’ve invested heavily in product development that has lead to the creation of our two custom spiral models (the CS-100 and CS-200). These two models are unlike any other in the industry and customers choose a Mylen stair for its unique aesthetic appeal.

How do you deal with difficult customers?
We make a bet on ourselves that we can out-care the competition. We just hired a full-time customer experience manager who will assist the customer all the way from purchase to stair installation. The idea is to have a full-time customer facing employee who resolves any customer issues. We want to make buying a spiral stair as easy as possible to ensure we have little negative interactions with customers.

How does your business give back or get involved in the community?
We love believe in the power of local economy. We patronize other Peekskill businesses to recycle revenue back into our area. As a company who competes with the likes of a large company like Home Depot, we believe in supporting small businesses to ensure product innovations and affordable prices.

The plan behind this series at Patch is to shine the spotlight on all our favorite local businesses, and to learn a little about the ones we may not know that well.

This is as much about supporting local businesses as it is about celebrating the places and faces that make our community special.

Here’s a simple form where local business owners can answer a few quick questions to be part of this ongoing feature.