THERE AREN'T ANY AIRPLANES IN THE 4,000-square-foot former aircraft hangar that West Los Angeles-based mobility specialist Complete Access calls home. But give the company time.

This provider of comprehensive mobility products and services hasn't stopped at wheelchairs, scooters and stair chairs but has quickly become a one-stop shop for a growing variety of mobility-related solutions. On any given day, you might find van modifications going on at the back of the shop, the staff checking out a new bath slider, or someone on site installing a grab bar, working on a home modification or handling a variety of other projects. And when he's not out doing one of the above, you will find the company's president next to the giant aquarium thinking the sky's no limit.

IN THE BEGINNING

David Griffin started Complete Access from a small home office in 1997. The former personal manager for recording artists and a film and television production company owner, Griffin had given up those operations to spend time with family and remodel the family home. But when he came back to the working world, he found a new calling.

“I was looking to get back into a business and looking into different industries,” he says, “and I noticed there really wasn't a company that, under one banner, offered a comprehensive range of services and products to facilitate the independence and well-being of people with disabilities and their families.”

There was a personal inspiration for the company as well. “Our spirituality is rooted in the fact that Judy, my wife and a co-owner of the company, has had multiple sclerosis since the year after we were married,” Griffin explains. That was roughly 20 years ago. “We have lived our whole married life together facing the challenges of a family that has a person with a disability. So, long before we were in this business, we were advocates.”

THE PHILOSOPHY

One of the key concepts of the business is that people with disabilities and their families strive to achieve as much independence and well being as possible, which suggests that there's more than one piece of home medical equipment they may need to achieve those objectives.

Complete Access set out to put a broad range of solutions under one roof, and in a few short years, has come to represent some 60 adapted equipment manufacturers. Its business is in three major segments: adapted vehicles, access modification and transportation.

The adapted vehicle business primarily involves modifying full-size vans or minivans in a number of ways ranging from simple mechanical hand controls and lowered floors with automatic ramp systems to specialized wheelchair tiedowns and zero-effort or low-effort steering systems.

The transportation segment includes a small fleet of rental vans available to people whose vans may be temporarily unavailable due to repair or for visitors to the greater Los Angeles area. These are offered at daily, weekly, monthly and long-term rates. The company is also launching a non-emergency medical transport service, Griffin says.

A growing area is the company's access modification segment. Griffin reports that the company does quite a bit of business with straight rail, curved rail and specialized stair chairs as well as overhead ceiling hoist systems. Currently, it's doing several residential wheelchair elevator projects in the Los Angeles and Long Beach areas.

In addition to equipment, Complete Access might also serve as an agent for a homeowner who is having modifications done by a third-party licensed contractor. Griffin tells of visiting a home where a competent general contractor had already made some bathroom modifications. The modifications were for an elderly gentleman who had suffered a stroke but unfortunately, the contractor made the bathroom the wrong-handedness for the man's disability. That's why Griffin emphasizes the value of having a blueprint that's based on an evaluation of each individual's needs.

“The idea is to evaluate the family's needs, what they are trying to accomplish and offer expertise and options for achieving those goals,” he says.

FINDING THE ANSWER

People who suffer an accident or a sudden catastrophic illness are most often unaware of the solutions and assistance available to them, Griffin notes. “What we try to do, first of all, is help people catch their breath and then give them the benefit of whatever experience we have. The equipment here [provides] some of the tools we bring in our bag to make it work.”

Sometimes, a holistic solution is called for, as reflected by Griffin's proposal for that same house above. Instead of the more expensive platform lift for which Complete Access had been recommended, Griffin proposed building a less expensive redwood deck. “The wife was a gardener, they liked to be in their yard, and they felt so good that they had an option that was more organic and more spiritually in keeping with who they are as people,” says Griffin.

“The joyous part of the process is the opportunity to meet people and understand what things we might do in order to be part of the team to help them,” he adds.

That means that sometimes, what a person thinks they might need isn't what they end up getting. “Maybe instead of spending $5,000 on a wheelchair and having nothing else, maybe we have a used wheelchair that we can sell them for $2,500 and maybe they can buy a bath slider for $1,200 and maybe they can buy some threshold ramps for 50 bucks and maybe they can get something else that helps round that out,” Griffin says. “We don't make those decisions, we just try to react to the possibility that we can provide those choices.”

This is not to suggest that Complete Access is a discount house, nor does the company strive to be. “We are not the cheapest, but we are sensitive to people who are spending a lot of money with us,” says Griffin. “We don't have to make retail on every sale, and we don't have to make retail on every customer. But there's one thing that we absolutely cannot put ourselves in a position to do, and that is to compromise the high level of service that we're trying to provide. And that costs money.”

While multi-faceted solutions suggest a higher ticket per customer, Complete Access recognizes that many people are challenged to afford equipment. “I have had people put $55,000 vehicles on credit cards because they want frequent-flier miles, and I have had people who can't afford anything,” says Griffin.

To help prepare for the latter group, he and his wife on opening day also opened a savings account intended as an endowment to provide adapted vehicles and equipment to those people who could not afford to pay the full price. “That small endowment that may have started with five or 10 dollars is now a 501 C-3 nonprofit public benefit corporation called The ELF, the Empowerment Liberation Fund,” Griffin says.

But don't get him wrong. This is a business. “We are altruistic, but we are Complete Access, a for-profit enterprise, and I'm an entrepreneur and a businessman,” says Griffin. “We strive to make a fair profit, and we strive to be a multimillion dollar enterprise.”

And he's not shy about it. “The more good we do, the more money we make. The more money we make, the more good we do. That's just the glorious byproduct of the industry we've chosen. There's no shame in wanting to be a hugely successful Fortune 100 or Fortune 1000 company.”

A BRICK-AND-MORTAR PORTAL

In Internet parlance, Griffin says, Complete Access could be looked at as a portal. That is, it brings several facets of an industry together in a value-added environment and makes them a hub for information and resources. “We want to be a conduit through which information and resources flow,” he says, “whether business comes to us by virtue of somebody's referral or we are in turn a conduit for referring someone to somebody else.”

Assuming such a central role allows the company to take responsibility for assuring that everything provided integrates well.

“But we are just one part of the process,” Griffin says. “We make it a point to put at the center of the whole thing the person with the disability. Surrounding that person is the family, the physician, the therapist, the caregivers, us, the manufacturers we represent and so on. What we try to do is promote thought so that we can come up with solutions together. We consciously try to get together to stimulate a discussion centered around what we as a collective can come up with as the blueprint for making this as good as it can be.”

THE ACCESS TERRITORIES

The broad range of products offered by Complete Access demands that its staff of nine bring a variety of skills to the table. For example, one staff member specializes in seating and positioning evaluations for power wheelchairs and can provide sip-and-puff control systems, tilt and recline, or whatever is appropriate. “We don't claim to be experts in every discipline that one ought to be in order to provide that high level of service, but we are very resourceful,” claims Griffin.

Technicians are factory certified in most of the products the company represents, and they maintain strong pipelines to the manufacturers whose products they sell, he says.

But the total knowledge required is considerable given the complexity of each solution, according to Griffin. Consider the platform lift business alone. Proper installation requires compliance with the American Disabilities Act, the National Elevator Code and the Berkeley Title 8 California Code.

That need for talent leads to Griffin's grand vision, what he calls the Access Territories. He envisions a broad coalition of companies like his, medical professionals, adapted equipment manufacturers, suppliers, home builders, government agencies and so on, committed to permeating a geographic service area ranging from Mexico to Washington with everything from adapted transportation, interstate buses, and an accessible airline to accessible communities, pools with lift chairs, job training and placement services for people with disabilities.

“I've always felt that it doesn't matter where a good idea starts, it matters how far it goes,” says Griffin.

Of course, creating such a vast service territory would demand a lot of skilled professionals and building that network is the heart of the plan. Access Territories calls for partnership with specialists throughout the geographic region who have the knowledge to make the right recommendations or to do the work.

The challenge, says Griffin, is that each endeavor Complete Access is involved in requires years and years of experience in order for someone to become an expert in that field. “In order to do that, we purposely need to draw upon the expertise and the savvy of a broader range of people,” says Griffin. “We just need to continue to surround ourselves with like-minded, equally dedicated professionals who have a willingness to serve people with disabilities and their families. Access Territories will work because it will involve specialists who collectively bring to the table everything that it is going to take in order to make it work.”

Griffin quantifies the business opportunity at $10 billion and expects the coalition would be able to deliver tangible benefits to people with disabilities and their families. “Our intention with the Access Territories is to turn the eyes of the world on this region to show that a coalition of dedicated people can do something extraordinary,” says Griffin.

“I think it's neat to recast boundaries and borders to show that there are no borders.”

Hence, the potentially challenging inclusion of Mexico in the plan. “The fact that the Access Territories happens to involve Mexico is both purposeful and incidental,” Griffin says. “I kind of wanted to have a place that would work for my family as well as others. I would like it to be easy for my wife and our kids and me if we want to get on a plane in L.A. to go down to Mexico or go up to Spokane.

“We would be able to take an inexpensive accessible shuttle from my door to the airport. I would like to get easily onto a plane with my wife. I would like the restroom facilities in the plane to be accessible and easier to work within. I would like to stay at any number of wonderful places that are accessible, or go to a Seahawks game or a university symposium. Or to go fishing — I want the fishing boat to be accessible.”

And he wants that not only for himself and his family, but for anybody else, so they can have “the broadest range of things they need to have as normal a life as possible,” Griffin says.

To hear him describe it, it sounds like he's on a mission. You expect the planes, trains and automobiles to start rolling in so Complete Access can start modify them.

“It's a dynamic, interactive process,” Griffin says about what's going on at Complete Access, “and it's all centered on this incredible churn of energy that has a spiritual component, an organic component, a technological component, a financial component, a fellowship component.

“But most importantly, we are blessed to be able to just interact with people with disabilities who are so incredible. And we are indeed fortunate that there are a lot of incredibly brilliant people who work in this industry.

“It's so fulfilling and exciting to come here every day,” he continues. “We encourage people who think like we do to come on down and visit with us, help us name the fish in aquarium, break bread and discover how we might join forces in order to do what we imagine we can do.”

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

Talk about brand building and brand identity and brand awareness, and David Griffin of Complete Access lights up. He's an avowed student of marketing. “Dollar for dollar, no one can out-market me,” he claims. “I just need more dollars.”

In fact, the company's marketing brochures are tasteful and use high-quality images of people and first-rate design. Its brochure, for example, comes in an envelope emblazoned with a Queen of Hearts.

But effective marketing goes beyond collateral materials to anything that builds awareness. Take the company's Second Independence Day sales event, held in July to promote new and demo adapted equipment, or the wind chimes it sells to help build the Empowerment Liberation Fund, or any of the community based programs it sponsors. All help build a higher profile.

Last summer, Griffin received a commendation from the City of Los Angeles for conceiving and co-sponsoring “A FINE (Fellowship Information Networking Empowerment) Day for Spare Parts.” Complete Access and factory-trained technicians offered free labor and parts at cost to tune up and repair wheelchairs and scooters for about 50 people who might not normally be able to afford them. It was recognized as a model for the members of the adaptive equipment industry for providing in-kind services.

“Every opportunity we have to share our vision and to invite great people to join us and help shape that vision, we take advantage of,” says Griffin. “That can take the form of a direct-mail piece, our Web site, the in-services that we do, our participation in expos, our Yellow Pages advertising, our display ads in magazines and newspapers. Everything we do centered around putting out the message hopefully will percolate throughout the communities and fortify our network.”

Ultimately, Griffin would like to build the concept of sensitivity to people with disabilities and their families into a kind of brand identification from which participating businesses could benefit. He envisions a logo or sign of some sort that would be like a Good Housekeeping seal signifying that a business or a service provider is part of a consciousness and a movement to provide a very high level of service for people with disabilities and their families.
— D.C.