Snappy Solutions
Customer demand made Snappy Solutions into a company that delivers products to build, clean and protect
By Mike Danahey
Where health, safety and the environment come first.
That’s been the tagline for Snappy Solutions since Maureen Fairlie started her business in 2006. The company began as a green janitorial supply company, and its customers came to rely on its dependability and responsiveness.
“It was they who asked, ‘Can you get me this, can you get me these other things?’ That’s how we grew – from customer demand,” Fairlie said.
Snappy Solutions provides products to build, clean and protect. It has familiar traditional supplies and specializes in environmentally preferable solutions.
“You can build a new locker room with 100% recyclable lockers and bathroom partitions. You can install EV chargers and LED lights in your facility. You can clean with green products, disinfect when you need and protect all workers with the proper gear for their jobs. Snappy Solutions can help with all of it,” Fairlie said. “As a diverse business, we can help with your diversity goals. As a vested in health and safety business, we offer products that can help with your sustainability goals.”
As sourcing specialists for industrial supplies, Snappy Solutions provides all the items that keep businesses running – from toilet paper to the EV Charger in the parking lot and lots of things in between.
“Procurement professionals have a critical job. Our job is to make theirs easier,” Fairlie said.
Fairlie used a hypothetical New York State worker getting a request for a widget as an example.
First, they must check state contracts, then another division, and only if the widget is not in either place, can they solicit for the goods from an outside vendor.
A purchase is solicited in a public bid forum and some of those solicitations require a diverse business spend. Meanwhile, the end user has a deadline. The buying agency may have sustainability goals they have to meet with their purchases. And everything includes a lot of paperwork.
“Buyers tell me they can’t get quotes on time, suppliers don’t call them back, scopes of work change, and the paperwork must start all over again. It’s a lot of work,” Fairlie said.
In New York, state agencies, public benefit corporations, municipalities and school districts are required by law to purchase commodities and services from a Preferred Source. Fairlie said Snappy Solutions was the first certified woman-owned business to partner with a Preferred Source.
To that point, Snappy Solutions works with a state program that creates employment opportunities for New Yorkers who are blind. Those workers are involved with packaging and shipping some of the Snappy Green Life/La Vida Verde products.
“Better products, jobs for New Yorkers. Now that is a win,” Fairlie said.
As for being green, Fairlie said she realized early on that cleaning products were made with really caustic ingredients. Those volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were adding to the respiratory distress of children in schools and people at work, and Fairlie saw the need for a better way.
“We began manufacturing a line of environmentally preferable cleaning products. We now have Green Seal Certified Cleaners that help clean in a more eco-preferable way. They save money, too,” Fairlie said.
Snappy Solutions has also supplied helmets to police officers, bathroom partitions to factories and waterproof boots and sunscreen to park rangers.
One of the more unusual requests it filled was for a T-shirt, a very large, neon colored T-shirt.
The shirt was for use in a correctional facility, to cover visitors. It needed to be so large so that anyone could wear it to hide anything that could be construed as objectionable, such as a gang tattoo, and so visible that guards knew at a glance who was a visitor.
Snappy Solutions contracted with a mill in Maine to make those shirts.
“That mill sources American made materials, uses union labor and employs many new-to-the-U.S. immigrants. A quality product was sourced from a company rooted in great values. An American made custom product for a specific task was received. And we delivered an item not made anywhere else on the planet,” Fairlie said. “It’s pretty cool to understand the why, find the how and just make it happen.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, because Snappy Solutions had been supplying construction teams with PPE for years, the company had built relationships with a host of manufacturers, suppliers and logistics teams that could and did deliver much needed PPE.
At one point, FDNY did not have enough disinfectants to clean their rigs and equipment between runs to treat COVID victims. Snappy Solutions delivered 100 pallets of disinfectant in three days when others could not.
“We have the relationships and ability to be nimble and respond. We gained new customers and broadened our reach,” Fairlie said. “We have not only maintained but built upon that growth.”
As for becoming a member of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce New York, Fairlie joined because advocacy, inclusion and community are important to her.
“We attended our first national conference in August, and it was phenomenal. The quality of the programming was fantastic. It was so exciting to be inducted into the Chamber, to be part of a positive, powerful group, and to learn, share stories and build even more wonderful connections,” Fairlie said.
For more information, see www.snappysolutions.com/
