Business Profile: Iron Horse Sports And Fitness Complex
Everyday Tim O’Keefe has his own personal, adult playground to go to.
That’s not surprising though, considering O’Keefe wakes up every morning and goes to work at his business, Iron Horse Sports & Fitness Complex in Mahopac. The former college baseball athlete starts and ends everyday hitting 100 pitches from a pitching machine.
“I always told my mother when I was younger that I’d have a batting cage in my office one day,” O’Keefe said. “So I made that come true.”
“It’s a big playroom,” he added.
But the playroom certainly isn’t just for him, but multiple sports teams, dozens of athletes and community members looking to stay in shape. Iron Horse Sports opened this past January and has become the sort of business much needed within the Mahopac community. The complex is an indoor, fully turfed facility that is being used for sports such as baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and football. Birthday parties and other special events are also held.
It’s everything O’Keefe could want so far as he continues to look to expand. And it’s definitely better than the job he used to hold in corporate America.
The Cornell University graduate was on his way to work one day, but on that particular day, he never made it to his office. He drove about half way to work in Connecticut and turned around. He quit that day.
“After a month at the corporate job,” he said. “I just decided to pursue what I liked. I called and quit and turned the car around.”
O’Keefe always trained athletes as a side job to his full time corporate gig, but it was only four or five athletes at a time.
He was training a small handful in May, then his client list grew to more than 30 in September, and then he started clinics in a few towns. A few teams then told O’Keefe that if he had a place of his own, they would train their teams with him, which motivated him to find a location.
In looking for such a spot, he drove up and down Route 6 looking for a place he could call his own, and eventually found a solid location that had high ceilings and was spacious.
“I knew that if I just followed what I loved, it would lead to something,” O’Keefe said.
Not just doing something sports related has made O’Keefe happy, but the fact is he has a place he can call his own. Even when he was 10-years-old, he held carwashes in his Mahopac neighborhood and got neighbors to bring the vehicles by for a wash and wax in which he charged $20.
While O’Keefe clearly hated the corporate world, he admits he wouldn’t be where is he today, having his own business if it weren’t for being in the corporate world.
“How to talk to people, how to treat people,” he said. “Handwritten thank you cards. Making sure everybody’s happy when they walk in the door.”
It’s that business background that even helped O’Keefe bring former Yankee and Word Series champ Shane Spencer to the grand opening in January.
And while Spencer was a draw to people the day the business opened, athletes continued to come for months afterwards. O’Keefe said he tries to make the experience he provides unique and makes sure that people are treated the right way. He said it’s all about service.
“You give people what they want, they’ll come back,” he said. “I want them to feel like it’s their home. My place is their place.”
