Plan B Trading Co. Opens in Renovo
by Barbara Mastriania
RENOVO – Plan B Trading Company, a sports related business, has opened in Renovo in the former PA Mountain Gear store at 11th Street and Huron Avenue.
Ahren Green, who grew up in Williamsport and recently moved to Renovo with his wife Melissa is tending store at Plan B and is co-owner with his brother Adam.
Merchandise available for sale at Plan B includes guns, ammunition, live bait and other fishing accessories. Hunting and fishing licenses are not sold because the business is a part-time operation and does not qualify to sell the licenses.
Plan B is a phase of Apogee Arms LLC, a business he and his brother started in 2012 as a joint venture to design and manufacture gun parts but was slow to make progress due to their working full-time jobs. Although Green is an amateur gunsmith, he is currently taking classes through Penn Foster for a gunsmith certification.
He and his brother eventually hope to manufacture firearms. He has designed and built different parts of guns and he has built himself the unique gun shown in the photo.
In the meantime, Green is an unemployed synthetic organic chemist. He was laid off last December from a job in the pharmaceutical research industry, and he is currently looking for professional work in the area.
He tends the store but he is not compensated for doing so. He and his brother are hoping to be able to hire one or more employees to run the store once it begins to takes in enough money to support itself. For now sales maintain the business.
Both Green and his wife are chemists. Melissa left her job after their youngest child, their 18 month old son, was born. She has recently accepted an offer for an analytical chemistry position with a local company.
They moved here from Lansdale in late January. “We had spent many years here on the state forest roads with our off-road prepped Jeep prior to that when we would visit my mom. So it was more recreational driving than anything like hunting or fishing. But we definitely fell in love with the area in the course of all that driving around the back roads.”
Moving here they could spend more time with his mother, Diane Green who lives in North Bend. And because the PA Mountain Gear building was “a good opportunity to move into a commercial building with living quarters about it,” Ahren said. Plan B can be good for the community and good for hisfamily, he said.
While Plan B mostly sells new merchandise, Green said he is interested in buying and selling used firearms from the local population. Store hours for Plan B are from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The telephone number is 570-923-1015.
