January 18, 2024 • 10 mins
Sky Fogal, the President of Skirmish Paintball, shares his experience using government auctions to acquire items for his business. Sky shares insights into the unique challenges and benefits of participating in government auctions, as well as his favorite auction wins and the impact they have had on his paintball facility. He also discusses the importance of reusing and repurposing items to reduce waste and the environmental impact of his business.
About the Guest:
Sky Fogal is the President and one of the owners of Skirmish Paintball, Pocono Whitewater Rafting, and Pocono Biking. His father founded Skirmish Paintball in 1984. With over 750 acres of paintball maps, Skirmish Paintball is the world's largest paintball facility. Sky has been instrumental in growing the business to its current size and has a passion for creating immersive and realistic paintball experiences.
Key Takeaways:
- Skirmish Paintball is the world's largest paintball facility, offering over 750 acres of paintball maps with various themes and props.
- Sky Fogal has been using government auctions, particularly Municibid, to acquire items for his business, including paintball bunkers, street signs, and office equipment.
- The ability to reuse and repurpose items obtained from government auctions aligns with Skirmish Paintball's commitment to environmental sustainability.
- The challenges of participating in government auctions include the need for self-transportation and the difficulty of loading and moving large items.
- Regularly checking government auctions is essential as the availability of items can vary, and streaks of specific items may appear periodically.
Additional Resources:
- Skirmish Paintball
- Explore the wild world of government surplus at Municibid
- Learn more about Government Surplus Vehicles: https://blog.municibid.com/the-government-surplus-vehicle-guide/
- What to do with 25 traffic lights
Got feedback or want to be a guest? Email us at marketing@municibid.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sophie Eden (00:00):
Hi Sky, thrilled to chat with you today about your
business.
Can you start us off by tellingus a little about yourself?
Sky Fogal (00:07):
Sure.
So my name is Sky Fogal, and I'mthe president and one of the
owners of skirmish, paintball,Pocono, whitewater rafting, and
Pocono biking.
Sophie Eden (00:14):
Very cool.
So can you tell me overview ofyour business?
Sky Fogal (00:20):
Sure.
So Skirmish Paintball is theworld's largest paintball
facility with over 750 acres ofpaintball maps.
We put everything on these mapsfrom old style wooden forts to
we made a replica of the Alamoto castles, to towns, to cities,
to villages, to giant cargocontainers.
Right.
So if you can play it in a videogame, my goal is to let you be
(00:41):
able to play it in real life.
And we use to put a lot of the.
Different props on the field.
Some are playable and some arejust for show.
So we were able to buy some usedstreet signs at one auction.
They were great.
They really made thestreetscapes that we designed to
play on look more realistic andtrying to buy any of that stuff
new A, it's a paintball field,it's gonna get messy, it's gonna
(01:03):
get shot.
It's crazy to buy it new.
So if you dings, scratches,whatever for us gives it a lived
in look.
Gives it a little moreauthenticity than buying brand
new, shiny things.
Not to mention again, the hugecost savings.
Sophie Eden (01:15):
When did you start your business?
Sky Fogal (01:17):
Skirmish, paintball was started in 1984.
So in 1984, my father foundedskirmish, paintball after
playing paintball at one of oursister company's rafting sites.
He thought it was a great idea.
He was playing up in Canada.
He brought it back down here tothe United States.
We were really one of the veryfirst paintball fields in the
entire industry.
So we, we've been at it a longtime.
In fact, two years longer thanI've been alive.
(01:40):
And as my father was steppingback, I've been stepping in to,
to fill those shoes.
But like I said, we've grown itto 750 acres, over 50 individual
maps to play on, and it is theworld's largest paintball
facility.
Sophie Eden (01:51):
Fantastic.
What has been your favoriteauction win at Municibid?
Sky Fogal (01:56):
We've won quite a few things at Municibid over the
years.
I've been a member of the sitefrom, I shouldn't even know how
long it's been quite a while.
Like everything on my deskreally from the phone I'm using
to the switches that control mycomputer to, of course a whole
bunch of our paintball bunkers,most of our trash cans on
property.
Lots of stuff like that.
It's, it's, it's hard to pick afavorite one.
(02:18):
I think my favorite one to useas a bunker on field is
definitely some of the largeculvert pipes that we've put on
play, in play which you can seea lot of our different fields.
Sophie Eden (02:27):
That's really cool.
Tell us a little bit more aboutone of the most popular maps or
games that you have set up.
Sky Fogal (02:35):
Sure.
So one of our most popular mapsis Tipman City.
So Tipman City consists of.
Approximately 36 buildingsthat's been used for obviously
paintball games, but it's alsobeen used for department of
defense training and testingmilitary training and testing,
SWAT team C Q B, so closequarter combat training and
obviously lots and lots ofpaintball and we've used a
(02:56):
number of things.
We've won on Municibid there.
The main one is the streetsigns.
Of course, they really kind ofgive you a, a really nice way
to.
Bring a little more realism intoour city in the woods, right.
But we've also used things liketrash cans that we've won off of
there.
Some clover piping to makeinternal walls and bunkers that
we've been able to cut up andrepurpose.
All that kind of stuff reallymakes for a, a very immersive
(03:18):
and still really fun to playmap.
Sophie Eden (03:20):
Wow, that's awesome.
What's the strangest item thatyou think you've won?
Sky Fogal (03:25):
So the strangest thing I've won.
That I've used, yes.
Sophie Eden (03:28):
Or most unique,
Sky Fogal (03:29):
I think the, the strangest thing I've ever won at
a Municibid auction was a It'sjust a box of random assorted
lab equipment that I won from amunicipal water authority, so
from a sewage treatment plant.
And we had got a whole bunch ofglass test tubes and vials and
graduated cylinders and all thatkind of thing.
And we used them in a paintballscenario game as part of a
(03:51):
chemical laboratory.
So you had to go and get all thedifferent pieces, assembled
them, and that's how you gotyour points.
Sophie Eden (03:57):
Wow.
That's really cool.
What's been some of thechallenges and benefits for you
about using government auctions?
Sky Fogal (04:04):
I bid on some other things at specific military.
Properties or you know, basesand things that we've been
alerted to potential auctions.
But for me, Municibid is thecleanest.
So it's, it's so easy.
You can go in and you can searchby location, which is big for us
cause we're not buying things tobe.
(04:25):
I guess you'd put it normallyused.
So for us, transportation isreally tough, so we need to make
sure that I can send a truck andI don't get killed on that, the
transit.
So being able to search by amile radius is awesome for us.
And it's definitely the easiest.
It's super simple.
I mean, it's, it's eBay formunicipal auctions and it, it
really works.
Sophie Eden (04:45):
I was wondering what advice would you give to
someone who was brand new togovernment auctions?
Sky Fogal (04:53):
What advice?
I, I think, hmm.
I think the advice I would giveto to people that are new to
searching at government auctionsis.
You have to check prettyregularly cause it changes and
it tends to be very streaky inwhat people are getting rid of
and that that's available.
So for me, it seems like everyfive years there's a whole bunch
(05:14):
of road signs up, which issomething I always look for,
right?
Or occasionally it's wholeschool district will be getting
rid of all of its computermonitors, which is what all of
our monitors that all of ourstations came from.
But it seems like there's.
Streaks to some of that stuff,but there's always a really nice
supply of general officeequipment.
So it depends on what you'relooking for.
(05:34):
If you don't find it the firsttime, check, you know, every,
every other week, or I checkonce a month personally.
Sophie Eden (05:40):
Brilliant.
Before we jumped back in, Iwanted to let you know, you can
find all sorts of items over atmunicibid.com.
From police vehicles to cargocontainers, computers to lab
equipment, like sky has beentalking about.
Bidding is open to the public.
What has been the biggestchallenge about.
(06:04):
Bidding and, and winninggovernment auctions.
Sky Fogal (06:08):
Some of the biggest challenges are the, the pickups
as very few people will ship,especially cuz we're bidding on
larger items, like I said, largeculvert pipes or I, for
instance, I bought all of thephones from a municipality cause
they were upgrading their phonesystem and just getting there
and getting everything loaded upand into my truck.
Cause normally I go by myself,if it's a big item, I'll send
(06:29):
two or three people.
They sell things that are verylarge occasionally and they very
rarely have any help with, withthe loading.
So you really have to beprepared to move whatever it is
you bought by yourself andsometimes at very weird back
corners of storage.
Lots and things.
Sophie Eden (06:47):
Definitely.
Yeah, definitely unique.
What do you like.
The most about governmentauctions as opposed to maybe
regular auctions or regularstores.
Sky Fogal (07:01):
For me personally, I, I like the auctions.
I, I like government auctionscause a, there's a appropriate
quantity of stuff for the sizebusiness we are.
Right?
Like I'm not bidding on a singletrash can or I'm not bidding on
a single telephone.
That's really nice.
We are also, I mean, we're anoutdoor company, so we're all
about making sure theenvironment is as clean as
possible, right?
If, if we have bad weather, ifwe have.
(07:23):
We don't take care of theenvironment.
It doesn't take care of us that,that's our office.
It's really outside.
And I'm outside six days a week.
Right.
So because of that, I'm a hugeproponent of reusing.
If I can reuse something, Idon't have to buy it new.
I don't have to generate a newwaste stream because of that.
Reusing and repurposing stuff issomething that especially at our
paintball company, we, we liveby, it's a true motto for us.
Sophie Eden (07:45):
Really cool to hear that.
Thank you.
That's, Something I've beenhearing from our sellers too
really appreciating therecycling aspect of government
auctions.
Sky Fogal (07:56):
Yeah, I, I absolutely recommend municipal to a bunch
of the people I deal with,whether it's other paintball
field owners or whether it's ourIT consultants.
I mean, I, I've gotten somereally excellent deals on, on
lots of equipment actually, overthe years.
Like I said, the, the internetconnection we're speaking over
right now is all powered bystuff that came from Municibid.
(08:17):
It allowed us, we, you know, itwas a smallish company, right?
To really upgrade our ITinfrastructure and make it way
more reliable and resilient.
And, I mean, we're kind of inthat weird field where we could
use some of these odder pieces,right?
But for us as especially havinga paintball field that it allows
us to flesh out designs andflesh out fields.
(08:37):
It's pretty cool.
Sophie Eden (08:38):
Perfect.
Thank you.
Well, it's been an absolutepleasure chatting with you,
Skye.
Learning more about you and yourbusiness.
Sky Fogal (08:46):
I'm sure it's very different from what you normally
are talking.
Sophie Eden (08:51):
It is indeed.
Sky Fogal (08:52):
Yeah, it's, it's a very odd way to make a living.
I'm not gonna lie, but yeah.
Sophie Eden (08:56):
Yeah, I'm sure there's unique challenges to it
but also sounds like a lot offun.
You get out on the fieldyourself a lot,
Sky Fogal (09:03):
all the time.
I'm out there every weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sophie Eden (09:06):
Brilliant.
A lot of fun.
Great.
Well thank you so much forchatting.
But hope you have a wonderfulday and stay safe out there on
the field.
Sky Fogal (09:17):
Will do.
Sophie Eden (09:17):
Bye bye.
Hi Sky, thrilled to chat with you today about your
business.
Can you start us off by tellingus a little about yourself?
Sky Fogal (00:07):
Sure.
So my name is Sky Fogal, and I'mthe president and one of the
owners of skirmish, paintball,Pocono, whitewater rafting, and
Pocono biking.
Sophie Eden (00:14):
Very cool.
So can you tell me overview ofyour business?
Sky Fogal (00:20):
Sure.
So Skirmish Paintball is theworld's largest paintball
facility with over 750 acres ofpaintball maps.
We put everything on these mapsfrom old style wooden forts to
we made a replica of the Alamoto castles, to towns, to cities,
to villages, to giant cargocontainers.
Right.
So if you can play it in a videogame, my goal is to let you be
(00:41):
able to play it in real life.
And we use to put a lot of the.
Different props on the field.
Some are playable and some arejust for show.
So we were able to buy some usedstreet signs at one auction.
They were great.
They really made thestreetscapes that we designed to
play on look more realistic andtrying to buy any of that stuff
new A, it's a paintball field,it's gonna get messy, it's gonna
(01:03):
get shot.
It's crazy to buy it new.
So if you dings, scratches,whatever for us gives it a lived
in look.
Gives it a little moreauthenticity than buying brand
new, shiny things.
Not to mention again, the hugecost savings.
Sophie Eden (01:15):
When did you start your business?
Sky Fogal (01:17):
Skirmish, paintball was started in 1984.
So in 1984, my father foundedskirmish, paintball after
playing paintball at one of oursister company's rafting sites.
He thought it was a great idea.
He was playing up in Canada.
He brought it back down here tothe United States.
We were really one of the veryfirst paintball fields in the
entire industry.
So we, we've been at it a longtime.
In fact, two years longer thanI've been alive.
(01:40):
And as my father was steppingback, I've been stepping in to,
to fill those shoes.
But like I said, we've grown itto 750 acres, over 50 individual
maps to play on, and it is theworld's largest paintball
facility.
Sophie Eden (01:51):
Fantastic.
What has been your favoriteauction win at Municibid?
Sky Fogal (01:56):
We've won quite a few things at Municibid over the
years.
I've been a member of the sitefrom, I shouldn't even know how
long it's been quite a while.
Like everything on my deskreally from the phone I'm using
to the switches that control mycomputer to, of course a whole
bunch of our paintball bunkers,most of our trash cans on
property.
Lots of stuff like that.
It's, it's, it's hard to pick afavorite one.
(02:18):
I think my favorite one to useas a bunker on field is
definitely some of the largeculvert pipes that we've put on
play, in play which you can seea lot of our different fields.
Sophie Eden (02:27):
That's really cool.
Tell us a little bit more aboutone of the most popular maps or
games that you have set up.
Sky Fogal (02:35):
Sure.
So one of our most popular mapsis Tipman City.
So Tipman City consists of.
Approximately 36 buildingsthat's been used for obviously
paintball games, but it's alsobeen used for department of
defense training and testingmilitary training and testing,
SWAT team C Q B, so closequarter combat training and
obviously lots and lots ofpaintball and we've used a
(02:56):
number of things.
We've won on Municibid there.
The main one is the streetsigns.
Of course, they really kind ofgive you a, a really nice way
to.
Bring a little more realism intoour city in the woods, right.
But we've also used things liketrash cans that we've won off of
there.
Some clover piping to makeinternal walls and bunkers that
we've been able to cut up andrepurpose.
All that kind of stuff reallymakes for a, a very immersive
(03:18):
and still really fun to playmap.
Sophie Eden (03:20):
Wow, that's awesome.
What's the strangest item thatyou think you've won?
Sky Fogal (03:25):
So the strangest thing I've won.
That I've used, yes.
Sophie Eden (03:28):
Or most unique,
Sky Fogal (03:29):
I think the, the strangest thing I've ever won at
a Municibid auction was a It'sjust a box of random assorted
lab equipment that I won from amunicipal water authority, so
from a sewage treatment plant.
And we had got a whole bunch ofglass test tubes and vials and
graduated cylinders and all thatkind of thing.
And we used them in a paintballscenario game as part of a
(03:51):
chemical laboratory.
So you had to go and get all thedifferent pieces, assembled
them, and that's how you gotyour points.
Sophie Eden (03:57):
Wow.
That's really cool.
What's been some of thechallenges and benefits for you
about using government auctions?
Sky Fogal (04:04):
I bid on some other things at specific military.
Properties or you know, basesand things that we've been
alerted to potential auctions.
But for me, Municibid is thecleanest.
So it's, it's so easy.
You can go in and you can searchby location, which is big for us
cause we're not buying things tobe.
(04:25):
I guess you'd put it normallyused.
So for us, transportation isreally tough, so we need to make
sure that I can send a truck andI don't get killed on that, the
transit.
So being able to search by amile radius is awesome for us.
And it's definitely the easiest.
It's super simple.
I mean, it's, it's eBay formunicipal auctions and it, it
really works.
Sophie Eden (04:45):
I was wondering what advice would you give to
someone who was brand new togovernment auctions?
Sky Fogal (04:53):
What advice?
I, I think, hmm.
I think the advice I would giveto to people that are new to
searching at government auctionsis.
You have to check prettyregularly cause it changes and
it tends to be very streaky inwhat people are getting rid of
and that that's available.
So for me, it seems like everyfive years there's a whole bunch
(05:14):
of road signs up, which issomething I always look for,
right?
Or occasionally it's wholeschool district will be getting
rid of all of its computermonitors, which is what all of
our monitors that all of ourstations came from.
But it seems like there's.
Streaks to some of that stuff,but there's always a really nice
supply of general officeequipment.
So it depends on what you'relooking for.
(05:34):
If you don't find it the firsttime, check, you know, every,
every other week, or I checkonce a month personally.
Sophie Eden (05:40):
Brilliant.
Before we jumped back in, Iwanted to let you know, you can
find all sorts of items over atmunicibid.com.
From police vehicles to cargocontainers, computers to lab
equipment, like sky has beentalking about.
Bidding is open to the public.
What has been the biggestchallenge about.
(06:04):
Bidding and, and winninggovernment auctions.
Sky Fogal (06:08):
Some of the biggest challenges are the, the pickups
as very few people will ship,especially cuz we're bidding on
larger items, like I said, largeculvert pipes or I, for
instance, I bought all of thephones from a municipality cause
they were upgrading their phonesystem and just getting there
and getting everything loaded upand into my truck.
Cause normally I go by myself,if it's a big item, I'll send
(06:29):
two or three people.
They sell things that are verylarge occasionally and they very
rarely have any help with, withthe loading.
So you really have to beprepared to move whatever it is
you bought by yourself andsometimes at very weird back
corners of storage.
Lots and things.
Sophie Eden (06:47):
Definitely.
Yeah, definitely unique.
What do you like.
The most about governmentauctions as opposed to maybe
regular auctions or regularstores.
Sky Fogal (07:01):
For me personally, I, I like the auctions.
I, I like government auctionscause a, there's a appropriate
quantity of stuff for the sizebusiness we are.
Right?
Like I'm not bidding on a singletrash can or I'm not bidding on
a single telephone.
That's really nice.
We are also, I mean, we're anoutdoor company, so we're all
about making sure theenvironment is as clean as
possible, right?
If, if we have bad weather, ifwe have.
(07:23):
We don't take care of theenvironment.
It doesn't take care of us that,that's our office.
It's really outside.
And I'm outside six days a week.
Right.
So because of that, I'm a hugeproponent of reusing.
If I can reuse something, Idon't have to buy it new.
I don't have to generate a newwaste stream because of that.
Reusing and repurposing stuff issomething that especially at our
paintball company, we, we liveby, it's a true motto for us.
Sophie Eden (07:45):
Really cool to hear that.
Thank you.
That's, Something I've beenhearing from our sellers too
really appreciating therecycling aspect of government
auctions.
Sky Fogal (07:56):
Yeah, I, I absolutely recommend municipal to a bunch
of the people I deal with,whether it's other paintball
field owners or whether it's ourIT consultants.
I mean, I, I've gotten somereally excellent deals on, on
lots of equipment actually, overthe years.
Like I said, the, the internetconnection we're speaking over
right now is all powered bystuff that came from Municibid.
(08:17):
It allowed us, we, you know, itwas a smallish company, right?
To really upgrade our ITinfrastructure and make it way
more reliable and resilient.
And, I mean, we're kind of inthat weird field where we could
use some of these odder pieces,right?
But for us as especially havinga paintball field that it allows
us to flesh out designs andflesh out fields.
(08:37):
It's pretty cool.
Sophie Eden (08:38):
Perfect.
Thank you.
Well, it's been an absolutepleasure chatting with you,
Skye.
Learning more about you and yourbusiness.
Sky Fogal (08:46):
I'm sure it's very different from what you normally
are talking.
Sophie Eden (08:51):
It is indeed.
Sky Fogal (08:52):
Yeah, it's, it's a very odd way to make a living.
I'm not gonna lie, but yeah.
Sophie Eden (08:56):
Yeah, I'm sure there's unique challenges to it
but also sounds like a lot offun.
You get out on the fieldyourself a lot,
Sky Fogal (09:03):
all the time.
I'm out there every weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sophie Eden (09:06):
Brilliant.
A lot of fun.
Great.
Well thank you so much forchatting.
But hope you have a wonderfulday and stay safe out there on
the field.
Sky Fogal (09:17):
Will do.
Sophie Eden (09:17):
Bye bye.
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