CNY Computer Repair opens store in Liverpool

LIVERPOOL — CNY Computer Repair has opened an 800-square-foot location at 612 Oswego St. in the village of Liverpool, near the intersection with Tulip Street.

The business offers diagnostic services, internal cleaning, system optimization, back-up services, data transfer, and system rebuilds.

The firm announced the location opening in a news release in mid-January. 

Kevin Fairbanks, owner, launched CNY Computer Repair in March 2010. He had been conducting similar work under the name Fairbanks Computer Technologies since 1997.

Fairbanks initially operated CNY Computer Repair from his home. He then moved the firm to the Oneida area in 2012 and leased workspaces to handle computer repairs. By then, CNY Computer Repair also had national accounts for retail restaurants, which represented the “bulk” of the business, he says. 

“The store fronts weren’t really making money, so I closed them down,” he adds. Fairbanks decided to pursue space in the Syracuse area at the end of 2013.

CNY Computer Repair is one of five subsidiaries of Kevin Fairbanks & Associates, LLC, which all operate from the same Liverpool location.

Besides CNY Computer Repair, Kevin Fairbanks & Associates also includes Computer Help Wizard, which Fairbanks describes as “remote services that we cover worldwide.” 

In addition, the subsidiaries include CNYCCTV, which supplies, installs, and maintains equipment for closed-circuit televisions used for surveillance; CV 

Technologies, which services national accounts for retail-restaurant chains; and Oneida Web Development, LLC, under which Fairbanks handles website design and hosting, he says.

The whole operation employs five, part-time traveling technicians. Fairbanks hopes to add two to three additional employees, if not more, during 2015, he adds.

All the employees provide services for all the subsidiaries except Oneida Web Development, says Fairbanks.

Fairbanks spent between $3,000 and $5,000 to open the Liverpool office, he says. The cost covered the painting work and some remodeling.

He found the space initially on craigslist, called the property owner, and signed the lease on Dec. 1, Fairbanks says.

CNY Computer Repair services the needs of the general public and about 70 small to medium-sized businesses. He also will augment the work of other vendors who have clients with larger employee counts of 250 or more people, he says. 

The business handles “a lot” of virus removals and also sells new and refurbished computers and accessories.

“I want to grow and cover more of a market here locally for small-to-medium-sized businesses as well as the residential community, offering repair services out of the shop here,” he says.

Fairbanks declined to disclose how much revenue CNY Computer Repair generated in 2014, but said revenue increased 20 percent — enabling the company to turn a profit. He’s hoping the computer-repair company will grow its revenue 10 percent to 15 percent in 2015.

Fairbanks graduated from Bishop Ludden High School in 1993 and then joined the U.S. Air Force. 

When he returned from duty in 1997, he launched Fairbanks Computer Technologies.

Fairbanks has been interested in computers since he was a child, noting most of his education on computers is “self taught” and used his knowledge while serving in the Air Force.

“Going into it, I had already played enough with electronics that I had a basic foundation, but they gave me an additional education,” he says of the Air Force.

He later enrolled in classes at Le Moyne College in 2002 but eventually decided to focus on his computer-repair work. 

More than a decade later, Fairbanks enrolled at Columbia College in July 2013 and is currently pursuing a degree in management of information systems and business administration through online classes, he says.