That’s right! Your favourite crazy chemist is 60 today! We know that most of our community has had the pleasure of speaking to Steve over the phone or at a trackside event, but we thought this would be a great opportunity to give others a real insight into the man behind the brand!
Steve started manufacturing chemicals way back over 30 years ago, he started with absolutely nothing, and to this day he’s managed to keep hold of most of that! (One of his famous sayings!)
Over this time Steve has achieved many manufacturing achievements within his 3 different businesses, but his real passion is now with Motoverde. Early in 2012 he was asked to make a safe bike cleaner as everything else on the market was too aggressive. After finally agreeing to help, Steve researched and developed the product that you use today, Bike Wash! This process was so thorough Steve worked 16 hours most days, 7 days a week. The time and effort that was put into making this beautiful product created an intense passion for the industry.
With only knowing around 20 people from the initial trial stage, Steve launched Pro-GreenMX without much knowledge about the motocross industry at all. He secured his first ever trackside meeting with Colin Hambridge at Stratford MX and this was when our Bike Wash first hit the scene!
If you’ve met Steve, you will know he’s a talker! Once he was trackside, it was you, our customers who gave him inspiration to develop more products. He is genuinely one of the funniest, happiest people you’ll ever meet, but his brain never stops working. You may say something mid-sentence about a product, or an issue and his thoughts will quickly divert to “How can I develop a product to help that or prevent it!?”.
8 months into launching the brand and Steve was quickly building and gaining the trust from the motocross community, as more and more people switched to using our products. Initially he was barely taking the fuel money to make it home from events, but he saw something special. Then, on his 50th Birthday, Steve had a stroke. But that’s not where our story ends. His daughter Channelle and Wife Sharon came on board to help with the businesses whilst Steve made an almost full recovery! We say almost as his ability to remember peoples’ names seems to have never come back. So, if he has ever called you by the wrong name, it’s his fault and not yours!
Steve is a happily married family man and lives within 150 metres of our units with his wife and two daughters. His drive to recover from his stroke came from the love he has for his family. Firstly, because he couldn’t be without them and secondly, he knew he had created a product that would one day be a global success (We’re still working on that!) which would look after them.
10 years on and his eldest daughter Channelle is still here working alongside her dad as partner, and his wife Sharon is a full-time carer for his youngest daughter, who needs their full-time support.
Steve devotes his life to his family which means he devotes his life to this business. He is an extremely hard-working man, who has an absolute passion for the products he produces. Everything we manufacture is made with your bike and you in mind first. Which gives us great joy in knowing the brand is built on reputation and quality of products rather than investments.
Steve still spends multiple hours a week in the lab, producing and testing new products to ensure this business keeps moving forward. The last few years have been very strange with the effects from Covid but this year, we have some very exciting news and product launches to reveal. To many people they just see a product in a bottle that they like to use. We see the effort, time and sacrifice that goes into it. Steve’s infectious love for chemistry rubs off on all the team at Motoverde which inspires us to be extremely passionate about what we do.
I’m sure you’ll join all of us from the team at Motoverde in wishing our founder Steve, a very Happy 60th Birthday. You inspire us all every day and never stop being you! Just maybe limit some of the crazy ideas you come up with, they’re not always 12 out of 10!
Happy Birthday Steve.