About Us

Overview

The Pelican Group was founded in April 1993 to manage vending and amusement equipment for companies with Regional and National locations. The principals of The Pelican Group have more than three hundred years of combined experience in the vending and amusement businesses. Utilizing this expertise and knowledge, we are able to improve our clients’ revenue and their customers’ satisfaction by implementing our management program across multiple Regional and National locations freeing our clients from ‘the vending burden’. In addition to providing local resources through our network of more than 600 operators, The Pelican Group partners with leading manufacturers of state-of-the-art equipment, including automatic retail machines, self-service kiosks, digital music, interactive gaming, vending machines with wireless reporting, cranes and bulk vending, as well as kiddie ride games, ATM’s and comprehensive solutions for FEC/FFC’s. Collaborating with technology industry leaders such as Touch Tunes, IT Games, Raw Thrills/Betson, Merit, Global VR and Cantaloupe Systems allows us to develop programs that benefit your patrons, our vendors and our clients bottom-line.

Our Mission

We strive to be the premier vending and amusement management firm in North America by employing highly-trained knowledgeable employees and by providing quality equipment and excellent service to every client, every day. Quite simply…We never compromise!

The Pelican Group is dedicated to providing honest accountability of vending and amusement equipment. We take responsibility for each location we manage, and see to it that clients are completely satisfied with the level of turn-key management that we provide.

Our Goals

To customers, we promise to:

100% Client Satisfaction…Guaranteed
Take the initiative to understand your needs and desires
Strive to exceed your expectations
Ensure that our staff upholds our Standards of Excellence and goals in order to reach success for our clients
Consistently measure our performance and provide accurate, timely results

To vendors, we vow to:

Act as partners in better serving our clients
Honor our agreements
Treat your representatives with respect and value their time
Honor and maintain confidences

Turn-Key Management Approach

Design a program merging the needs of clients and vendors
Establish program uniformity in equipment, vend pricing, commissions, products and services
Be a “one stop shop” for service, equipment and commissions
Partner with local operators who match Pelican’s Standards of Excellence
Maintain and monitor insurance, licensing and taxes
Schedule regular on-site visits and auditing to maintain standards of quality and integrity
Reduce our clients administrative overhead
Increase client commissions
Improve guest experience

Growth

Thanks to hard work and steady growth over the past 20 years, The Pelican Group now manages more than 35,000 pieces of equipment across North America. Our National Operator Network has increased to more than 600 of the most qualified operators in the Industry. Pelican has partnered with the Industry’s leading manufacturers to provide clients and vendors with the latest revenue-enhancing products, and our team of experienced employees is diligently working to meet our clients’ needs to grow their bottom line.

Industry Expertise

The principals of The Pelican Group have more than three hundred years of combined experience in the vending and amusement businesses. Utilizing this expertise and knowledge, we are able to improve our clients’ revenue and their customers’ satisfaction by implementing our management program across multiple Regional and National locations freeing our clients from ‘the vending burden’. Collaborating with technology leaders such as Touch Tunes, IT Games, Raw Thrills/Betson, Merit, Global VR and Cantaloupe Systems allows us to develop programs that benefit your patrons, our vendors and our clients bottom-line. Our national network consists of over 600 operators across North America. We have built this business together with our partners and operators working with many of them since 1993. These lasting relationships, combined with our proven experience, allow us to establish company-wide operational uniformity. The collective experiences gained and the continued successes of our partners ensure that The Pelican Group is equipped to help our clients achieve their goals for this area of their business.

Locations

The Pelican Group’s national headquarters is based in the San Francisco Bay Area in the town of Danville, California. We have 6 regional offices and vendors in all 50 states – including Puerto Rico and Canada. Regional Offices are as follows:

Atlanta, GA
Dallas, TX
Los Angeles, CA

Chicago, IL
Sacramento, CA
New York, NY

In addition to our regional offices, our network of more than 600 operators allows Pelican to provide clients with unrivaled service.

Employees

The principals, with over three hundred years of combined resources in the vending and amusement businesses joined to establish a quality driven company.

Richard J Scherer

President

Richard Scherer, President and founder of Pelican Communications, Inc., has been in the vending and amusement business since leaving USC in 1972. He was brought up in the business trained by his father Jay Scherer. In 1975, Richard was promoted to president of Oakland Cigarette Service, Inc., aka Oakland Vending Service, a subsidiary of Canteen and then in 1990, TD Rowe Corporation. During this time, Richard was instrumental in the diversification of Oakland Cigarette into the operation of jukeboxes, pinball games, video games, pool tables and pay telephones. He served as a vice president of AMOA, a National trade association for the promotion of the amusement game and jukebox industry and was president of CCMA, the California association representing the video game industry during the boom years of the 80’s. In 1993, Richard formed Pelican Communications, Inc., to operate pay telephones and manage the vending and amusement for Regional and National accounts. Today, Pelican owns and operates over 1800 pay telephones (Pelican Communications), operates amusement equipment in over 600 taverns (PelicanTunes) and manages over 35000 pieces of vending and amusement equipment, Nationwide (The Pelican Group). Pelican is a closely held corporation, located in Danville, CA.
Jason Scherer

Executive Vice President

Jason Scherer has been involved in the Amusement and Vending industry since he was 12 years old. He started off spending the summer breaks repairing pool cues and cleaning equipment at Oakland Vending Service for his dad, Richard Scherer. During Pelicans’ early years, Jason accompanied his dad on the initial Costco Wholesale Vending program and met many of the vendors Pelican works with today. Always a “hands on” person, Jason has been directly involved in the installation of over 2,000 pay telephones for Pelicans’ Public Pay Telephone division from 1996 until early 2003. After 7 years of running the phone division he returned to the road and began inspecting and meeting with vendors at all National Vending and Amusement accounts across the county. Jason is proud to be a graduate of Notre Dame’s AMOA Business Executive program. Today, Jason is responsible for all areas of Operations, Account Management and New Business Development. “I have grown-up in the industry and every day I am more and more excited to see the opportunities to grow the business with our incredible network of vendors and product manufacturers”. Jason is currently the Executive Vice President and hopes to continue learning from Pelicans’ veteran staff and industry executives he holds closely as mentors and leaders.
Sean Hanna

Executive Vice President

Sean Hanna currently serves as Vice President of Operations for The Pelican Group. Sean is responsible for the company's strategic operations, overseeing a team of Regional Managers, and continuing initiatives with The Pelican Group's diverse client base. Sean joined The Pelican Group in 2002, where he was promoted through the ranks of Regional Manager to Vice President of National Accounts to his current position. Prior to joining the Pelican team, Sean managed company operations for an Atlanta-based amusement company where he gained his experience in the amusement industry. Outside of the coin-op industry, Sean’s career after college began with Merrill Lynch.He graduated with a Finance and Accounting degree from Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL.
Laura Allen

Director of National Sales

Laura Allen joined the staff of The Pelican Group as Director of National Sales as a result of the acquisition of Win Stuff. Laura served as vice president of Win Stuff, the leading licensed toy crane company for 8 years and was responsible for running the skilled crane division, driving all major sales initiatives. Before joining Win Stuff, Allen served as CFO of Folz Vending. Folz was a national bulk vending company providing service to over 200,000 bulk heads across the country. Folz’s major clients included Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Safeway, Kroger and K-Mart. Allen is a CPA and received her audit training at Grant Thornton, one of the world’s leading organizations of independent audit, tax and advisory firms.
Brad Wedin

Southeast Regional Manager

Based out of Atlanta, GA, Grad will be responsible for managing the Southeast territory for the Pelican Group. Brad comes to Pelican with over 15 years of knowledge and experience in the coin-op industry where his coin-op journey began with Pocket Change, a Midwest-based arcade chain. After a few years with PocketChange, he accepted a position in Columbus, GA with Carmike Cinemas where he maintained the theater chain's game operations and FEC game rooms. In 2001, Grad left Carmike Cinemas to help build Premier Game Company. As Director of Operations with Premier, he oversaw and managed all facets of the Company's operations. Grad states, "I am pleased to have the opportunity to join such a talented group of people. With their expertise and knowledge of the industry, they have what it takes to drive client profits through the services they provide.
Darin Pilcher

Regional Manager, Northeast US

Darin began his amusement career in 1983 working as an arcade attendant with Barrel of Fun (later to be purchased by Atari then Namco). He advanced through the many operational ranks at Namco until he was promoted to Vice President of Corporate Operations to manage the equipment department, merchandise department, technical department & other support services. Darin transitioned to head up the business development department as Vice President in which he managed a team to negotiate leases and secure new accounts for Namco USA. He worked with clients such as Walmart, Disney, AMC Theatres, Caribbean Cinemas, Cici’s Pizza, Boyd Gaming, Mall of America, US Navy and many other high profile clients. In April 2015, Darin joined The Pelican Group and now leads the management of operators in the Northern US and well as being the account manager for companies such as Travel Centers of America, Cinemark & K1 Speed.
Jeff McKenney

Regional Manager, Central US

Coming Soon...
Casey Scherer

Regional Manager, Western US

Casey Scherer, the youngest son of Richard Scherer, started working with The Pelican Group when he was just 16 years old. His first job was counting quarters in the coin room. Not long after that Casey moved his way up the ladder at The Pelican Group and started with collections which included the responsibility of driving a route. In the coming years, Casey learned many avenues of the vending business. Casey now was well rounded in Amusements, Payphones, Juke Box installations, sales and collections. In 2014 Casey was promoted to Regional Manager Support to help vendors and Regionals make each location shine to its full potential. Casey traveled all over the country inspecting locations to better help vendors with how equipment should look and preform to maximize revenue and curb appeal. Over the years, Casey has performed many Revenue Enhancement Visits and continues to help the customer and the vendor to better understand the vending business. In 2017, Casey was promoted to Regional Manager overseeing and managing the operations in the West, including Alaska and Hawaii.