Tommy Mello started A1 Garage Door Service painting doors for $100 each
Tommy Mello learned garage doors by painting them on weekends in Phoenix, then built A1 on manuals, a training center and a share of the company for technicians.
Phoenix, AZ
Jimmy Hiller started his plumbing company with $500 and a pickup truck, and he still runs it
A Nashville plumber who once chased builders for payment built Hiller into a 17-location home-service company with strict rules for every truck and a school for his own technicians.
Nashville, TN
Ken Goodrich held the flashlight on a Goettl as a boy, then bought the company and rebuilt it
A Las Vegas air conditioning technician who learned the trade from his father bought a Phoenix cooling company founded in 1939 and built it into an HVAC and plumbing business in four states.
Las Vegas, NV
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Javier Santiago taught other HVAC contractors about inverter systems before he started installing them himself
Years on school and hospital jobs and some college electronics gave Javier Santiago an early read on inverter equipment. His Newark company still treats a heat pump sale as a lesson first.
Newark, NJ
Purifico trains students to pressure wash without expecting them to stay in the trade
A quarter of Purifico’s work is workforce training, where students from under-resourced neighborhoods learn to clean on jobs paid for with a nonprofit’s grant money.
Birmingham, AL
Al Stephens wants his door techs to pass the test he gives his own plumber
The Rockton garage door owner sizes up any contractor at his house by the truck and the first words, and he trains his crew to pass that test.
Rockton, IL
Damien Chernishov saw crews skip work customers paid for, and built his company on the opposite rule
Damien Chernishov learned HVAC on crews that skipped work customers paid for, so at his Silverton, Oregon, company even unwritten promises get kept.
Silverton, OR
Danny Tate wants Plumbing MD to stop at 10 to 15 trucks so he can keep turning wrenches
Plumbing MD became an LLC in 2026 with a size limit already in mind and two weeks of working beside the owners for anyone it hires.
San Antonio, TX
Joe Lusso named Junk Dispatch for the people he plans to hire
Joe Lusso already gives a little of his proceeds to local first responders; his longer plan is to hire firefighters, cops and dispatchers to run the business.
Saugus, MA
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JT Bailey learned garage doors on Nantucket and won’t rush an install in Springfield
Trained on high-end jobs off Cape Cod, the owner of All County Garage Door gives his installers time to get each door right and answers to no franchise.
Justin Michael asked to be laid off so coworkers without a second income could stay
The Bethel plumber’s side business let him volunteer for a COVID layoff; now that it is his full-time work, he wants to staff it with former coworkers.
PaintRite Pros puts urethane on the trim for the look of oil paint
Chris Gardner says baseboards, doors and trim make an interior look good, so his crews coat them in Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane, not the ProMar 200 another contractor suggested.
Ran Shriki keeps his Oren Painting crews away from some Portland jobs because of lead
The founder of Oren Painting draws his service map partly around what old lead paint could do to his painters, many of whom have stayed with him for years.
Valley Pacific Landscape doesn’t hand homeowners off after the sale
Matt, who handles many of the company’s sales visits, says homeowners keep dealing with him once work begins, and the in-house crews stay on a yard until it’s done.
Allen Richardson built USA Drain Service on the drain machines his father left him
Allen Richardson named his company for the drain cleaning he did with his late father’s machines, and kept the name as the work moved underground.
Pro Co. shows homeowners its overhead and markup on the estimate
Vincent and Sophia list overhead, markup, labor and materials on their estimates, then back installation work with a 12-month warranty that applies automatically.
Greg Russell grew up in his father’s HVAC trade and has no wish to run a ten-man crew
Greg Russell runs his Lexington heating and air company without partners, keeps it small on purpose and intends to hand it down to family.
Just Electric’s Jerson Garcia gets the estimate back fast, and in detail
Jerson Garcia runs a small Revere electrical company on one plain idea: answer quickly, put the details on paper and keep the customer informed.
Koryn Dove brought her mother’s hair-salon rule to Manati Painting’s job sites
From her mother’s hair salons, Koryn Dove took one rule for her painting company: on every job, large or small, the customer is the most valuable person there.
OnPoint Removal keeps its nonprofit contacts on speed dial
A husband-and-wife junk hauler in Vancouver, Washington, holds usable items back in a shop, then phones the people who can put them to use.
Ty Collins has fielded buyout offers for Clear Your Junk and keeps it a family crew
The Alvin junk hauler works seven days a week with his wife, son and daughter, and worries that a bigger outfit would lose its personal touch.
Wine club members gave Kansas City Professional Cleaning Crew a head start
Tina’s first cleaning clients were members of the wine cellar she used to run, and when COVID emptied her schedule, most of her regulars came back.
Air & Water Mechanical tells new technicians that an unneeded sale ends their job
Technicians at this Mesa HVAC and plumbing company aren’t paid on commission alone, and the hiring conversation spells out the one thing that gets them fired.
Hi-Tech Plumbing’s owner works seven days because he keeps the time he gives
A Winnetka plumber holds himself to every arrival time he promises, even when it costs him his days off, and would rather stay small than let the work slip.
Kyle Conley left foreman work for his own shop, then decided buying a company beat building one
The Leominster electrician runs KC Electrical Contracting with one employee, and he has started a second company to buy electrical contractors around New England.
Michael Reeves lets his Top Tier crew fail, but not with a ladder
A Goldsboro pressure washing and landscaping owner shows up at every job and lets his employees learn from their own mistakes, up to a firm line.
Mike Spetz does the plumbing, and Christine Spetz tells customers when the plumber is on the way
At a Champlin plumbing company owned by one family, the owners answer the calls themselves and keep customers posted on when the plumber will arrive.
Picture Perfect Roofing’s crew is on the roof at 7 and gone by 3:30, nail guns and all
Duvalier Prado’s crew lays shingles to snapped chalk lines and quits at 3:30, even when that stretches a roof to two or three days.
Iconic Upscale sends no subcontractors, only the team from the first meeting
Brothers Fabian and David Romero build pergolas, patio covers and decks around Houston with in-house crews, so the people who meet a homeowner first finish the job.
Tulsa Christian Bros Painting wants to hear about the free house at every big meeting
The Broken Arrow painting company tries to paint one nominated home free each month, and it hopes one day to paint an entire block.
Jason Shepherd is keeping J & R Roofing small so no customer ends up unhappy
The Layton roofer hires slowly and holds on to most of the owner’s work himself, betting that a smaller company leaves fewer chances to let a customer down.
Josh Ritchey hated roofing at 13, and now the labor on Titan’s roofs is on him
A third-generation roofer paid 50 cents an hour as a boy now backs his crews’ work with a 10-year warranty and walks homeowners through every step.
Juan Martinez has his plumbers rehearse the customer conversation every Wednesday
Crews at Juan & Only Plumber role-play how they talk with customers and start nothing without approval, a rule the owner built from what he saw at bigger shops.
MasterCoat Services added painting because floor jobs kept ending in touch-ups
A Miami family of flooring contractors started a painting company and brought along a promise to come back as many times as it takes.
Rob Long sent home the people he hired to work on his own house
Rob Long, a former Recon Marine, runs Creative Homeworks in Dayton as a small shop and holds other people’s houses to the standard he sets for his own.
Stanley Pygott couldn’t find a hauler he trusted, so he bought a pickup
A property manager who couldn’t find a reputable junk hauler became one himself, then went all in on Patriot Hauling when his day job ended.
Ted Upshaw would rather flip houses, and he has already picked who takes over Accountable Roofing
A Little Rock contractor licensed since 1995 says his real love is buying and selling houses, and he has already named the friend who will take over.
The owner of Smiley’s Junk Removal grades his own reliability an 8.5
Spencer knows where his missing points go, a flat trailer tire or an icy road, and his answer is to tell customers what is going on.
Tinlin family’s TRC Services takes on the insurance claim along with the roof
A Plain City roofing company run by Tracy and Lawrence Tinlin works through hail-damage claims for homeowners and roofs apartment complexes across the country.
An English major asks his Raleigh roofing crews to walk homeowners through the finished work
Roof Puppy owner John Wood, who started out knocking doors for a national roofer, wants his crews to finish by explaining the work to the homeowner.
Colorado Flooring Solutions won’t promise a floor it hasn’t done
Alex Munoz builds his Denver flooring crews around each installer’s strongest material, and he won’t tell a customer his team can lay a floor it hasn’t.
Corona Landscape’s sellers and its new owners both come from Alberta
Jaden and Kenzie Sittler bought a Gilbert lawn maintenance company whose oldest clients date to 2002, and they are betting on crews that show up when promised.
David Montero still goes out on most Sonik Services jobs himself
The owner of a small Orlando-area plumbing company says doing the work personally keeps the standard his, and shapes whom he hires and when he calls a customer.
Denver Remodeling Services owner builds countertops by hand and fixes what the forklift hit
Jim calls himself an advanced handyman, the one who fixes small commercial damage in a couple of hours and builds cabinets and countertops from scratch.
Durafoam Roofing’s foam applicators have been at it for more than 20 years
Curtis and Tim Forstie bought their father’s Phoenix foam roofing company, and they train new applicators the same way they were trained.
Home Wize Electric keeps its Post Falls crew to an owner and an apprentice
A second-generation electrician says quality can slip once people besides the owner show up to do the work, so he has kept his company small and mostly residential.
Joey of Bora Cleaning Services gave up house cleaning for commercial floors
Joey keeps a regular job while building Bora Cleaning Services, a Staten Island janitorial company that has him stripping, waxing and buffing floors across all five boroughs.
Pipe Dream Electric wires the kitchen hood controls many electricians would rather not touch
Tyler Gaumer and Cole Moberly’s first restaurant job led to a preferred-contractor spot with a kitchen-equipment company, then to work at the Kansas City Chiefs’ practice facility.
Primeline’s owner cleans every job himself and calls on screened shelter workers and volunteers for extra hands
Matt cleans every Primeline job alongside his wife, and the business lets him open a sober living house in Stockton for people in need of housing who want to change their lives.
ProLectric tells Savannah homeowners not to fix a tripping breaker with a bigger one
The Abercorn Street electrical contractor, in business since 1996, says the cause of a repeated trip has to be found before anything gets swapped.
Garage Door Shield works in two counties where only hurricane-rated doors can be permitted
A North Miami garage door company bases its repair-or-replace advice on the local building code and the salt air that wears hardware out early.
Michael Bice mowed his way into tree work and says trees are what he likes best
Michael Bice built a Birmingham lawn business before he took up tree work, and he still talks about a tree job in terms of the yard left behind.
Mike Zimmerman’s San Diego painting company is often just Mike Zimmerman
Mike Zimmerman’s twin brother runs the Ohio painting company they co-founded; in San Diego, Zimmerman often paints alone and would sooner close shop than arrive late.
Ty Flying Out tells roofing customers his crew may have to come back
The Edmond roofer warns customers that a first attempt can miss, then promises to keep returning until the roof is right without charging more.
Tyler Crosek quotes every garage door job as if the customer were his grandma
Crosek runs Two Brothers Garage Door Services in Round Rock largely alone, so the one who diagnoses a door is also the one who quotes and fixes it.
Wes Hargrove tries to keep Western Plumbing Solutions within an hour’s drive of Littleton
A master plumber who is also a licensed plumbing contractor, Wes Hargrove owns each job from the first pipe to the last fixture, and he keeps the drive short.
Aaron Hyatt picked cleaning because, unlike roofing or plumbing, the customers come back
Aaron Hyatt went looking for a business people would book again and again, and he now runs Cadabra Cleaning’s Texas branch on his own.
At Old English Painting, half the money waits for the walk-through
Steve Woolridge runs a family painting company out of West Chester, Pennsylvania, where estimates run pages long and the final payment waits for a room-by-room inspection.
C&K Plumbing tries to solve the job on the phone before the van rolls
A Georgetown plumbing company asks enough questions on the phone that its technicians often arrive with the right parts, though the owner admits pipes keep some secrets.
Dave Harrison trained every plumber at Division One, and he still gets in the ditch with them
Dave Harrison’s Spokane Valley plumbing company runs on plumbers he trained from their apprentice days, and on his habit of showing up when a crew falls behind.
Elite Floors took on remodels because water froze in the tile saw
A Lexington-area tile crew that cuts outdoors lost its cold months to a frozen saw, so the owner added remodel work and now does little else.
Jordan Jones built a rack to keep solar panels contained during a re-roof
Jordan Jones of Ascent Solar & Roofing says his patented rack cuts his liability and risk in half on re-roofs, but getting other roofers to try it is harder.
Mountain View Roofing’s crews drove to Wyoming to roof investors’ fixer-uppers when the roads emptied
A Colorado Springs native says roofing for investment companies buying fixer-uppers made the pandemic stretch busier for his company than the years before it.
Only Water Heaters stocks its trucks for one job and promises two hours in Columbus
Tim says most customers ask how much and how soon, so his company does nothing but water heaters, with trucks and a shop stocked to finish fast.
Ripple Roofing’s Jonathan left a general manager’s job so customers would meet the owner
A former roofing general manager quit the corporate side to be the owner who shows up at the job, and now has his eye on veteran set-aside government work.
Rob Moran won’t install an air conditioner until he has run the heat load on the house
In Holiday, Florida, the owner of R.M. Mechanical sizes every system by calculation and holds his daughter and his one installer to the same exacting standard.
When rubber and plastic replaced hot tar, DeMuro Roofing shrank its crew to fit
Rich DeMuro once needed tankers and a lot of men to lay hot tar; rubber membranes and silicone coatings now let his Clifton roofing company run lean.
Quality Landscape has been planting around Lansing since 1972
Since 1972, the East Lansing company has built backyard retaining walls and worked on commercial and public projects from Michigan State University to the Potter Park Zoo.
Reyka Drywall crews get 15 minutes, then the owner calls the customer
Katelyn, who owns a Salt Lake City drywall company with her husband, Nelson, expects a late crew to tell her first so she can warn the customer.
Green Ridge’s Daniel Rodriguez once plumbed Circle K stores out of a Honda CR-V
The San Antonio plumber’s crews now swap out restaurant water heaters overnight as far away as Amarillo, and they finished a high school athletics center in four months.
Renew Property Wash works one apartment complex at a time
Tyler Acree moved from high-rise windows to parking garages and apartment complexes, and he keeps his attention on one property at a time to get each job done right.
AJ’s emergency refrigeration service runs out of a Freightliner ambulance full of parts
A Denver refrigeration mechanic who learned on his father’s refurbished fridges keeps a Freightliner ambulance stocked so a dead walk-in gets fixed in one visit.
GO2 Plumber NYC’s owner runs his plumbing company as ‘a people’s team’
The owner of GO2 Plumber NYC, a New York City plumbing company, says looking after his crew is how customers end up with a plumber they can depend on.
The Fargo handyman stores call when a door won’t close
Steve Grandbois runs Bigwoods Quality Handyman Services on his own, fixing doors and locks and answering emergency calls for stores across the Fargo-Moorhead area.
Thomas Flaherty worked on F-18s in the Marines and now does every job at his Hanover electric company himself
Thomas Flaherty takes every call and does every install himself, an arrangement he says leaves no middleman between what a customer asks for and what gets installed.
A Greenville painting crew that also lays epoxy floors in city park restrooms
Jason Reyes’s crew paints houses across the Upstate, takes on the drywall, carpentry and flooring that come with them, and counts the City of Greenville among its clients.
At a Katy roofing company, two former chefs split the work front of house and back
Art Price and his operating partner once ran corporate kitchens, and they now run Right Price Roofing and Construction on the same habits of process and procedure.
At Better N Clean, early arrival is company policy
Michael’s Richton Park cleaning company leans toward commercial work and treats showing up early as a rule his whole crew is expected to follow.
At Mercury Mechanical, an owner is on every job site
An East Hanover heating and cooling contractor puts an owner on every job, trains its own technicians and treats showing up early as the baseline.
Brandon Bennett of Wash Nash TN checks back on the estimates that go quiet
Brandon brought a Phoenix habit to Nashville in 2021: if you don’t answer the phone or follow up, someone else is already in line.
Elite Master Plumbing started on house repairs and grew into medical gas
Rene Garza spent eight years in commercial plumbing, then opened his own San Antonio company in 2017 and had to learn residential service to keep it alive.
Father and son, both master electricians, run All-In-One Electric in Richardson
Larry Green opened All-In-One Electric in 1986, and with his son Logan now licensed as a master too, the two handle every job themselves.
For Mohammad Abdallah, every job comes down to whether he would accept it in his own home
Mohammad Abdallah of MA Premier Choices holds his crews to the standard he would expect in his own house, and builds the business on quality work, reliability and customer trust.
Henry Dreist has washed windows since he was 16 and still works the route alone
Henry Dreist quit school to wash windows and has run his own company since 2008, working a weekly route alone for mostly commercial customers around Jacksonville.
Hi-Flow’s owner fixed Army helicopter engines before he washed houses
Zack Talmage runs his Southern Indiana pressure washing company on habits he credits to the military, starting with picking up the phone and showing up on time.
Paladin fixes door closers for national chains, and the paperwork has to be perfect
Nick Hoffman left a medical school classroom to run an Omaha contractor whose small repair jobs come from national chains, each with its own portal and photo system.
Premier Roofing Experts counts attic ventilation as part of the roof
A Houston roofer who grew up in the trade says a new roof only lasts as long as the attic beneath it lets it.
Ray Garcia steered AA Custom Fence toward automatic gates, which are now most of its work
A Denver fence contractor moved into industrial fence and gate systems to set his company apart, and he says the work depends on telling customers everything up front.
Solid Rock Landscaping bills for actual time and materials and shows customers the math
Brothers Jon and Chris Wallenburg usually take no deposit and bill for the time and materials a job actually used, line by line against the original estimate.
Straight Up Mechanical is a consistent bright spot
Michael Redinger runs a commercial HVAC and boiler company, a small business built on quick communication, immediate availability and positive relationships. A Delano parish trusts it with two churches, two rectories and a school.
Texas Pressure Washing started in a Navy veteran’s driveway and kept adding companies
A retired submariner began washing with one truck in 2019, and the pressure washing company he built has since spun off a dozen or so related businesses.
The ‘brothers’ in Arms Brothers Pressure Washing are the owner’s two young sons
Philip Arms named his Sugar Land pressure washing company after two small boys, and he guards the family name on every job he takes.
The Azle HVAC shop that will talk you through a filter change
Michael left restaurant management and a decade in automotive to learn HVAC, then renamed his company so it could outlast his own name.
The Rocklin electrician who is always on the job site
Erik has been an electrician for 25 years, and at iKnow Electric he keeps the crew small and the talk with customers plain.
A former Land Rover service advisor now hauls junk in Chattanooga
Cameron bought Junk It, a Hixson junk removal company, after a first try at ownership fell through, and runs it on a rule his stepfather taught him about being early.
A former waitress built a restaurant cleaning company on kitchen know-how
Jeannine Gorski spent her working life in restaurant kitchens and dining rooms, then started a Marshfield company that cleans them after closing.
A Kendall door company that puts its license number on everything
CMC Door Service, a family-owned shop in Kendall, spends most of its days on warehouse and storefront doors, and owner Christian Esparragoza built it around published prices.
Bobby Oakes runs his Wake Forest HVAC shop on a rule against upselling
A former Marine with more than 20 years in heating and air, Bobby Oakes runs a small company that lays out the options and lets customers choose.
Noah Johnson sells the window job, writes the work order, then dispatches himself
Alternative Window Cleaning has run on family labor since 1992, and Noah Johnson says one person handling each account from sale to clean is the point.
A Bellevue cleaning company that assigns one crew to each building
Vlad runs Premium Services WA, a commercial-only cleaning company in Bellevue, on a plain idea: one assigned crew per building and an owner who answers the phone.
A Matthews flooring company that shows up with the samples
Jimmy grew up in the flooring trade, and the company he started in 2020 brings samples to the customer’s door and keeps its install schedule short.
A Newark cleaning company that also clears out hoarded homes
Nicole Cook had never cleaned professionally before she built a family-run crew in Newark, Ohio, and then a second business that empties and restores hoarded homes.
A Sherman Oaks bin-cleaning crew that answers complaints with a second visit
The former restaurant owner behind Fresh Bins LA trains his curbside crew to act like neighbors and sends the truck back when a customer isn’t happy.
At Prestigious Painting in Gresham, the job starts with a conversation
Joseph Burgess runs his Gresham painting company alone after a partner left, and he wants it known for commercial work and for real talks with customers.
Bigbee Construction started with two friends and became a married couple’s company
After buying out their partner and renaming the company, Jordan and Taylor Bigbee still run their Marion remodeling business on a habit that sounds small: answering the phone.
Greg Hill of Epoxy Surface Professionals answers the garage-floor questions before anyone hires him
Greg Hill coats garage floors around Los Angeles by himself, and he spends a caller’s first phone call explaining what the concrete underneath will need.
HD Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning swaps the pressure washer for steam
With a mother in house cleaning and a background in restaurants, Daniel Mejia built an Atlanta company that spends hours, sometimes days, deep-cleaning commercial kitchens.
Hunter HydroTech traces the wire before it swaps the valve
Shaun Hunter came to sprinklers from plumbing, and the Sterling Heights company he runs with his wife, Shelby, is built on diagnosing before replacing.
Robert Harbolt runs Premier Plumbing of Kansas City as a one-man shop
After 33 years in the trade, master plumber Robert Harbolt runs his Shawnee plumbing company alone and wants to grow it enough to teach younger plumbers.
The Phoenix mini-split installer who found a manual stuck inside a restaurant’s air conditioner
Robert says he has worked on mini splits for 50 years. His company installs and repairs them around Phoenix, and he wants to open a tuition-free trade school.
Wash Away USA’s owner shows up at the start of the window
Daniel bought a pressure washer to learn how to run a business, and customer requests and a habit of arriving early shaped what it became.
At 18, Eduardo Lopez started Forge Electric with his father’s help
Eduardo Lopez learned the trade under another company and opened his own electrical business in 2026, with his father, a tradesman of more than 25 years, backing him.
Bryan Polk is still the whole crew at Polk Lawn Care Services
In Killeen, Texas, Bryan Polk mows and landscapes mostly alone, and he is studying his old planners to build a business that keeps going when he steps away.
Chimney Sweep Service looks after the Brooklyn flues people forget they have
Vlad, the owner, took over a friend’s Brooklyn chimney company and spends much of his time on the flues that vent boilers and water heaters, where the danger is invisible.
At Fontenelle Window Cleaning, the crew takes its shoes off at the door
Two Bellevue cousins started a window cleaning company in 2023, and many of their customers write about how the young crew behaves indoors as well as about the glass.
Cody Bartholomew spent 10 years earning the licenses to open Titan Electric
After a decade working up through Oregon’s electrical licenses, Cody Bartholomew opened Titan Electric in Salem and kept a photo record of the jobs that followed.
Jarrell Wilson learned carpet at 10 in his grandfather’s Houston company
Jarrell Wilson learned the carpet trade in his grandfather’s Houston business as a boy, and now runs his own crew doing the same work.
At Eagle’s View Window Cleaning, John Day cleans up to five stories of glass from the ground
John Day, a Marine veteran and former rural mail carrier from Idaho, cleans Tulsa homes and low-rise buildings by himself with purified water and a long pole.
Mark Solomon learned the painting trade in San Francisco, then brought it home to Medford
A union apprenticeship in San Francisco shaped Solomon Painting, which has worked across the Rogue Valley since 1992 and sprays its doors and trim in a heated shop.
Down & Dirty Demo built a Colorado Springs demolition company on tearing out old floors
Matt Rial and Mike Keigher grew up working in a family flooring business, then built a demolition company around getting old floors up fast.
GAF began in a New Jersey sawmill with 18 workers and a chemist working on asphalt
The company behind the Timberline shingle grew from one chemist’s asphalt experiments and later merged with a German-rooted film maker the U.S. government had once seized.
Davey Tree began in a Kent cemetery and ended up in its workers’ hands
A cemetery caretaker’s experiments on sick trees became North America’s oldest tree care company, run by three generations of Daveys before the family sold it to its employees.
How a late-night phone call named Stanley Steemer
The carpet cleaner Jack Bates started in Ohio in 1947 got its name from a machine he built with his son, and from the customers who wrote the checks.
Stihl’s American plant opened a year after its founder died
Andreas Stihl died a year before his family opened a Virginia Beach chainsaw plant with 50 workers and one model, a bet that still shapes the company.
Sherwin-Williams grew from a bookkeeper’s $2,000 and a paint can that closed again
Before the ‘Cover the Earth’ logo, Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams set out to sell painters what most still mixed by hand each day: paint ready to use.
Roto-Rooter began with a Maytag motor and a sewer full of roots
A Des Moines tinkerer’s homemade root cutter became a franchise business during the Depression, then a trade name so common that many people forget it belongs to someone.
Lennox carries the name of an Iowa machinist who didn’t want to stay in the furnace business
The heating and cooling company began with an unpaid bill in an Iowa machine shop, then grew for 95 years under a newspaper publisher’s family.
Milwaukee Tool began with a one-handed drill and nearly lost its way
The Wisconsin toolmaker came out of a factory fire, built the Sawzall, drifted for years, and then rebuilt itself around the tradesman who uses a tool all day.
Shaw Industries grew out of a Dalton dye house and two brothers’ calculated risks
Before it became a Berkshire Hathaway company, Shaw began as a Dalton family finishing shop with four machines, and two brothers spent decades betting it could be much more.
Quikrete grew from a Columbus supply company and a yellow bag of premixed concrete
The family company Gene Winchester started in 1940 made its name on a yellow bag of premixed concrete, then used acquisitions to reach far beyond it.
Orkin grew from a farm boy’s satchel of rat poison and a habit of coming back
Otto Orkin gave away his first rat poison and charged only if it worked, then built a company around the idea of coming back.
The stores have owned Ace Hardware since 1973
Founded by Chicago hardware merchants in 1924, Ace was sold to its own retailers in 1973, and independent store owners have held it as a cooperative since.
Long Fence started in a decommissioned city bus in 1945
A Washington fence business that began in a decommissioned city bus passed from father to son, then split the Long name between two branches of the family.
LiftMaster has spent more than 50 years making the garage door opener harder to fool
Founded in 1967 and sold through professional dealers, LiftMaster kept adding protections to the garage door opener, from rolling remote codes to a camera that watches the garage.
Phil Leslie lost the pool supply chain that bears his name, then tried to beat it
Leslie’s grew from one North Hollywood store into the country’s largest pool supply retailer, while its founder spent years fighting the company that kept his name.
Meguiar’s began with furniture polish mixed one bottle at a time
For more than a century, four generations of one family turned a homemade polish into a car-show fixture, until 3M bought the business in 2008.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? started with a $700 Ford and a sign spotted in a drive-thru
Brian Scudamore began hauling junk in 1989 to pay for college, and the company he built grew out of the day in 1994 he fired all 11 employees.
Kärcher’s yellow pressure washers trace back to a heating inventor and the widow who ran his company for 30 years
The German cleaning-equipment maker turned 90 still owned by its founder’s family, shaped by an inventor’s hot-water machine and the wife who ran his company after him.
From a railroad car to a Borneo trailer, five generations of Bechtel
The builder behind Hoover Dam and the Channel Tunnel has had five generations of family leaders, two of whom spent childhood years at its job sites.
Mike Merrick ran Fish Window Cleaning for 20 years before he franchised it
The St. Louis company Merrick started in 1978 grew to more than 270 locations by selling people a window-cleaning business rather than a window-cleaning job.
LeafFilter started in a Stow basement with one dealer and his cell phone
Matt Kaulig signed on in 2005 as one of 91 dealers for a stainless steel gutter guard, and within five years he controlled the whole brand.
Ewing Irrigation grew to 200 branches and a fourth generation of family leadership
A Phoenix supplier of irrigation parts, stone and fertilizer to landscape professionals reached its centennial as a family-owned company with branches from coast to coast.
ABC Supply began as three failing branches and a roofer’s idea about respect
Ken and Diane Hendricks built the country’s largest roofing distributor in Beloit, Wisconsin, on the belief that the people who put roofs on houses deserved more regard.
Benjamin Moore and the promise to the corner paint store
A paint maker founded in Brooklyn in 1883 sold through independent dealers, and after Warren Buffett vowed to keep it that way, its own chief executive nearly broke the pledge.
Bartlett Tree Experts has run on research since a horticulture teacher started it in 1907
Four generations of one family have run Bartlett Tree Experts, and the clearest record of their habits is an arboretum on a former horse farm outside Charlotte.
Mohawk Industries began with 14 used looms and a family named Shuttleworth
Before it ran a flooring business from Calhoun, Georgia, Mohawk was a family wool-carpet mill in upstate New York that had to follow the industry south.
The trowel maker that never left South 8th Avenue
A plasterer’s request to two Iowa machinists in 1890 started a toolmaker that still makes its products on the Marshalltown street it moved to in 1902.
At Mr. Handyman, the owner runs the business and the technician lowers the closet rod
Founded in a Massachusetts town in 1996, the handyman franchise grew on a plain division of labor: owners manage the business while technicians do the repairs.
Terminix began with a Memphis flooring maker’s fight against termites
A hardwood company’s search for a way to keep termites out of its boards produced a name, an annual guarantee and nearly a century of changing owners.
The fence supplier that took its name from a trucking firm
Merchants Metals began as Gibraltar Fence in Houston in 1953 and has changed hands four times while supplying the contractors who put up fence.
Before Clopay made garage doors, it sold paper in Cincinnati
Clopay is named for the cloth and paper of its past; its lead in garage doors came from an early bet on steel and a long string of acquisitions.
How a former warehouse manager’s Metairie pool supply house became Pool Corporation
Frank St. Romain’s regional supplier grew into the world’s largest pool distributor, and the company still starts its future managers on warehouse floors.
Chemical Guys was a nickname before it was a company
A Los Angeles car care brand took its name from a stand at shows, and its product descriptions read like a primer on what dirt does to a car.
College Hunks Hauling Junk started with a borrowed van and a phone number that rang in the driver’s seat
Two friends who met in high school detention turned a borrowed furniture-store van into a national moving and junk removal franchise, learning their lessons the hard way.
Cat Pumps began with a pump its inventor’s boss called too expensive
William Bruggeman designed a longer-lasting pump, watched his employer scrap it as too expensive, and built a Minnesota company around it instead.
Merry Maids began with the Peterson family cleaning Omaha houses themselves
Before he sold a single franchise, Dallen Peterson and his family scrubbed clients’ homes to learn the work, then turned what they learned into a system strangers could run.
Turner Construction started with a $690 concrete vault in Brooklyn
Henry Chandlee Turner’s company began in 1902 with a small bank vault and grew, on concrete and big civic jobs, into a giant of American building.
Window Genie grew from a Cincinnati home office into a franchise its founder had to learn to run
Rik Nonelle turned a small window cleaning company into a national franchise, then had to work out why his system succeeded for some owners and not for others.
Leafguard’s one-piece gutter grew up in the hands of local dealers
A gutter design brought to a metal manufacturer in 1988 spread across the country through local contractors, some of whom rebuilt their businesses around it.
Owens Corning’s pink started as a test dye that installers wouldn’t give up
The Toledo maker of insulation and roofing grew from a glass-block experiment that went somewhere unexpected, and its best-known color came from what installers asked for.
CertaPro Painters’ chief got his start selling paint jobs for a college friend
Mike Stone went from selling custom homes to running CertaPro Painters, a franchise that bet on fewer, bigger local businesses and on painters as craftspeople.
Floor & Decor grew from a floor George West couldn’t find for his wife
A building-supply executive set out in 2000 to open a store that sold only hard floors, and stocked far more of them than a home center would.
Kraft Tool Co. still carries the name of the partner Ron Meyer lost in 1990
Two tool-company veterans started a hand-tool maker in 1981. One died nine years later, and the other kept his name on it and made it a family business.
Arrow Exterminators began with termites in new Atlanta houses, and the Thomas family still runs it
Starkey and Jean Thomas built Arrow on termite work in Atlanta’s new houses in 1964, and their granddaughter runs a company that grew partly by buying other pest control firms.
Master Halco grew from one press in an El Monte garage
The fence and deck supplier started in a California garage in 1951, and one former logger’s career runs through much of the history between then and now.
The Davis family’s half century at Hayward, the pool equipment maker
Hayward dates to 1925, but two generations of the Davis family took it from regional supplier to global brand before agreeing to sell in 2017.
How a Detroit mechanic’s fight with road salt became Ziebart
Kurt Ziebart’s rust coating was dismissed by Detroit, grew into a worldwide franchise, then had to find new work once rustproofing stopped carrying the business.
Junk King started with a job application its founder never filled out
A promotion Mike Andreacchi didn’t get led to a red-truck hauling company born in a San Carlos garage, and to franchise owners who came from very different careers.
BE Power Equipment has stayed in the Braber family for three generations
Bill Braber started an equipment company in Abbotsford, British Columbia, in 1969. His son built a pressure washer maker on it, and a grandson-generation owner runs it now.
Molly Maid has spent four decades on one plain job, cleaning houses
Since arriving in Ann Arbor from Canada in 1984, the cleaning franchise has been shaped by the people who own its local offices and a charity for domestic violence victims.
Kiewit grew from an Omaha brick crew into a contractor its employees own
A masonry contractor’s youngest son took over the family firm, carried it through the Depression on highway work and put it in the hands of its employees.
Unger began with a window cleaner, his luggage and an attic in Hamburg
Henry Unger carried American window-cleaning tools to Hamburg in 1964 and built a company for people who clean for a living. His three sons now run it.
Gutter Helmet has spent four decades betting against the filter
An MIT graduate’s 1979 idea, built on the way water clings to a curved surface, still shapes a gutter cover sold and installed by local dealers.