“I’m always thinking, who’s my best guy I can put on this job, because this is the most important job,” says Tom Kotlowski, owner of Open Right Garage Door Co. in Duluth, Georgia.
The job in front of him is the one that counts, and he staffs it that way.
Kotlowski traces the habit to his father, a perfectionist, and to the clients he was around as a young man. “I just grew up around high-end clientele, perfecting the job, because that’s what they all expect,” he says. He has steered the company toward the same standard. “High quality and perfecting the job is what we’re all about,” he says.
That care can start well before anyone climbs a ladder. One homeowner who ordered new doors noted that nobody from the company came out to measure ahead of time. The doors were built from a series of phone and in-person conversations, the crew showed up only to install them, and everything fit on the first try.
Most of the work is residential. Kotlowski puts the split at roughly 75 percent homes and 25 percent commercial, and the residential side is the one he would rather be known for. The crews install, repair and maintain garage doors and openers. The company’s gallery runs from stamped-steel carriage doors with arched windows to plank-style doors in wood-grain finishes such as cypress and walnut, some with a column of black-framed windows down one side. For commercial buildings, it shows full-view aluminum doors with tempered glass in every section. Installations come with a five-year labor warranty.
A few years ago, Open Right moved into a warehouse with an office and a showroom, a change Kotlowski calls a nice movement forward for the business. Customers can now walk in, look at doors and choose one in person, and the company sells doors to the public as well as handling full installations for homes and commercial buildings.
The crews work out of Duluth across the north Atlanta suburbs, from Johns Creek and Suwanee to Alpharetta, Roswell and Lawrenceville. Kotlowski says installs also reach into all five of Georgia’s neighboring states.
The doors travel farther than the trucks do. Open Right runs a partner program for home builders, and Kotlowski says the company has been growing quickly. “We’ve got builders all the way from Houston, Texas, to Jamaica that order doors from us,” he says.