Woodlands Area Chamber Of Commerce: Electrician Loses Job To Covid19, Starts A Business, THRIVES With Community Support!

The Woodlands TX

16 June, 2021

5:36 PM

Description

Press release from the Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce: June 15, 2021 Armando, husband and father of four humans, three furbabies, has been an electrician since he was 16 years old. It is the only job/career he has ever had.  He has honed his skills for over 24 years building other electricians along the way.  He has been fortunate enough to have never been fired or laid off.  That said, he has worked for many companies as it is common in his trade to, simply follow the money. For most of his career, he would change companies every couple of years to whoever was offering out of town work, where he could stack per diem as extra income or the careers offering the longer shifts for more hours.  He does and did whatever it takes to provide for his family. In his last role, he was quite happy. Happy in the sense that the company he was at had good benefits, steady work and a nice company culture. He stayed at this company for five almost six years. But, like many Armando was not spared by the COVID19 pandemic. If it was not for COVID19, he would likely still be there today.  As soon as the pandemic hit, his former employer, like many started lay offs. Whether it was fate or maybe his performance, Armando was one of the very last team members to go and manage to stay employed until May 4, 2020. Every week before that, he sat with his wife discussing what would happen if he were next? What would they do? Our business was born. Armando had done favors for neighbors and occasionally completed a light fixture installation on the side, whenever he needed extra work or if someone asked. He never wanted to have a business or thought it was something he could do.But there were different plans in store for him. One Facebook post changed everything.  He put out a note to the community that he may be needing some work, and the community stepped in to support him. His largest support has come from Fairfield, in Cypress, and West University.  It started with Armando, installing fans, outlets, whatever it took. As neighbors would share his story, things got crazy pretty quickly. The days became longer, Armando started missing calls and appointments, disappointing himself and his clients. It only made sense to get some help, so he reached out to some of his friends that he worked with and  did just that.  Well, that means he had two guys to pay now, so we needed more work. Back to Facebook we went and the rest is history.  Fast forward to now, 8 months later, Armando has a full team! Today, arc employs other 15 electricians, most were also impacted and laid off as a result of COVID19. In addition to this, we have several apprentices that are in school and plan on working their way up the ladder. In a short period of time, we have built several teams and opened an office!  This has been challenging and difficult at times but personally fulfilling. In the first few weeks, he was doing lots of residential work all across Houston.  His days were pretty spread thin and he spent significant time in his truck driving the distance just to make a dollar.   His expertise is in large scale projects overseeing  commercial and industrial projects however he is a leader who is always on his tools.  Our amazing residential clients have served as the catapult for where we are today.   Today Armando and   arc electric i + lighting serve as a full service residential and commercial electrical contractor.  Our service menu has grown exponentially, we have a full time team of fine electricians and have partnered with some of the industry's finest lighting and full home generator partners.   We welcome the chance to serve you in any capacity.  One of the the things we take great pride in is that we do not subcontract any of our work out. Every team member you meet is a permanent part of our team. Some are season electricians that lost jobs to COVID19 and some are up and coming electricians in college.  We each have a different story and path. The one thing we all have in common is we are able to feed our families today - because of the trust you place in us. We have been able to turn lemons to lemonade, So thank you. We know the road ahead is long and we have committed to help many electricians feed their family, we are up for the task.  The days are not always easy, in fact, rain can easily send us scrambling for work, but we have faith where it counts.    facebook.com/arcelectricandlighting 281-909-4299   This press release was produced by the Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author's own.