Image: EY
Home Services Owners: The Builders Behind Mike Andes, Nate Agentis, Nick Lopez and Richard Huffman
The lawn kid who started college at thirteen. The plumber who took over the family business in the middle of losing his mother. Ten more owners who built it the hard way.
Produced and Edited by The Bourgeois Society Staff
Part four of our four-part Home Services Owners list: ten founders and operators whose companies answer the phone when the house breaks — the final installment, completing the list of forty-four.
Selected on the obstacle climbed, the thing built, and the good given back — and fact-checked line by line, with sources linked under every profile.
The full list: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4
Founder, Augusta Lawn Care — Bellingham, WA
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram
Image: UpFlip
Why We’re Inspired
Mike Andes started mowing grass at eleven years old, pushing a mower around the neighborhood with his brother to pay his way through college — a college career he started at thirteen, aimed at becoming a surgeon.
He went to pre-med, started medical school, and then walked away from all of it: he did not want the same procedures, the same paperwork and the same forty years, and the only other thing he knew how to do was mow grass. So he built Augusta Lawn Care on the trade he had learned as a kid.
About five years in, the business nearly killed him. Working underneath a dump truck, he was caught in its power take-off; his hoodie tangled, tore apart, and dropped him free — and from a hospital bed, recovering, he was FaceTiming his crew to show them the next job.
That was the moment he saw it plainly: the business had no systems and no procedures. It was built entirely on him working eighty to ninety hours a week.
“I started my lawn care business I was 11 years old, mowed grass just so I could pay my way through college.”
The Story
Andes rebuilt the company so it could run without him standing on every lawn.
He switched his crews from hourly pay to pay-for-performance, made estimate videos so he no longer had to walk every job site himself, and started sharing every system he changed — first in a free course for landscape businesses, then in a steady stream of teaching aimed at small blue-collar owners.
Augusta Lawn Care became a franchise, and the model traveled: the system has grown to more than 185 locations across the United States, Canada and Australia, alongside his Copilot CRM software for home-service companies. His stated mission is the one the franchise was built on — helping small business owners achieve financial freedom and sustainable growth.
The kid who mowed lawns to pay for college now teaches an entire trade how to stop buying itself a job.
Sources
Listen Notes / Millionaire University — “How He Built a 185+ Location Franchise Starting With Just a Lawn Mower”
Big Sky Franchise Team — “What If Everything You Know About Franchising Is Wrong? — Mike Andes”
Podscan / Aussie LawnStars — “Simplify and Standardise, Mike Andes Has the Key to Business”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Mike Agugliaro · Ismael Valdez
Founder & CEO, NexGen Air Conditioning, Heating & Plumbing — Anaheim, CA
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram
Image: ServiceTitan
Why We’re Inspired
We’re inspired because Ismael Valdez mentors other contractors for free — on one condition: whoever he helps must go help somebody else. It is a pay-it-forward rule he enforces with his own time, from a man who lost a company, rebuilt bigger, and nearly lost himself on the way up.
“If I’m going to take my time out of my day to do it, you better go and help somebody else, too.”
The Story
Valdez started at 17 as a counter guy at a wholesale distributor, built one company from $0 to $21 million on a handshake partnership — and lost it in the split.
He rebuilt from his garage: NexGen did $1.2 million in four months, $24 million in three years, $30 million in year four, and grew into a nearly $100 million, seven-location Southern California company acquired by the Wrench Group. Past $30 million in sales he was an alcoholic and falling apart; he got sober, quit cigarettes too, and finished the climb.
He is a repeat ServiceTitan podcast guest and now also stands behind the Nuve smart thermostat.
Sources
ServiceTitan, Toolbox for the Trades — Ismael Valdez interview
ServiceTitan, Toolbox for the Trades — “The Day I Almost Quit the Trades”
Owned and Operated — “Legends: From the Trades to $110 Million with Ismael Valdez”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Mike Andes · Nate Agentis
Owner, Agentis Plumbing; Founder, Plumbing CEO & Hope for the Trades — Bethlehem, PA
Official links: Website · LinkedIn
Image: Business Development Resources
Why We’re Inspired
Nate Agentis is a third-generation plumber, and the family business nearly ended twice before it reached him. His grandfather built it from nothing, only to lose it to the IRS; his father rebuilt it from scratch.
Nate grew up inside it — playing Nintendo on the couch with the technicians coming in and out of the house, riding along with his grandfather — and earned his master plumbing license at twenty-one. In 2012, his mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
His parents stepped away from the business, and Nate was thrust into a leadership role he was not necessarily seeking. He took over — and then he built: over the following twelve years he tripled the small family operation into a $13 million organization with 75 employees. But the growth came at a cost he does not hide.
Grief and pressure drove him into burnout and a period of deep reflection.
“I went to a pretty dark place for a period of time just questioning my values and my morals,”
The Story
What Agentis did with that dark place is why owners across the trades now learn from him.
He wrote his way out in a book — Get Shit Done: How to Build a Strong Team, a Profitable Business, and a Lasting Legacy — built Plumbing CEO to teach other plumbing owners leadership and business management, and founded Hope for the Trades, a nonprofit dedicated to the mental, emotional, spiritual and professional well-being of tradespeople and their families, built on a simple question he asks every owner: your business might be healthy, but are you?
Plumbing CEO was acquired by Business Development Resources (BDR), and Agentis joined BDR to lead its plumbing vertical — the third-generation plumber who nearly burned out now teaching an industry how to grow without losing the people doing the growing.
Sources
PHCP Pros — “Hardship, Healing, and Hope for the Trades”
Listen Notes / HVAC School — “How to REALLY Get S&!# Done! w/ Nate Agentis”
Contractor Magazine — “Plumbing CEO Founder Joins BDR to Lead New Plumbing Vertical”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ismael Valdez · Nick Lopez
Founder, LIME Painting — Denver, CO
Official links: Website · Facebook · LinkedIn
Image: Shine Executive Coaching
Why We’re Inspired
Nick Lopez was a first-generation college student from Denver, and just getting to college took everything he had: he maxed out a $500 credit card to pay for his flight to Michigan State.
He arrived as a preferred walk-on wrestler, hoping a scholarship would pay his way — but the scholarship was not in sight, the tuition bill was $2,200, and his credit cards were maxed out.
So at nineteen, in 2008, in the middle of the Great Recession and in a Michigan economy reeling from the auto-industry crash, he started Spartan College Painters to pay for tuition, books and the cost of living.
He ran the painting company for five years while he finished his degree, learning the trade and the business at the same time — and somewhere in those years of compliments and horror stories from high-end homeowners, he spotted the opening the whole industry had missed: affluent property owners could not find a painting company that delivered consistent, high-end quality.
“I even maxed out a credit card just to get to campus and start my college days,”
The Story
After graduating, Lopez moved back to Colorado and launched LIME Painting in Denver — the scalable, luxury version of the model he had refined in East Lansing, serving custom, high-end homes.
In its first four years in Colorado, LIME surged past $5.5 million in revenue, and Lopez opened the model up as a franchise, building a national luxury painting brand on the values he credits for the climb: gratitude, enthusiasm, tenacity and excellence.
The kid who could not afford the flight to college built the painting company for people who own million-dollar homes — by being the student who painted his way through school and refused to do ordinary work.
Sources
Aspioneer — “How LIME Painting Grew to $5.5M in Revenue by Serving Custom Property Owners”
Hire Yourself — “Maxing Out a $500 Credit Card to Owning a Painting Franchise”
Business Radio X / Franchise Marketing Radio — “Nick Lopez with LIME Painting”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Nate Agentis · Nick Slavik
Founder, Nick Slavik Painting & Restoration Co. — New Prague, MN
Official links: Website · Instagram · Facebook
Image: Nick Slavik Painting & Restoration Co.
Why We’re Inspired
Nick Slavik started painting as a boy — about twelve years old — in his father’s painting business. After the September 11 attacks he volunteered for the Army, serving as a mechanic and paratrooper on two overseas tours, the first in Afghanistan and the second in Iraq.
When he came home to the family trade, the door was closed: after a disagreement with his father, there was no place for him in the family business.
So in 2007 he went out on his own and founded Nick Slavik Painting & Restoration Co. in New Prague, Minnesota — and built it the craftsman’s way, one exacting job at a time.
The company he started after being excluded became nationally known for award-winning craftsmanship: fifteen national awards, a full-scale finishing shop and training facility, a rigorous apprenticeship program, and a team that has grown past forty people.
“You can’t always ask for consensus,”
The Story
Slavik now teaches the trade that raised him. He chairs the board of the Painting Contractors Association, hosts Ask a Painter Live — his weekly show answering painters’ questions, running for years — and speaks nationally on craftsmanship, recruiting and raising the professional standard of painting.
His leadership philosophy, forged in the Army and tested in a business where, as he learned leading through a pandemic, a steady hand matters more than unlimited options, is simple: remove all excuses, and lead by example. His father told him there was no place for him. He built his own place — and then a classroom for everyone else’s.
Sources
Topline Pro — “Ep 37: Nick Slavik — Building a Painting Empire”
Painting Contractors Association — “EXPO 2024: A Stellar Lineup of Esteemed Speakers Unveiled!”
inPAINT — “Pros Share Lessons Learned Through Pandemic Experiences”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Nick Lopez · Ricardo Regalado
Founder & CEO, Rozalado Cleaning Services; Founder, Route — Chicago, IL
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram
Image: Authentic Leadership for Everyday People
Why We’re Inspired
Ricardo “Ricky” Regalado grew up watching his father work blue-collar jobs earning no more than $15 an hour, and he was raised to work hard no matter the challenge — but not to become just another corporate number.
In 2012, with his cousin and his girlfriend — now his wife — behind him, he emptied his bank account and bought his first cleaning company, betting everything on an industry he knew nothing about.
He learned fast: how to buy products, how to train a team, and, along the way, a gift he had not expected — he could sell, and he could tell a story people wanted to hear.
He sold that first company and started his own: Rozalado Cleaning Services, named from a combination of his and his cousin’s first names, headquartered in Chicago.
The Story
Rozalado grew from one employee to more than 600, and Regalado kept building on top of it. He founded Route, a technology platform for the commercial cleaning industry, and became one of the few Latino tech founders to raise more than $2 million in venture capital from Silicon Valley.
He founded Cleaning & Cocktails, a community platform sharing playbooks across the industry, serves on the board of ISSA, the worldwide cleaning industry association — its youngest, and first Latino, board member — and was named Small Business Person of the Year by the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
His mission, stated everywhere his companies operate, is to improve the business of cleaning and raise the bar across the industry — the son of a $15-an-hour father, now opening doors for the frontline workers he started alongside.
Sources
United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce — “From One Employee to 600+: The Ricardo Regalado Story”
Listen Notes / Find Your Leadership Confidence Podcast — “Ricardo Regalado on The Blueprint to Building Your Brand Empire”
CMM Online — “Ricardo Regalado, Owner and Founder of Rozalado Services” (author page)
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Nick Slavik · Richard Huffman
Founder, President & CEO, Celebree School; Founder & CEO, Huffman Family Brands — Ellicott City, MD
Official links: Website
Image: EY
Why We’re Inspired
Richard Huffman learned the childcare business the way few founders ever do — from the inside, as a kid. His mother opened White Marsh Child Care Center in 1984, and between classes the young Huffman lent a hand in the family business, absorbing early on how a center runs and what families need.
He skipped the traditional degree route, later saying that while his friends were still in school he was buying properties and running his own business, learning by reading and by doing. In 1994, at twenty-six, he opened the first Celebree School in Ellicott City, Maryland. One preschool became Maryland’s largest privately held chain of childcare centers.
Celebree began franchising in 2019, and the brand has grown to more than 120 locations open or in development, with more than 1,300 employees system-wide and enrollment of more than 4,500 children.
In 2024 he launched Huffman Family Brands as the parent company over Celebree and its affiliated concepts — a second-generation operator now building the platform other family operators can grow on.
The industry has noticed the climb: in 2023 Celebree claimed the No. 1 spot on Entrepreneur’s Top New and Emerging Franchises list, and the brand has since made the Franchise 500.
“Communities need quality pre-K education and daycare, and we can fill that gap,”
The Story
The mission printed on everything Celebree does is “Grow People Big and Small,” and Huffman has built the company to hand that mission to others: franchise owners get his playbook, his team’s support and a brand whose stated core vision is change, innovation and the constant pursuit of self-improvement.
Huffman Family Brands announced its 100th location with a franchise-owned Celebree School in Northbrook, Illinois, and marked the milestone with a community book drive — 100 children’s books for the local public library, in honor of 100 locations.
Sources
Child Care Biz Help — “Leading Through Unknowns”
Celebree School — “HFB Announces 100th Location Milestone: A Franchise-Owned Celebree School”
Franchising.com — “"Protect, Educate, and Nurture" Celebree School's Richie Huffman trusts his values”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ricardo Regalado · Shiketa Morgan
Founder, Learning Days; Founder, Child Care Business Owner Institute — Atlanta, GA
Official links: Website · Facebook · X
Image: Shoutout Atlanta
Why We’re Inspired
Shiketa Morgan was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, working as a medical assistant and making $10.25 an hour when, in 1998, she felt led by God to start a daycare. She trusted that calling, left the job she loved and opened a home childcare business with only $600. The leap worked.
In 2003 she and her husband moved the business out of their home into a first commercial location, and in December 2014 the center expanded to 6,600 square feet. A second location followed in 2016. Then came the hardest turn: in January 2018 her younger sister went into cardiac arrest and died seven days later.
The loss devastated Morgan — and pushed her to finally live out the desire on her heart. She and her husband had visited Atlanta in 2013 and felt they were meant to do business there; in October 2018 they stepped out on faith and moved.
In March 2021 they found their dream location in Kennesaw, a childcare space of more than 7,000 square feet, and she later let the St. Louis location go to keep building in Georgia.
“Faith is risky, but it’s worth the risk.”
The Story
Morgan has turned her own climb into a curriculum for other owners. She founded the Child Care Business Owner Institute to coach childcare operators, hosts the Doing Business by Faith podcast, and is the author of more than twenty books, including Build Your Business by Faith and Pivoting from a Poverty Mindset to a Millionaire Mindset.
Her stated vision is simple: inspire others through her books, her coaching business and her childcare centers — proof, offered from experience, that a $600 start does not have to stay small.
Sources
VoyageATL — “Community Highlights: Meet Shiketa Morgan of Learning Days”
Canvas Rebel — “Meet Shiketa Morgan”
Child Care Business Owner Institute — “Why Your Child Care Business Isn’t Growing—And What to Do About It”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Richard Huffman · Steven Montgomery
Founder & CEO, ResiBrands — Austin, TX
Official links: Website · LinkedIn
Image: EIN Presswire
Why We’re Inspired
Steven Montgomery’s work ethic was formed far from any boardroom. His parents were missionaries — his grandfather was one too — and he spent part of his childhood in Africa while they served local communities.
Between mission assignments, his father painted homes, and Montgomery remembers being fourteen, up a ladder on a cold morning in Oregon, realizing he could one day build a business of his own. His early working life was pure grind: delivering junk mail in Australia, pressure-washing houses as a subcontractor, and endless door-knocking.
He started his Texas painting company with a used truck and twelve dollars in the bank. Reading The E-Myth changed how he saw the work: the money was not in holding the brush forever, but in systematizing, automating and delegating.
He never finished college — as his keynote billing puts it, he went from missionary kid and college dropout to franchisor — and the systems he documented became his education. He founded ResiBrands in 2011 and launched That 1 Painter as a franchise in 2021.
The platform has grown into a multi-brand home-services company — That 1 Painter, Garage Up, Pink’s Window Services, Monty’s Handyman Services and Action Exteriors — serving hundreds of territories.
The Story
Service is not a side project at ResiBrands; it is the stated design. That 1 Painter’s Paint It Forward program gives complimentary painting to families and organizations in need — in its most recent run, more than one hundred properties painted nationwide in seven days — while Pink’s Window Services runs free cleanings for community organizations through Comp Cleans.
ResiBrands teams volunteer with Habitat for Humanity and helped wrap holiday gifts for more than 8,000 children through Partnerships for Children, and the company supports Bible schools and business-skills teaching across East Africa. As ResiBrands puts it, Montgomery’s passion is helping new entrepreneurs believe in themselves and build legacy businesses they are proud of.
Sources
Corey Kupfer / DealQuest Podcast — “The Journey from Painter to Franchising Mogul with Steven Montgomery”
EIN Presswire — “ResiBrands Continues Give Back to the Community Across Home Services”
EIN Presswire — “Steven Montgomery Shares Growth Lessons at IFA Nashville”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Shiketa Morgan · Victor Rancour
Founder, Absolute Airflow; CEO, Rocket Group — Westminster, CA
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram
Image: EIN Presswire
Why We’re Inspired
Victor Rancour’s rise may be the fastest in home services. He entered HVAC in March 2015 knowing, by his own account, nothing about it. The company that hired him trained him as a technician — and he quickly became, in his words, the top-selling technician in the country, a title his bios credit to AirTime 500, earned multiple times.
In 2017 another company recruited him to run its California business while the owner lived in Hawaii; Rancour served as service manager, sales manager and field lead, and decided he was done making someone else rich. In 2018 he founded Absolute Airflow in Southern California.
The first couple of months the crew worked out of a parking lot with no shop at all; within four months he had ten employees, and the company grew to a $5 million business in its first year.
He built his own training facility and trained technicians from scratch rather than poaching them, and when he could not find a marketing company good enough for the trade, he started one of those too.
He went on to scale Absolute Airflow to more than $65 million in revenue with more than 100 employees, earned a spot on HVACR Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2020, and later sold the company.
“The first couple of months we just worked out of a parking lot. We didn’t even have a shop.”
The Story
Rancour now runs the play again — for other people’s companies. Through Rocket Group, the acquisition platform he founded, he buys growth-oriented HVAC and plumbing businesses in the Southwest, typically doing $1 million to $5 million in revenue, and installs the systems that scaled Absolute; the group has grown to eleven companies across several states.
He has taught thousands of technicians and salespeople nationwide, and put his methods into a book, Brick by Brick: A Home Service CEO’s Marketing Guide to Build Your Brand One Block at a Time — a parking-lot startup’s playbook, written for the next operator starting from zero.
Sources
HVACR Business — “20 Questions with Victor Rancour”
EIN Presswire — “Victor Rancour’s Rocket Group Acquires Air Mechanix in Plano, Texas”
PHCPPros — “Rocket Group Founder and HVAC Industry Leader Publishes Brand-Building Book”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Steven Montgomery · Adeline Thomas