From the pages of In Business magazine.
Sometimes a story just needs to be told, and that’s why this one about a hardworking family replaces the usual On The Job feature this month.
It all began with a chance encounter with Tomas “Tom” Contreras, 61, in April. IB had written an article about him decades earlier, he noted, and what began as a cordial discussion about a family business developed quickly into a fascinating tale about a Mexican-American man driven to provide for his family.
To be clear, Contreras, the owner and founder of T.C. Carpet Care on Fair Oaks Avenue, never asked for this story, but after revealing heartfelt tidbits of his past, it became clear we needed to tell it.
Proud papa
“I was born in Mexico, and in 1964, when I was five, my parents had documents and we crossed into the U.S. legally and went to Los Angeles,” Contreras explains. By the age of 13, he was working 13-hour days seven days a week picking crops in the fields with his parents and earning about $1.25 an hour.
“Back then, there were a lot of families doing this,” Contreras recounts. “We lied about our age so we could work to help out the family. It was normal for kids my age to be doing this.” They followed the work and the growing seasons, picking anything they could, from cherries and corn, to asparagus in the state of Washington, and grapes for the Gallo Winery in California.
It required uprooting the family — a lot — from school to school and town to town. “In 1980, we got contracted by the Oconomowoc Canning Company in Sun Prairie,” Contreras says, an opportunity that brought them to the Madison area. He worked double shifts, 18 hours a day until he and his brother found jobs as translators at Fort McCoy for recent Cuban refugees. “It was something different,” Contreras says, but this job, too, was short-lived. When it ended a few months later, Contreras headed to Texas for a construction job. This time though, he knew he’d return. “I liked Madison a lot,” he says. “It’s a beautiful city.”
True to his word, the family moved back in 1982. His eldest daughter, Carmen, was five years old and it was time to settle down. “I didn’t want my kids to jump from school to school like I did,” Contreras says. Every day, the young children were taxied across town to school while their father found jobs wherever he could. Eventually he’d be hired by a local business as a carpet cleaner.
Two years later he ventured out on his own, established his own clientele, and five years after that, he purchased his former company.
What motivated him? “All I could think of was that I wanted to send my kids to college,” Contreras says.
He’d later purchase Pro Carpet of Dane County, as well, which he still owns. The two companies now employ about 100 employees in the summers, their peak season, and support about 55 people year-round. Six years ago they started a painting division, AAA Painting LLC, and all are doing well, he reports.
What’s the secret? “Hard work,” Contreras says. “No magic. Get up and do it. Be reliable and honest. That’s it.”
Never in his wildest dreams did he think he could be successful as a business owner, Contreras relates, tearing up. “I had a chance, and my kids went to college. We’ve always been a tight family and all helped each other out. Now our grandkids are the next generation and they won’t have to go through what we went through,” he says, his voice cracking. “That’s good! I’m proud that we all contributed.”
He was driven by the American dream. “Buy a house, drive a nice car, have my kids well dressed, take vacations. All the things I would see in movies …” his voice trails off. “I’m just happy I was able to do it. I knew it would be hard work, but I didn’t care. I just wanted us to have money in the bank so we could help other family members, too.”
And so they did. Now his three grown kids run three family businesses with help from extended family members, and he helps when he’s in town. “They’re doing a great job,” Contreras says. Meanwhile, he travels back and forth from Mexico with his wife, spending most of the year in the home he was born in 20 minutes south of Laredo, Texas. It’s his grandparent’s house, he reports, and he’s proud that he could purchase it after they passed on.
Contreras admits that the real reason he and his wife stay is the cost of health insurance, although the weather doesn’t hurt. As a steady, cold rain falls outside, he smiles. “When I left yesterday it was 102 degrees!” His wife Carmen concurs. Her husband had some health issues a few years back and without insurance, the cost of his health care here could have wiped them out, forcing their hand.
Family, including extended family, is key to the company’s success. “We’re always together,” Contreras says. “When I was first interviewed by In Business magazine, I only had one machine and was asked what my goals were. I knew back then that I wanted to start more companies. That’s what I’ve done, and what my kids are now doing.”
(Continued)
Lessons learned: Generation two
Carmen Contreras, 39, their eldest daughter, was named CFO of T.C. Carpet Care in 2013. Her sister, Sandra, 36, is the office manager, and their brother, Tomas Jr., 33, recently joined the family business as an estimator after serving nine years in the U.S. Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
“With the exception of Sandra, we all have the same names,” Carmen laughs.
This family laughs a lot.
“The plan was for the three of us to take over the businesses so our parents could retire,” she explains, “and that’s what’s happening.” The company now does painting, carpet installation, janitorial, biohazard and construction cleanup, landscaping, and snow removal, and the kids recently opened a new convenience store, Sofi’s Spot, in the Roundhouse Apartments on Langdon Street.
“My dad started off just cleaning carpets. He had one machine and could only dream of owning a van one day. Now we have seven truck-mounted machines plus many portable units, and we’ve added several divisions.
“If people ask if we can do something, we find a way. That’s how it starts. We want to keep adding services because there are only so many carpets you can clean. That’s how you grow a business,” Carmen states.
The company’s territory includes southern Wisconsin, including Madison, Janesville, and Milwaukee. Its client list includes “hundreds” of commercial clients, including some of the largest names around, from UW–Madison to Oakbrook Corp., to Steve Brown Apartments and the Lucky building. T.C. Carpet also cleaned the turf at Camp Randall Stadium.
The family’s second generation is pursuing their own dreams now, and nothing seems insurmountable. Franchising the Sofi’s Spot convenience store may be the family’s next venture, but if that doesn’t pan out, there will surely be others, because ideas flow as freely as smiles in this family.
“We’re all entrepreneurs at heart,” Carmen says, “and always dreaming and thinking about what we can do next.”
Their perspective is certainly unique. She remembers the cucumber fields and her parents leaving before dawn and returning after dark. She remembers getting on a bus and being transported to a migrant camp school. She remembers arriving in Madison, when the Hispanic community was tiny and the only school with an ESL (English as a second language) program was Lowell School on the near east side.
“We know what it feels like to struggle and have people turn their backs on you,” Sandra pipes in. Sandra handles the hiring, and enjoys giving others a shot. “Being a cleaner is not the greatest job in the world, but it’s a job, and every job is honorable.”
In the past, she’s hired homeless people with a desire to work, or people who just needed to get over a financial hump for a couple of weeks. The company has even provided rooms for a select few.
“We had no money and no car,” Carmen remembers of her childhood in Madison. “My dad would ride his bike to work in winter and come back with a frozen beard. When he finally could afford a car, it had a hole in the floor and he had to use a two-by-four board to keep it from rolling away,” she laughs.
Her dad’s decision to give up the fieldwork was difficult for him. “It’s what we do,” Carmen says, “and goes on from generation to generation. We still know people who do that. When it’s all you know, it’s hard to take the risk, but he would not give up. We’re so proud of our parents! They taught us the value of hard work.
“We’d get mad and cry but I know now that they were just teaching us life lessons. Sandra and I spent many summers cleaning toilets and dirty apartments so that we could earn money for school clothes, and we were perfectly happy with that. We were never given one privilege above anyone else, and now we’re passing those lessons down to our kids.”
Their mom, Carmen, didn’t know any English when the family first arrived in Madison, so she’d listen in on her children’s ESL classes and practice daily. At her husband’s urging, she found a job at Rayovac which truly accelerated her learning curve.
Meanwhile, her husband — now grandfather to a potential third generation in the business — continues imparting wisdom.
“I’ve learned that everyone has the opportunity to be somebody, but not all of us make the commitment,” he says.
“If you fall down, get up! That’s what I teach my kids. You’ll make mistakes, but learn from them.”
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