Today we’d like to introduce you to Todd Mayo
Hi Todd , we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started Apparatus with my brother. I had just moved back to Texas in 2013. I was playing music full-time in an alt-country band. Money was very tight and I started repairing coffee machines and refurbishing vintage motorcycles on the side. Over the next couple of years it turned into something more than I had anticipated. I had picked Apparatus as the name because I wanted it to encompass the moto and the coffee machines. The coffee equipment repair has taken on a few different evolutions. The motorcycles is now just a fun thing for us. Leading up to Covid, we had expanded from Fort Worth to servicing multiple cities: Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and College Station in Texas & Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro in North Carolina. During Covid, we pulled our resources back to just the DFW area and refocussed our efforts here. We have built out a training and science lab to study all things coffee. We have gotten to make trips to origin and work with farmers. Our main focus has continued to be service oriented. We really aim to improve the quality and performance of our customer’s equipment, process and performance. We represent the high end brands in roasting equipment, coffee brewing, and water filtration.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s not been easy. I did not really set out to build a corporation. However, once we had a team of wonderful people, I had a responsibility to provide an excellent workplace for our people. The service business is very challenging. It is hard work and long hours and often customers are very stressed when their equipment is not functioning properly.
The rising cost of fuel and the manufacturing delays during and following Covid caused a massive challenge for our customers, competitors, and our ability to repair machines in a timely and affordable manner. We continually focus on maintaining our core values:
1. Humble Confidence
2. Improve Daily
3. Always be helpful first
4. Do the right thing
5. Do what you say
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Apparatus, Inc.?
We sell and service all things coffee related. We focus on hand-made, high-end equipment.
We like to keep it very simple. We really love people and coffee and want to be known for excellence.
Our Core focus is to build a great company with great people doing excellent work. I think that definitely sets us apart. We love to be involved on a very personal level with our customers. Ideally from the time they create their coffee shop, we can help them with the entire process:
1. procuring the best equipment,
2. sourcing the best beans or roaster ( depending on whether they want to be a roaster or buy from a roaster )
3. collaborating on recipe development and training
4. maintaining equipment and water quality
5. always improving
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in Granbury, Texas in a small lower middle class neighborhood. It was a mix of small houses and mobile homes close to lake Granbury. The houses were spread out and we had little trails and woods throughout the neighborhood. I spent most of my time building forts, climbing trees, and riding bicycles. I always exaggerate and tell people it was a rough neighborhood. That’s not really true. We had the occasional fist fight and someone would go home crying but for the most part it was great. I did well in academically but was not one of the cool kids until my junior year in high-school. I had a profoundly Christian spiritual experience while at a mountaineering camp in Colorado. It impressed on me that I was not the center of the universe as I had previously thought. It was in conflict with my desire to be popular and cool and pushed back against my delusions of grandeur. Strangely, this come to Jesus moment coincided with me being elected student body president. All of a sudden I had the popularity I wanted but also I felt this urgency to be kind to others; especially the marginalized. There were cool kids and not-cool kids. Who decided the groups? I didn’t know but I wanted to change it. I wanted everyone to be kind and found myself very frustrated by cruelty. I was not able to solve this during my one year presidential term but did make some progress. I went onto Texas A&M where I played club soccer, majored in Kinesiology with a specialization in Outdoor Leadership, volunteered at a church and learned to play the guitar. After college I worked as a backpacking guide and taught outdoor education for a year. I also drove a bus in Jackson, Wyoming. I spent most of 1997 in Washington DC. I was not encouraged and mostly abandoned political aspirations. Bottom line – I’ve always been a happy, fun-loving aspiring intellectual Christian people pleaser.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.apparatustx.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apparatus.tx/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@apparatustxcoffeetechnicia8806
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6RdVmUyAJW7hCvesPwA9YR?si=Ie5yFDbLTHatJYFl3O4a7g
