Today we’d like to introduce you to Brent Stone.
Hi Brent, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am the manager of the Collin County location of Carpet Tech. Carpet Tech is a family-owned floor care and restoration company. Our shop is located in Prosper.
I joined Carpet Tech pretty much right out of high school. One of my buddies was already working for Chet Pharies, Carpet Tech’s owner, when the company was just starting out in Lubbock. They needed help, so I showed up and talked to the owner for a few minutes, and he threw me a shirt and said get after it. That was almost 20 years ago.
The longer I have worked for Carpet Tech, the more I love it. In 2003, our owner Chet Pharies ran a rig with a handful of crew chiefs. Today, across 6 locations, we have over 200 employees and over 100 vehicles.
I started out just learning by riding with the crew chiefs. I would do a lot of administrative work and odd jobs for Chet as well– things like painting buildings and building fences, whatever was needed, I did.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’d been at Carpet Tech for about seven years when we decided to expand into the Permian Basin. I was offered the opportunity to open and manage the new location. My family and I moved to Odessa and saw great success growing Carpet Tech in that market. In 2016 we moved to McKinney to tackle the biggest challenge of my career– establish Carpet Tech’s presence in the DFW area.
I left a full shop and fleet in Odessa that I’d helped build from the ground up. When I got to McKinney, we had a lot of work to do. We weren’t ready to have a full shop yet, so it was a big change to manage with a smaller crew and limited resources. This location is the furthest away from our corporate headquarters in Lubbock, which meant we weren’t able to share resources as I had when I was still in West Texas.
Establishing Carpet Tech in Collin County meant we had to completely revamp our operations, routing, and processes due to the geography of this new metropolitan service area. Over time, we slowly but surely started implementing new procedures, new processes, and new services and just kept pushing and growing every day.
But the speed at which we were growing created another set of challenges. Keeping up with demand, managing equipment, and staffing is ongoing. But at this point, we needed a new, larger facility. As you know, finding an area to buy a new shop or build a new shop is a pretty big task in this area. Currently, we are located in Prosper, our second or second shop in this area, and have outgrown it.
Finally, after years of searching, planning, and preparing, we purchased land in McKinney and are building a brand-new, state-of-the-art 12,000-square-foot facility that will allow for growth. The new building will have a full-size, full-fledged state-of-the-art rug operation. This new rug plant will allow us to handle a larger volume and allow us a quicker turnaround time for our customers. The new facility will also allow us to grow and maintain our fleet and enlarge our team of technicians. We will now be able to expand services and better meet the demand of our customers in the McKinney area. The new shop is located at 409 Powerhouse Street and is projected to be complete by summer 2023.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Carpet Tech started from humble beginnings and a heart for service. Chet and Melinda Pharies own the West Texas-based company, which has grown over almost 30 years to six locations with over 200 employees.
Carpet Tech cleans all floor types, air ducts and is IICRC certified for emergency flood and fire cleanup and restoration.
I think the biggest thing that sets Carpet Tech apart from others in the industry is our quality of service and our quality of people. The number one thing that we focus on company-wide is what we call CT Quality. We work extremely hard to find team members to become a part of our culture so that we can pass the knowledge, training, and skill set needed in this industry to set ourselves apart.
A lot has changed in the 20 years I’ve been with Carpet Tech, but we still hold strong to our standards, never losing sight of the importance of quality. I think we have been able to maintain the culture of quality because we live and breathe it not just at work but at home and in our everyday lives. We have the opportunity to raise young men in the company and teach them good values and morals. We want good people, not just, not just good workers. We want to see our technicians grow, we want to see them succeed, and we want them to do big things within the company and in their personal lives. We really push the importance of having good character and treating people the right way.
The Carpet Tech brand is about who we are, not just what we do. We clean carpets and air ducts really well, but the way we work together as a team is what makes us strong. Whether it’s a work-related issue or a personal matter, we all pull together and help one another. We do this in the community as well. We believe strongly that our success is largely based on the trust and loyalty of our customers, and so we feel it’s important to give back when we can, whether that be a small personal act or a company-wide service initiative. We are good at pulling together and doing whatever we need to make it happen. You won’t ever hear, ‘that’s not my job’ at Carpet Tech. It is always about what needs to be done at the time.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I always lead from the front by setting an example. Whether working the after-hours jobs, pulling the extra shift, or covering for others, I’m the kind of leader who jumps in first, figuring out where we need to go, what we need to do, and just getting it done.
Chet Pharies, who started Carpet Tech with a single van working out of his garage, taught me. He is my example. Chet was always at the front of the pack. He always had the most knowledge of the situation; he always was willing to do the most demanding work, pull the long hours, and just whatever it was, you know, whatever it took to get the job done. He was never a boss; he is just part of the team as our leader.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carpettech.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callcarpettech/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carpettechcollincounty
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuTiZXxkbfUpPIg0PgJaiJQ
