Pedro
Aguilar is the CEO and founder of AM Exteriors. Pedro immigrated to the United
States in 2001 from Honduras, spending eight months in Los Angeles before
moving up to Seattle. In Los Angeles, Pedro worked as a laborer on stucco
projects. As he mastered stucco, Pedro also took up plastering during his short
time in California. Before year’s end, Pedro decided to move up to Seattle to
join family. In Seattle, there was little use for Pedro’s skills in stucco and
plastering so he went to work as a laborer in siding construction. For Pedro,
this was an exciting new challenge – learning and mastering a new
profession, despite the comparatively low pay.
Within
three years, Pedro was an assistant superintendent. However, he soon reached a
crossroads with his employer and decided to go off on his own, founding Aguilar
Siding in 2005 with his brother Dennis. In 2011, the company changed the name
to AM Exteriors. Since then, Pedro has expanded within the siding construction
industry and without, into real estate investing and development. Meanwhile,
Pedro’s brother Dennis, has branched out to start AM Contracting.
We
recently caught up with Pedro to see how he’s been doing, and to talk about AM
Exterior’s success story and ABC of Western Washington’s (ABCWW) support over
the years.
Tell us about how AM Exteriors
came to be and the challenges along the way.
I
decided to part ways with my employer and decided to go at it alone. At first, I
was afraid of the unknowns and the uncertainty. My brother and uncle were
working for the same company at the time, and I asked them to join me. They
left with me and together we started what today is AM Exteriors.
It was
definitely hard at first. There were two main barriers for me. First was the
language barrier. I was taking ESL classes and constantly learning, but still
struggling. Communication was a big challenge in the beginning. I’m still
learning and perfecting my English today, but it took hard work and it was a
challenge. Second, I didn’t know many people in the city that I could do
business with or connect with clients through. At that early point I was doing
everything by myself. Administration, estimating, marketing… as many small businesses,
I had to do everything. My small apartment was my office back then.
How did you first become involved
with ABCWW?
Three or
four years ago we began to hear about all the great things ABCWW was doing in
supporting small businesses like ours. Jason, our chief operations officer,
first introduced us to them. Jason really brought to my attention all the ways
ABCWW could help us and make us stronger as a business. Some of my team
attended training programs like ABCWW’s Rising Stars program and other classes.
We have been really impressed with the resources that ABCWW has to offer across
many different areas of business. It has been incredibly helpful to us.
We
learned so much from ABCWW. They would even lend space for when we would need
to have a staff meeting. They’d offer educational resources for all our
employees at their facilities. Those resources have been a big benefit to us.
The connections we’ve made through the organization have helped as well. It’s
great to have a group of people that support you, a group that you can rely on.
What benefits of ABCWW membership
have had the greatest impact for AM Exteriors?
Safety
is definitely an important benefit to us. One of the great things about ABCWW
is that they are very responsive, they are willing to come to the job site and
give us their expertise. They tell us what we’re doing right and where we’re
going wrong – bringing in experts to help us better our safety and
protection procedures is important for our employees, the Washington State
Department of Labor and Industries (L&I), and our general contractors.
That’s been very valuable and we’ve been quite happy with that.
What
ABCWW does on the policy and legal side of things is also important. They keep
us informed about the latest laws and regulations, and tell us how it can
impact small businesses like ours. Plus, ABCWW’s Retro program has been great
for us. Thanks to it we get money back – it’s a good way we can help our
employees, either investing it back into safety and the company or compensating
our workers.
The
value we have gotten, especially recently, has been immense. From the start of
COVID-19, ABCWW has been really proactive. I participated in a few video calls
that helped us understand the guidelines. There were so many questions and
unknowns, especially in construction, but they were there when we needed it and
gave us information that prepared us to starting working when we could again.
What does it mean to make
something beautiful and how does that impact your approach to work?
When you
have been working for many months – sometimes there are projects that last
a year or even two years – completing a project is one of the most
incredible feelings. The feeling of making the city or the neighborhood more
attractive, more beautiful, is incomparable. In our line of work, we get to
contribute to making something beautiful. Helping build houses or apartment
buildings, for example, where someone will live and have a great place to raise
their family – that’s why we do what we do.