Company: Martins Maintenance
Owner: Manuel Martins, Sr.
Location: 487 Waterman St., East Providence
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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Employees: Just under 100 full-time
Year founded: 1973
Type of business: Janitorial services
Annual revenues: $2 million
Manny Martins, Jr. got his start in the family business riding around on his father’s floor scrubber. Of course, he was a small child at the time.
"When my dad started, we used to live in South Providence in a three-tenement house and he kept all the machines in the basement," he said. "My dad used to work a lot when I was a kid. That’s when I saw him, was when I went to work with him."
Today his responsibilities at Martins Maintenance have increased significantly – he runs the company – but Martins said he’s still available to run the machines if needed.
It is not uncommon for him to work 14-hour days, and Martins said he is on call 24 hours a day in case of emergencies. Martins spends part of each day driving around, checking on accounts, and said his wife doesn’t even mind – she goes with him.
Over the past five years, the younger Martins has grown the maintenance services company his father started out of his South Providence basement to a $2 million a year business.
Today, with its own offices and adjoining warehouse in East Providence, Martins Maintenance has grown from a staff of four or five to nearly 100 employees, serving industrial and retail companies throughout New England.
Martins explained the growth as simply "every year I would pick up a few (accounts), but I wouldn’t lose any. It’s like saving pennies – after a while, you have a whole jar full."
Martins said his father – who emigrated to the United States from the Azores with his family in the 1950s – never advertised his services and was hesitant to hire too many extra people.
"I never saw my dad growing up," Martins said. "He always worked."
The time they did spend together, as the junior Martins got a little older, was on maintenance jobs, where he learned the trade.
And Martins said the business courses he took after high school (at North Scituate High) served as inspiration as he became increasingly involved in the company his father started when he was just a toddler.
"Until four or five years ago, we were still working out of his garage in Scituate," he said. "This was my dad’s dream – to have a little building and a little garage."
Anna Martins, wife of Martins Sr., said that her husband’s heart trouble last year forced her son to take on even greater responsibilities.
"He’s done a fantastic job," she said. "He’s a very hard worker. I’m very proud of him. We both are."
Whereas her husband is a little on the shy side, she said, her son is outgoing.
"Manny came in with his ideas – he would go for it. His father just gave him the reigns," she said.
Anna Martins called the company "a family project. It really is . . . My husband has worked very hard. My son works very hard, my daughter. It’s a family thing – we stick behind each other."
Today, at 53, Manuel Martins, Sr. still is active in the family business, but is semi-retired, living a few months out of the year in Florida.
"I love it, though," said his son. "This is what I always wanted to do – to see him relax. I feel like I owe it to him…I look up to my dad a lot because of what we went through. He’s enjoying life. He’s done a lot for our family."
Martins’ sister, Judy Amaral, also has a role in the family business, keeping the books, but Martins insists family business does not mean family drama when it comes to making decisions.
"We rarely butt heads," he said. "I think he (Martins, Sr.) respects me as much as I respect him."
Ever the optimist, Martins sees the slower economy as an opportunity to gain more accounts as companies review their spending and try to get better deals for services such as maintenance.
But that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been challenges along the way. Martins said that his young age – he is 27 – has sometimes made customers skeptical.
"They don’t think that you can handle it, maybe because that’s what they were like," he said.
Still, Martins has managed to gain new customers and build the business. He credits his dad with instilling the company – and himself – with the "old school" values that he feels have made the business successful.
"You can’t just go ahead to the future without some of that," he said. "(The business/client relationship) is an honest relationship. My word means everything to me. You can’t keep everybody happy, but you can try your hardest."
And Martins feels that one of the best ways of doing that is to handle the company’s sales and service calls himself.
"Customers always deal directly with me," he said. "It’s a family business, and I believe my customers see that in me. We’ve formed a bond."
It’s a bond that oftentimes began with the senior Martins.
"My goal is to keep customers for a long time – some of our accounts, they go back 25 years ago," he said.
Eventually, Martins wants to add light construction, painting and landscaping to the company’s offerings.
"I want to keep expanding," he said. "I want to hold that family tradition in this business. I don’t want people to feel like they’re dealing with a large corporation – I want them to feel like they’re dealing with a family business, because they are."
