Starscapes home-based business opportunity

THE PERFECT FIT

PIPE DREAMS

Hardworking plumbers turn a low-cost startup into a $35 million empire.

By James Carlson

Al Vecchione and Larry Martino, partners for over 25 years, friends for life. A dream come true.

An essential part of any building is its plumbing and heating. From small dwellings to commercial skyscrapers, there is a need for plumbing work. Filling that need led two friends into an entrepreneurial venture that changed their lives.

Al Vecchione was an apprentice plumber attending night school to learn plumbing, drafting and plan reading. When he completed apprentice training he was offered a job teaching welding at the school. That is how he met a student named Larry Martino and their friendship soon became a business partnership. They worked together for a contractor for a while and then decided to start a plumbing business of their own. That was when they both decided to leave their jobs and go into the plumbing contracting business for themselves.

Al Vecchione and Larry Martino, partners for over 25 years, friends for life. A dream come true.

In 1980 they became partners and formed a corporation. A lawyer suggested they pick a name that began with A so that they would be listed first in the phonebook. They merged their names and ALMAR Plumbing and Heating was born. Their initial start-up investment was six thousand dollars. They worked out of the back of a plumbing supply warehouse, using an old door across two cardboard cartons for a desk. They had two workers and two trucks. From home, Mr. Vecchione’s wife Annette took care of the billing, accounts receivable, union reports, insurance and payroll.

“The hardest part of getting started was leaving a salary,” both Mr. Martino and Mr. Vecchione admitted. “We were confident in our ability but taking a salary from our profits was a concern. We made 29 thousand dollars profit, in our first year but only took $300 a week in salary when we started out.”

One of the keys to ALMAR’s success is knowing that they had to put as much money back into the business as they could. It is a goal the partners agreed on and maintained all through their success.

In less than a year they moved to a rented space in a garage/service station in Queens, New York. They had four employees: two plumbers and two helpers and together all six of them did commercial alterations—not residential jobs like fixing leaky sinks but bigger commercial work. ALMAR never advertised. Jobs were acquired through recommendations.

Mr. Vecchione recalls the time and energy he and his partner Larry Martino put in. “We went into work at 6AM in plumber’s work clothes and at the end of the workday we cleaned up and changed into business clothes to meet potential clients in the evening.”

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