By Jennifer Workman

The history of Home-Tech reads a bit like a legend from an

earlier time. The tale goes something like this: “Once upon a time, a young man

and his family moved to a land of opportunity. In this new land, they created a

business. They were patient and worked very hard. Soon, their hard work reaped

rewards. The business began to grow and grow and grow. Perhaps even more than

the man had ever imagined. Before long, the business had expanded throughout

the new land. As time passed, he was able to share his good fortune with his

employees. And everyone lived happily every after. The end.”

While no business story really reads just like a legend, the

Home-Tech story does come very close.

It was in 1980 that Steve Marino moved from Cleveland to

South Fort Myers. He’d come here on vacation and decided this would be a better

place to live. He brought with him his family and the air conditioning and

major appliance service training he’d received and set out to start a new life.

He put his training to work beginning in August 1981 when he and his wife

Sharon established Home-Tech. They operated the business from a back bedroom in

their San Carlos Park Home. He was the technician, she the dispatcher.

Today, the company employs 106 full-time people. It operates

in five Southwest Florida counties — Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Sarasota, and

Manatee — and has offices in Lee, Sarasota, and Collier. The company, which

Marino says is the area’s largest provider of home service agreements, provides

air conditioning service and installations, major appliance service and sales,

plumbing service and sales, and electrical service and sales. Basically, if you

need a service, a part, or even a refrigerator, Home-Tech can provide it. And,

Marino has equipped the business with an apprenticeship program and a training

facility. The training room features every imaginable home appliance, including

the kitchen sink. It has an outdoor and an indoor air conditioning unit simulator

that can simulate 18 different problems. Marino, with the help of one other

person, spent eight months building the simulator. “Most companies don’t put

time, effort, and money into training,” he says explaining that he feels

training is crucial to providing quality service.

Along with the in-house training and current services, new

services are on the way, as is a new headquarters building. But, that’s just

the service side of the business. Home-Tech also has its own art department

that produces a quarterly newsletter for customers and has developed a

federally registered trademark — Techster, a cartoon technician — that appears

in the newsletter. In addition to the newsletter, the art department does the

lay out and development of the Home-Tech ads. The art department is

complemented by a mail room that can easily handle direct mailings.

The company, it seems, is growing like a magic beanstalk and

Marino, though he says he never expected such a success, thinks he knows why

his business sprouted so well.

According to Marino, the first step to business success is a

good business plan. He says the Home-Tech plan is very practical. “It’s not

dreamy ... not a fantasy,” he says.

Once your plan is in place, Marino explains that you must

believe that, with your practical plan, you can succeed. “You have to believe

in what you’re doing and believe in the people doing it for you,” he says.

Marino clearly believes in his employees. In fact, since

1995 he’s given them ownership of the company. Home-Tech is a true

employee-owned company and is run by a board of directors made up of seven

stockholders. Marino says much of the success comes from the fact that the

owners are the ones providing service to the company. Because they have

ownership in the company, they have a vested interest in seeing it succeed.

“It’s such a simple principle that most business owners overlook,” says Marino

who describes himself as very detail-oriented. “Ultimately, if you own it,

you’ll take better care of it.”

It is a principle that Marino, as the company founder, takes

to heart, and has incorporated in the company philosophy: “Providing quality

service is a matter of attitude and training.” He says that nothing creates a

greater positive attitude in people than does accomplishment and building

success.

Most business owners, explains Marino, don’t want to share

ownership of their companies. But, he says giving ownership to employees is the

best way, with good salaries and benefits, to keep the best employees. “It is

the highest form of compensation and you get the best results,” he says.

The way it works at Home-Tech is simple. To earn ownership,

you must be with the company for at least three years. Stock is awarded in

varying quantities based on performance and position. There is seniority stock

that is earned when you reach four, five, seven and ten years with the company.

Then there is position stock that you earn if you reach upper-management levels

with the company. And, because the dividends are paid quarterly, it makes for a

nice bonus.

In addition to the stock, the salaries, says Marino, are at

the high end of the industry scale. There are also annual company trips,

cruises and formal Christmas parties where employees receive pins and awards

for service.

Running the company this way is an investment and that is

reflected in the Home-Tech rates, but Marino believes the customers think it’s

worth it because it brings them a higher level of service. “We’re not the

cheapest service in town,” says Marino. “We never have been. We charge what we

need to charge to pay people what they deserve and to make a modest profit.”

Marino’s philosophy must be right because the company, which

has kept a number of customers since opening in 1981, has been steadily growing

since the beginning when Marino had a second job delivering newspapers to make

ends meat. Home-Tech hired it’s first employee and then moved into its first

building, and current location on U.S. 41, in 1983. In 1988 the company opened

a Naples office. Service expanded to Port Charlotte in 1991 and Sarasota in

1992. Next year, the company will celebrate its 20th anniversary. And, this

year, the growth continues as construction begins on a new 52,000 square-foot

regional office building in South Fort Myers. The new building will be right at

home on the corner of Plantation Road and Daniels Parkway on Techster

Boulevard.

Marino is obviously very proud of his business, but he’s

also careful not to let his pride get the best of him. “I want the company to

be well-known,” he says. “But I don’t feel comfortable flaunting the success.

Being too full of yourself is the beginning of the end,” he says. Marino says

that company owners and founders who get too full of themselves and think they

can do no wrong begin making mistakes and end up losing the company.

“Successful companies have a way of self-destructing after a period of time,

and I want to make sure this company doesn’t.”

Marino and the Home-Tech board have gone to great lengths to

protect the company’s longevity and commitment to service. The company remains

the largest independent home-service business in the area, says Marino, because

the board refused to sell to a large consolidator. Marino said the board felt

it was important for the company decisions to be made locally. With a young management

staff and plans to expand services, it looks like Home-Tech has a good chance

of being around for at least another 20 years.

As for Marino, even though some of the long-standing

customers still ask for him, he’s retired from the road and doesn’t make

service calls anymore. He spends most of his time on the operations end of the

business. Sharon retired last year and her bookkeeping and records position was

filled by one of the couples’ two daughters, Sonya, who was a CPA at a big six

accounting firm, but decided she’d be happier at home in the family business.

Marino’s glad to have her and says it’s always good to have family around him,

a belief that’s illustrated by the collection of family pictures hanging in his

office.

While sitting at his desk in his carefully decorated office,

Marino says he never really expected to be where he is today. “I don’t really

think you start out intending for your company to be so big ... it was always

one step at a time,” he says. Behind him on the wall hangs a framed excerpt

from a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song that reads, “Just a song before I go, a

lesson to be learned, travel twice the speed of sound, it’s easy to get

burned.”

Marino must be traveling at just the right pace.