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Chad Peterson at the top of his game
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I graduated from Angelo State in 1990 and was fed up with school and wanted to go straight to work. I was 24 years old and tired of school. I had worked with a landscaping contractor during school part time and went full time after school until the chances for advancement had pretty much played themselves out. It was at this point that I had my only time of unemployment, and that was two weeks. I took that time to relax, play with my dog and go to the lake to think what to do next.
A short time after my brief vacation, a man named Al Thomerson from Topper Company walked in to my father in law's bank and asked around about somebody needing a job. My father in law put him on the phone to me. He said that he worked on windmills, and I had no knowledge of them myself, having lived in the city all my life.
The man said that he would be leaving that Sunday to make a big circle through Del Rio, Bracketville and one other stop and will be back in a week, and he asked me if I wanted to go, and I said yes, immediately.
I went home, packed my bags and off we went Sunday morning. The first job we did on a scale of 1-10 would have been about a 9+, and I worked right through the project, from climbing the tower to lowering the old busted machinery at the top to sending the new unit up to the top and installing it. I knew nothing about any of this, and it was very, very frustrating, but I got through it. I had no qualms about being up high on the tower though, or hammering away at the hard work. The rest of the week went well, and I decided that this would be a good job for me.
I worked there for 5 years for Mr. Thomerson. He got his start over in Ozona and had been in the
business for over 35 years, and was at the time probably the most knowledgeable windmill man in the country. If you were to ask him a question about windmills, he would have a real world, experience based answer, not an answer out of a text book.
This is where I was trained, and I do everything the same way with a few additions of my own to advance the process. This apprenticeship is what made me who I am in this business. Every windmill has its own personality and problems. After my 5 years apprenticeship, I decided to strike out on my own and went to the bank, borrowed a little money, and bought one of Mr. Thomerson's service trucks.
He was nice enough to let me work out of his shop with my own name, Concho Windmill, for about a year.
At this point, a friend of my wife offered to let me store my equipment on her property, which I did for about a year and a half, and then found a 5 acre lot in 1997 where I built a shop and fenced everything in. 5 years later I built a home for my family on the same property. Here we are in 2009, doing great, lots of clients, lots of fun, and a life I wouldn't trade for anything. There's always something to do, and we have about one client per day. We take a day off the hard labor when it rains. This is when we do our paperwork and get ready for the hands on work that will always be there when the rain goes away. The farthest we've been out to do an install toward the east has been Mississippi and toward the west we've been all the out to California.
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Photo Coming Soon
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Joe Rocha
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Joe Rocha came to the company in 1999 the and has been the other half of the business ever since, even though he has his own work in the city now. Joe is always there though, and still spends a lot of time around the shop and is always involved the business. Joe is one of the main reasons I am in business today, period.
One thing about this business, it requires dedication and constancy. You can learn how to do this job pretty well and maybe to a few jobs, but having all the knowledge available to you and ready to go whether it's a good or bad day, and to be able to deliver on that promise of quality 365 days a year, that takes personality traits that hardly any one has. I have been blessed with those traits, and look after my customers accordingly. |
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