Episode Description
Every business has a story. But only some businesses hold people at the heart of the story.
For Brad Benoure, President of Benoure Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, the decision to join Empowered Ventures was deeply rooted in his commitment to the employees who helped build his family business.
In this episode, host Chris Fredericks, CEO of Empowered Ventures, talks with Brad about the journey from a small family business founded in 1966 to becoming the latest operating company at EV. Brad shares how his father’s legacy, his brothers’ involvement, and the loyalty of a growing team shaped the company’s path to success.
They discuss the transformative impact of employee ownership, the challenges of scaling a business, and the importance of staying true to your values during pivotal moments.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Honoring a Family Legacy Through Growth: Brad reflects on the history of Benoure, sharing how his father’s legacy and the dedication of his brothers helped build the foundation for a thriving family business.
- The Role of Employee Ownership in Business Transitions: Brad emphasizes how Empowered Ventures’ employee ownership model provides his team with opportunities for financial growth, security, and a shared sense of purpose.
- Scaling a Business Without Losing Its Heart: From adding new employees to tackling large-scale multifamily projects, Brad explains how thoughtful leadership and teamwork allowed Benoure to grow while maintaining its core values and focus on quality.
Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Introduction to Brad Benoure
(02:30) Brad shares the origins of Benoure Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, founded in 1966
(04:08) How Brad and his brothers took over the business after their father’s retirement
(07:01) Breaking into multifamily projects and scaling to 200–300 units per year
(09:40) Brad shares stories of long-term staff and internal promotions
(12:10) Brad’s search for the right partner and why he chose Empowered Ventures
(15:27) The impact of selling to an employee-owned business and prioritizing employees’ futures
(16:49) Announcing the sale: Brad’s nerves and the initial reactions from employees
(18:09) Addressing fears of major changes post-sale and gradual improvements under Empowered Ventures
(22:21) Preparing a strong business structure and leadership succession
(23:54) Brad’s commitment to his family business legacy and staying involved in its success
How to Listen or Watch
Listen below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Watch below or @Empowered_Ventures on YouTube.
Read the full transcript below the media links.
Episode Transcript
Chris Fredericks: Welcome to Empowered Owners, the podcast that takes you inside Empowered Venture. I’m your host, Chris Fredericks. In each episode I’ll have a discussion with one of our employees to discover and highlight their distinct personalities, perspectives and skills, while also keeping you in the loop with exclusive news, updates on company performance and a glimpse into the future plans of Empowered Ventures. This is an opportunity for me to learn more about our amazing employee owners and an opportunity for you to hear regularly from me and others from within Empowered Ventures.
Welcome to another episode of Empowered Owners, the community-building podcast about and for the employee-owners of Empowered Ventures. My name is Chris Fredericks and on today’s episode I’m talking with Brad Benoure, President and former owner of Benoure Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, which EV acquired in April 2024. In this discussion you’ll hear all about the company, its history, and how Brad ended up deciding to work with Empowered Ventures. Brad is such a genuine person and he has been an absolute pleasure to work with both during and after the acquisition process.
Chris Fredericks: One thing I love about my job is that I get to work with people like Brad who care deeply about the people that have helped them build a great company and make that a key factor in their decision-making process when it’s time to think about the next ownership situation for the business. With that, let’s get to my conversation with Brad Benoure. Brad Benoure, welcome to Empowered Owners. Appreciate you coming on. Most everyone listening in will probably know that your company that you chose to sell to Empowered Ventures earlier this year is the latest company to join Empowered Ventures. And we thought it might be fun for you to come on and maybe give everyone a chance to hear from you, learn more about the company and just get to know, you know, you and Benoure a little bit. How does that sound?
Brad Benoure: That sounds good. My father started Benoure back in 1966. I have three brothers, older brothers. All of us worked in the business. We took over Benoure from my father right around 1996 and we had one employee, and I think four vans and one pickup truck. So pretty small business. But my dad always, you know, had four to five guys. And as we got older, we all started working in the family business.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah. So your dad had it for 30 years before you guys took over?
Brad Benoure: He did.
Chris Fredericks: And did you and your brothers work in the family business even, like, as kids at all? Like, were you actually working in it at time, maybe working in quotes even at times?
Brad Benoure: Yeah, that was the, you know, lucky draw of having a father that owned a plumbing and heating business. We got to work for summer vacations, school vacations. So, yeah, we all started working, you know, probably high school summers. You know, I worked with my older brothers all summer and sometimes during school vacations, and, yeah, pretty much all family. Always working in the business. Yep.
Chris Fredericks: Did you ever have a thought of not going into the family business? Of curiosity?
Brad Benoure: Yeah, about the first year after high school, I. I had a lot of second thoughts of saying, do I really want to do this my whole life? And as you know, I got more experience, things came easier, and I said, well, this isn’t so bad now.
Chris Fredericks: That’s great. What ended up happening or transpiring that, you know, gave you and your brothers the chance to then take it over?
Brad Benoure: So my father obviously wanted to, you know, get done. He was in his mid to late 50s. He got diagnosed with a muscle disease. And he said, well, I’m going to start my retirement early. And he left us the business into a trust. And every year we got a certain amount. And, you know, I think probably about a year and a half after we took over, we actually started to get actual employees besides us working with us. And I think that’s really the turning point is when we started to get outside help in.
Brad Benoure: You know, my brother Robin started in the office, and probably three, four years after my brother Bob came into the office. And from there, you know, I’d say I was 28 years old, about 10 years into working, and I came into the office. So at that point, we probably had 10 employees. And after that, we really started to really start growing. I’d say right around 2006, 2007.
Chris Fredericks: In those early years, like, what kind of work was the business doing, and what led to the need to bring on real, you know, outside employees and for you and your brothers to kind of transition into an office. The business was growing at that point. What kind of work were you guys doing then?
Brad Benoure: Yeah, so we were doing a lot of service, a lot of, like, heating replacements, some additions, remodels in a few new homes here and there. And I ended up with Hergenrother Construction, who is really our first developer. I ended up meeting him through some mutual friends, I think we landed in our first, like, 35 unit development. And from there we, I think we picked up four out of the five major developers in like five years in Chittenden County. And that’s when we really needed to start bringing on lots of new employees to fill the roles of going out, roughing in taking over developments. So that was kind of the takeoff point.
Chris Fredericks: So that first 35 unit, that was probably a big deal. That probably felt pretty exciting to win an opportunity like that.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, I mean, like I said, we done remodels and additions in a few houses, you know, here and there. But, you know, that was a big turning point of also having to have, you know, more employees because, you know, instead of one, two new homes a year, all of a sudden they’re building five or six at the same time. And that’s when we really started to get new employees. And we still have some of those employees working for us today that started 30 years ago.
Chris Fredericks: That’s amazing. From that point on, like, how did things go? Just continuing to add more developers and more projects and just kind of steady growth from there. Or were there any other major inflection points in the business?
Brad Benoure: Yeah, so after we started working with the major developers, one of the developers was putting up a 30-unit apartment building. And that first apartment building cut our teeth into multifamily. So once I got a taste of the multifamily, we then started to bid other multifamily projects. And now we do anywhere from 200 to 300 units of multifamily a year. But it was, I think back in 2011 was the first multifamily that we did.
Chris Fredericks: And just for everyone, that’s kind of. This is a learning experience, too for some folks. When we talk about you, let’s say, getting a multifamily project X amount of units, what would be the actual work that Benoure would be doing in one of these projects?
Brad Benoure: Yeah, so we would do all the, you know, plumbing, the drainage, the water ventilation, heating system, whether it’s hydronics or cold climate heat pumps, rain leaders, large water heaters, large multi boiler systems that feed the whole building. We just finished up this summer our largest multifamily, which was 138 units.
Chris Fredericks: Wow. How long did that project take?
Brad Benoure: That took about 20 months from start to finish on our end.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah, that’s a long time.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, the guys are pretty excited to get out of that job site.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah, I can imagine. What else led to kind of other inflection points in the business over the years and things like that?
Brad Benoure: Yeah. So we also, once we started to get into the developments, we landed, I’d say, our first real custom builder, Red House Construction. And they became one of the largest custom home builders in the state of Vermont. They are from basically the northern to southern border. And from that we also started to pick up other custom builders. So now we have this kind of full circle of developments. Multifamily, still doing service, still doing heating equipment, custom homes. And then about two and a half years ago, we started a sheet metal division where we fabricate all of our own ductwork for custom homes, big ventilation, and multifamily units.
Brad Benoure: That’s kind of been the complete circle where we do everything now in any type of building.
Chris Fredericks: Makes a lot of sense. I assume there’s been quite a few different individuals that have come on board over the years that have also played a big role in just kind of supporting the growth effort.
Brad Benoure: Yeah. We have promoted two people from within our service. Manager Jeff Riel, Eric Lothrop, who is now our VP takes care of all the custom homes. Erin Reed came in. She is the lead estimator, project manager for multifamily and commercial. And Robby Hamlet came in and does all of our heating replacement, estimating and runs his crew. So we’ve had great success with new office help coming from the outside. My sister Krista has been with the business over 20 years.
Brad Benoure: She handles all the fixtures for everything from custom homes to track housing to all of our commercial billing. So Krista was a great asset 20 years ago and she’s still here with us. And we have great dispatchers, Grace and Crystal in the office to our shop guys, Tom and Nick, that maintain the shop and get the material out to job sites. But we also, over the years have had just excellent guys out in the field, foremen, apprentices. And, you know, I think we couldn’t do any of it without the people out in the field that gave as much effort to this business as if it was their own business. We have three guys that are almost 30 years with us, so that’s amazing.
Chris Fredericks: So I’m thinking back to that, what you said, 1996, three brothers and an employee. Is that what you said?
Brad Benoure: Correct. Three brothers and one employee? Well, there’s four of us total brothers with one employee.
Chris Fredericks: So then now how many people at Benoure today? Roughly?
Brad Benoure: We’re in the high 80s right now. Yep.
Chris Fredericks: Unbelievable.
Brad Benoure: That’s so cool with a need for more guys.
Chris Fredericks: True. Yeah. Well, congratulations. I mean, just obviously I’ve had the opportunity to get to know you a little bit over the last, you know, year and a half and the success of the company and the people you’ve surrounded yourself with. It’s a top-notch business. So congrats on all that success.
Brad Benoure: Yeah. If we wouldn’t be anywhere without the people that we have. And I feel like we just got a great group of people, a bunch of great builders that we work with as well.
Chris Fredericks: So that’s awesome. So at some point maybe you started thinking about the future, I guess, and what you want to do long-term. I guess eventually we ended up connecting. So tell me a little bit of the story of just how we ended up working together.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, I think I’ve probably received over the years maybe 2, 300 emails of we’re buying businesses, and we want to talk to you. And I ended up finally replying to one of them and said, let’s just see what they’re talking about. And I actually ended up knowing somebody at the Zoom meeting, and he called me probably a couple weeks after and said, are you really thinking about selling your business? I said, well, I don’t know, maybe, you know, and I think I sat on it for a couple months, and I said, no, Tom, let’s take a look at selling the business. Let’s see what who’s out there and put some feelers out. And he quickly brought some private equities to me, and we started chatting and it didn’t really feel right. I think it was what, September, Chris, that we first met in 23 in Essex. At the time I had been talking to two different private equities, and I met you and Spencer, and I didn’t really know anything about an employee-owned company besides typical employee-owned businesses. The owner sold it to the employees directly, and they became the owners over time of buying out the owner.
Brad Benoure: So you know, I heard your guys’ different program of you guys turn employee-owned and then started buying businesses. It really started to get my curiosity. So I think at that point, you know, maybe we’re in, like, October, early November and I had two different offers. You guys hadn’t even made me an offer yet. And I was watching a video. I don’t know if you sent it, Spencer sent it, or Tom, who was helping me with the sale. And I just remember listening to this lady in one of your, I don’t know if it was a podcast or just one of your videos that you guys sent over in listening to her talk about how coming to EV, working at EV and becoming an employee-owner and getting stock into EV, how it changed her life, how she never ever thought she could have retired before she came to EV. I remember literally getting goosebumps sitting there going, this would be absolutely the best thing for me and my employees rather than selling to a private equity and just thinking, boy, I hope Chris and Spencer want to buy the business. So I think in November, we signed an LOI, and I felt confident I was making the best decision at that point for not only me, but my employees.
Brad Benoure: Like, I really felt like I was not selling out my people selling to a private equity, selling it to an employee-owned business where they’d actually get part of not just Benoure of the whole EV of the other three companies, which I still today feel like that was the best move. I still feel today that my employees are better off now that I sold the business than me still owning Benoure Plumbing and Heating.
Chris Fredericks: Wow. It’s a very touching story and I’ve heard you tell a version of that before. But just the way you put that and just how much you obviously care about your, the folks that work at Benoure. That’s really amazing to me, Brad.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, Chris, I mean, like I said probably three times before already on this, I, without my employees, wouldn’t be anything. Our company, every company is based on the employees. And I just felt like I was doing the right thing at that point. I felt like I had brought Benoure as far as I could without having more support and bringing it into a larger, so I feel like Benoure joining EV will help it in the future, not only to grow, but to be a better place, better retirement, better everything for the employees than what I could give them.
Chris Fredericks: That’s awesome. So cutting a little bit of the end of the story, but we did end up kind of working together through that process. And Benoure did. We closed the deal, and Benoure joined EV on April 1st of this year, which was kind of fun. You and I did the announcement together. Obviously it was more your announcement than mine, but we got together with the team members, and they didn’t. Obviously most of the time folks don’t know what’s about to be announced. And how were you feeling when we were heading into that announcement just after closing the deal?
Brad Benoure: Well, you know, with my amazing public speaking skills, Chris.
Chris Fredericks: I think you’re doing great. Brad.
Brad Benoure: I was, you know, I was nervous. You never know how people are going to react. I don’t know what other people were thinking, you know, whether they’re expecting me to sell, whether it’s going to be a shock to guys and girls. I felt really nervous walking into that meeting or announcement. But after letting everybody know, you know, what had happened, explaining as much as I could about EV and the employee ownership. I think a lot of employees after, you know, felt relieved that it was sold to an employee owned business. Although they didn’t really quite know what EV was about yet. But I think it was overall fairly well received, you know, with the 80 plus employees.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah, I mean I think it was pretty typical, but in a positive way. Like my perspective being there is, it’s a shock for one. I mean it’s an announcement of something that’s a big deal for any employee when their company gets sold. But they seemed curious about the employee ownership to a large degree. Probably some skepticism, too, because can we trust these outsiders? You know, who knows? Is this really what it sounds like it is. So probably a wait-and-see attitude amongst a lot of the folks, too.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, I think a lot of them, most of the employees are like, oh boy, brace for the big changes that are coming. You know, I think that was the biggest thing is they thought EV was going to come in and change everything. And I think at the end of, you know, end of November it’ll be nine months and the only changes so far that their healthcare got better, their healthcare pricing is coming down. They’re going to get more towards their retirement than 3% that I was giving them. Hopefully they get close to what everybody got last year for–
Chris Fredericks: Quite a bit more, yeah.
Brad Benoure: So I think that they’ve all now have realized that EVs not coming in to change the world of Benoure Plumbing and Heating. Slow steps to, you know, building up the office staff and getting a better organization chart of how the company works. But we’re slowly working on improvements. But I don’t think anything changes overnight. And definitely I think they all see at this point, I’d say 95% of them both now know and believe there’s no big changes coming in.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. Because I remember hearing that a little bit like okay. And I think we even gave them a chance to ask questions like okay, what are the changes that are going to be coming? And, and I understand the believe it till I believe it when I see it kind of mindset. For sure. It has been fun from my perspective to work with you to just kind of as you alluded to beef up the off we you to collectively. We decided to bring in an accounting finance-type person into the business and Roger ended up joining. So can you tell a little bit about how we Ended up going down that path and how we found Roger and how that’s going.
Brad Benoure: Yeah. So I think at first we were thinking as COO to come in, and we changed course and we brought Roger, our finance director, Roger Naidu. So Roger’s been with us for, I’d say close to four months now. He’s taken some of my burden away of the financial piece of the business. Roger is a CPA. He’s building me spreadsheets with more information than I’ve ever, ever have seen from Benoure Plumbing and Heating. But Roger is actually working on just so many different projects. Super helpful, has a great business experience from working at other places.
Brad Benoure: It’s working on job costing to, you know, assisting with. You know, Roger’s kind of a more than just a financial guy. He’s helping with vehicles. He’s slowly taking some burdens off of me, which has been very helpful.
Chris Fredericks: So going forward. Well, I guess I want to. One thing I didn’t want to forget when you mentioned the announcement, it was very touching to me, again, being there, meeting some folks for the first time. After you made that announcement, you had a very long line of guys wanting to shake your hand and congratulate you. And I was like, it was striking to me, just that, I don’t know, the amount of respect and appreciation that I could sense in that. It was really neat to see.
Brad Benoure: Yeah, that took me back a little bit, Chris. I’ll be honest, you know, just not knowing how people are going to react and breaking the news that the business was sold that morning. And then after, you know, we got done talking and I would probably say two-thirds of the guys waited in this long line to say congratulations. And, you know, I think I introduced pretty much every single one of them to you and Mike at the same time. And it was really great to see them how they were happy for me. And I think they all knew eventually I was going to sell the business. I think it would have shocked them if I did. It waited another 10 years, but it was really good to see.
Brad Benoure: I’ll have them come up and shake my hand and congratulate me. And it was definitely more than I expected, for sure.
Chris Fredericks: So for the future for Benoure, we’re excited for Benoure to be part of EV. And maybe you didn’t specifically mention, but we intend to keep all the companies that join Empowered Ventures and so happy and excited for the company to be our fourth business. What do you see for the future for Benoure and also for yourself? You’re still continuing to lead the company today. And what do you see for the future?
Brad Benoure: Well, right now we’re working on, you know, getting a estimator that oversees the track housing for me and assists with the commercial and we’re working on getting a replacement to oversee the custom homes for Eric Lothrop. It kind of let me and Eric step away from being in the constant day-to-day estimating and running jobs and start to build a business plan for the future not being involved in the day-to-day, which I think, well, I know will actually help the business stabilize and continue to slowly grow. And obviously I would like to stick around and make sure everything I’d like to. I plan on staying until we have those people in place and Eric and me are in the background overseeing making a business plan to the foreseeable future. And obviously when I leave, there would either be a replacement president for me or Eric would step up to the president.
Chris Fredericks: So that’s one thing that also impressed me about you in this process is you’re just very committed to making sure Benoure’s on great footing. You’re not in a hurry to run out the door per se. So that I think that really speaks highly of back to your motives for even selling the business. Like you really care a lot about the employees and the legacy that you leave behind. So yeah, I just want to thank you for that.
Brad Benoure: It’s one of those things, Chris, I think I told you at the very beginning. You know, it’s my family name. It’s like my child. I’ve spent my whole life working and building and trying to make it the best plumbing and heating company for residential, like, commercial in the state. And I believe we are the best residential, light, commercial, plumbin,g and heating company in the state. And I want to stay and see it go off without me and you know, with it takes another two years. So be it. But I don’t ever want to walk into a restaurant or someplace in public and ever hear about how Panora isn’t doing well or their reputation isn’t what it used to be.
Brad Benoure: So plan on sticking around probably until you EV doesn’t want me.
Chris Fredericks: That’s hard to imagine. Well, Brad, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming on and being willing to share so much of your story, your family’s story and the business’s story and look forward to continuing to work with you on setting Benoure up for great success going forward.
Brad Benoure: Thanks, Chris.
Chris Fredericks: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Brad. Empowered Owners is a podcast by and for the employee owners of Empowered Ventures. Special thanks to share your genius for producing. You can find show notes and transcripts on our website at empowered.ventures. Full episodes are on YouTube @Empowered_Ventures. If you have a question for us about EV, our companies or employee ownership, contact us at [email protected]. You can also text or leave a voicemail at 317-643-2383.
