Master plumber Charlie Avoles has owned St. Paul Pipeworks, a Little Canada-based plumbing company, nearly 20 years.
Initially, Avoles co-owned the business with Dave Kerr, who had been the owner of Park Hardware in St. Anthony Park.
Kerr suggested he and Avoles combine to start the plumbing business together, and this idea led to the founding of St. Paul Pipeworks. Avoles bought Kerr’s share of the business after about five years.
Avoles grew up on St. Paul’s East Side and attended Concordia Academy. After spending two years at Concordia College in Chicago, he completed his degree at Macalester College in St. Paul.
After graduation, Avoles was a high school teacher in South St. Paul for three years, teaching speech, theatre and English.
Meanwhile, his father had a successful and growing plumbing business, and Avoles helped out during summers. In 1972, he left teaching to join the family business full time.
Prior to starting St. Paul Pipeworks, Avoles took a ten-year break from the plumbing trade. During that hiatus, he was a business consultant and spent six years with NexStar, a national best practices association. He also did private consulting for four years along with pro bono work.
As a small business owner, Avoles wears many hats. Besides technical plumbing knowledge, which takes years to acquire, it is also essential to learn all of the necessary business skills including marketing, sales, accounting, payroll and taxes, he said.
St. Paul Pipeworks is unique in the industry because it usually sends out two plumbers for each job, Avoles said. One is an experienced journeyman plumber while the other is an apprentice who is learning the trade.
Good customer service is essential in Avoles’ business. Appointments are made with two-hour windows. Before leaving the previous job, one of the plumbers will call the next client to provide an updated arrival time.
Avoles’ plumbers carry as many parts as possible in their trucks. “We believe in taking care of our trucks,” he said. “We have five times the inventory of a regular plumbing truck. The guys restock every day.”
If a part is needed which is not in the truck, someone from the shop will deliver the part to enable the on-site plumbers to continue working.
Most of St. Paul Pipeworks’ clients live within the Interstate 494/694 loop, including St. Anthony Park, where Avoles has resided with his family since 1972. He is well known in the community so word of mouth continues to be an important marketing tool, he explained.
Marketing is an ongoing challenge, however, since there is always the need to replace clients who move to senior housing or leave the area.
Although residential business accounts for most of its sales, the company also does some commercial work for restaurants, churches, schools and condominiums.
Over the years, the biggest change in plumbing has been with the type of materials used. When Avoles started in the business, lead was still being used for the waste and vent side. Steel pipes were used for water delivery until copper became popular in the mid-1960s.
Avoles said being a business owner has been satisfying because he is able to help people fix house maintenance problems or undertake remodeling for them. He added it’s been rewarding to guide younger employees to become journeymen.
Now stepping into retirement, Avoles is planning to transition the business to the next generation of workers. Currently, his shop has three managers (Tony Avoles, Phil Quinlan and Keith Leverton) who are running the day-to-day aspects of the business.
In his spare time, Avoles enjoys playing golf. He and his wife, Marge Avoles, are active in their church where they have each held leadership positions. They have been married 56 years and they have two sons. One is a mortgage underwriter and the other works in the family business.
Regarding St. Anthony Park, Avoles is all in. “This has been a wonderful place to live. Our kids could walk to school and the neighbors care about each other,” he said. “We are very invested in this neighborhood.”
Janet Wight is a regular freelance writer for the Bugle.
