- [Bill] My dad bought this property in 1976,
and this was his American dream.
And it just evolved into the business that I have today.
(dramatic music)
The house I grew up in was actually on this property,
and this right here is the water well
that supplied water
to my original house that I grew up in.
The house was in the middle of the parking lot,
and we needed all this parking.
We needed more shop area.
You know, in 2003, I tore the house down.
It was kind of bittersweet.
You know, tearing your house down that you grew up in
is kind of, feels kind of weird, but the natural progression.
The original property had a little 30 by 40 shop
where we're standing right now, 30 foot by 40 foot,
and this was his American dream,
having the house on the property, the shop in the back,
just a perfect scenario for what he envisioned.
Over the years, I grew up, took some interest in,
well I was forced into taking interest into his craft,
welding, fabricating, I never knew at the time
I would take it to a couple notches up
and take it over to the automotive side.
This side was pretty much built out.
The next step is just building a new shop.
I wanted a little showroom, and I wanted some more work area
on the other side of the property.
So there's already a slab there from my mom and dad's house,
so we traded out a job, got another slab,
started building and just go down to Steel Supply
and take the truck down there, load it up in the back,
come back and get after it.
There was no plans,
no architectural drawings or anything like that.
There was a guy across the street, Ilo,
14 years old is a good time
to really start learnin' a craft.
I could see he was interested
in what was goin' on over here.
C'mon man, you doin' anything right now?
He's like, "nah."
I said, "You know how to drive a forklift?"
He's like, "nah."
I's like, "C'mon man, I'll show you how to do that."
I got him to come over and help me that day.
I had a forklift, a pallet, and a weld machine on the pallet
and the 14-year old kid behind me
that's never drove a forklift before
driving me around, lifting me up,
yellin' down at him from the top of the forklift,
"It's that lever right there, pull it towards you."
And him lifting me up and driving me around,
and I'm up in the rafters welding those things together.
He's turned into a really great guy,
really great welder, fabricator, and he's still with us,
kickin' ass right now.
(electronic music)
The property here, it's evolved, and it's still evolving.
(Male talking in background)
Yeah, all this. - [Male] Okay.
- Yeah, there was nothin' here,
I mean we're up to about,
almost 20,000 square feet right now.
The shop is just really blown up over the years.
We were constantly having backlog.
We constantly need more area to put things.
You can see just from the trusses here.
Everything is built, you know all the uprights,
all the beams, all the pilings, and everything,
you see some of 'em are mismatched.
You know, it's just whatever we had layin' around
just get up there, lift yourself up
with a forklift with the welding machine and get after it.
(dramatic music)
You know this is just the distinguishing part
of a huge memory in my life.
Still signifies a lot of me growin' up
on the property and everything.
Of course we have the Texas flag on top,
just a cherry on top.
This is where it all began and still kickin' ass today.
(bluesy music)