When Jacinto Andre was in trade school in Danbury, “it was much easier on the soccer team to say Jay than Jacinto, so I stayed with it.”
More recently, “Jay” has been shortened to “J,” as in R and J Electrical Contractors ”“ a business that began with a handshake five years ago when Andre teamed up with Rich Gustavson (the “R” in R and J) to start their own commercial and industrial contracting firm. “It”™s been that way ever since,” said Gustavson, “business and partnership on a handshake and nothing more.”
R and J”™s start was almost literally a spur-of-the-moment decision. Both men were working at Losito Electrical Contractors in Bethel, Andre as a foreman, Gustavson as general foreman. Andre had been with the company for a dozen years, Gustavson for 13, and he thought he would retire there. “Once you work for somebody that length of time, you know you could never work for anybody else again,” Gustavson said. “The next logical step would be to open my own company.”
That logical step came unexpectedly in 2002 when Mike Losito, the company”™s founder, told Gustavson he”™d be easing himself out of the company”™s day-to-day operations. “That was it,” Gustavson said. “That night, on my ride home, I said ”˜I guess that”™s the end of the run.”™” At dinner, he told his wife, Patty, that he”™d be leaving Losito. “She was a little bit shocked,” he said. “She asked me when I”™d be leaving, and I told her that today was my last day.”
After dinner, he phoned Andre to tell him his decision. “I said, ”˜What do you think about coming to work for me?”™ and we struck a partnership deal over the phone that night,” Gustavson said. “The next night, we got together at my house and talked it over even more, and we shook on it.”
The handshake was after Gustavson told Losito he was leaving the company. “”˜When I walk of out this office, I won”™t be an employee anymore, I”™ll be a competitor,”™” he told Losito. “It was probably just as shocking to him as it was to me and my wife, but it was just like some kind of destiny, just the next logical step.”
When Gustavson left Losito”™s office, “I went straight to the printer for business cards, and to the American Motors lot in Danbury to buy a bucket van and a regular van, and sent them over to the sign company.” He spent the rest of the day visiting potential customers. “It was a pretty wild day,” he said. “That morning I woke up like any other morning, but by the end of the day I had a partnership, business cards, vehicles, a plan, my wife working on all the insurances we needed to open the business, and money.”
That money, by the way, came from a $60,000 line of credit Gustavson and his wife had just taken out for an in-ground pool at their Sherman home. It turned out to be startup money for the new business.
A better future
Gustavson, now 45, admits he wasn”™t much of a student as a teenager, skipping Danbury”™s traditional high school classes ”“ “School and me did not get along very well at all” ”“ for the city”™s new Alternative Center for Education in 1978. His preference was to attend Henry Abbott Technical School, but the trade school “was very crowded at the time,” and he had to take night classes instead. “I knew I had to go into a trade,” he said, his decision to be an electrician influenced by some friends who had chosen that trade.
He began working for a series of six electrical contractors in metro Danbury before he joined Losito in 1989. “Whenever I think of my career, I think of being three years there, four years there.” he said. His last employer left the business to become a commercial pilot, and he determined he wanted to work for Losito. “I was out of work at the time and actually had two other offers, but I was holding out for Losito because I knew he”™d be better for the future.”
Losito, however, wasn”™t interested. “He had already hired two or three guys to get his company up and running and really didn”™t need anybody,” Gustavson said. “I called him two or three times, and he said he has my resume and when he needs somebody, he”™d call me. I said, ”˜Look, I”™m going to come to work for the day Wednesday, and you”™ll either hire me by the end of the day or not and don”™t pay me.”™” At day”™s end, Gustavson had a job, one that lasted 13 years until he left to create R and J with Andre.
Best chances
Andre, now 36, took a little different route to the partnership. He was born in Portugal and came to the states with his parents when he was 9 on July 5, 1980 on a TWA flight into LaGuardia. “My mom”™s brother had come here and became a citizen, and sent for us to have a better life,” he said. “We lived in a real small farming community and my parents elected to take the challenge and come over.”
The Andres settled in Danbury, with Jay entering the third grade accompanied by a translator. “I didn”™t speak any English, but I only needed the translator for the first year,” he said. His decision to attend Henry Abbott and study for the electrical trade had a lot to do with love, of all things. Andre and his wife, Kim, “were dating pretty much since the seventh grade,” he said. Kim”™s father was a Henry Abbott graduate, “and I guess I wanted to impress him.”
Love aside, “my parents never really had a lot of money, and I knew they couldn”™t afford for me to take any college courses,” Andre said. “I was more of a hands-on person rather than getting involved in a lot of studies anyway, so I knew my best chances in making something of myself would be to get into the trades.” And “electricity also fascinated me, the way you can plug something into the wall and make it work.”
He graduated Henry Abbott in 1990 and went to work for Losito, where Gustavson was his supervisor. “I pretty much learned my trade from him,” he said. He became a foreman four years later, “and ran work on my own for a long time and was a second right hand for a lot of Rich”™s jobs.”
Then, Gustavson “called me up one night,” Andre said. “We pretty much came up with an agreement and started our business that night.” The two were more like brothers than friends, he said, and “I knew that a handshake was all I needed to start the business with him.” Kim, he said, “was shocked.” She was a stay-at-home mom, and “I was the only provider, and had a stable, sound job and was making decent money.” But “she stood behind me and believed in me in anything I have done.”
Another adventure
Now entering its sixth year, R and J Electrical Contractors is stable and growing. Andre runs the field work out of the company”™s 2,000-square-foot building in Danbury, while Gustavson and his wife run the office out of their Sherman home. “By our second year, we were running with probably 10 employees and from there we went up to 15,” Andre said. Given the vagaries of the marketplace, that number has slipped a bit to 10, but “we have some pretty decent accounts and good-sized jobs to keep the guys going.” During the next five years, Andre said, “we would like to get up to 15 or 20 employees and chase some of these larger commercial buildings, either new ones or for remodeling.”
“I was convinced this was going to work,” Andre said of the handshake partnership. “Rich and I both came from the same background, struggled in years past and overcame that. Knowing that we both came from pretty much nothing and made it in life, we knew it was going to be another adventure and that we were going to beat it.”
