For Bobby Jenkins, ABC Home and Commercial is part of his family history and future. The second-generation business owner grew up working at the pest control company originally acquired by his dad in San Antonio in 1967.

In 1983, Jenkins moved north to Austin where he had eight employees. Jenkins said 20 years ago, no one knew Austin or Central Texas was going to be what it is today, but over the years, he has continued to grow the local, family-owned business to over 950 employees that serves the Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Bryan-College Station and Rio Grande Valley areas.

“I’m a big believer in and fan and student of multi-generational businesses. It’s about sustainable, long-term, multi-generational businesses that give back to the community and are part of the community,” he said. “We want to grow and expand but we want to do it right: by focusing on our people, our customers and our community.”

Jenkins said in a world where everyone is selling their businesses to private equity companies, he takes pride in the fact that ABC is a local, family-owned business. Among larger companies, there is a place for ABC to not only compete, but do a better job, he said.

In an effort to do more for their current customers, ABC continues to expand its service offerings from pest control to all home services such as fertilization, lawn mowing, tree and landscaping services. The company also offers air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, pool, appliance repair and water quality services and plans to add full service to all branches of the company.

“​​We got it in our heads that we’re not just AC, pest or electrical—we’re a service company,” Jenkins said. “I’ve looked and I can’t find a business in the country in the service sector that has the breadth of services we have at ABC.”

Jenkins’ portion of ABC has branches in Austin, San Antonio, Bryan-College Station, and Rio Grande, and he said the goal is to add all services to all branches of the company. In addition, ABC offers a unique value proposition for its customers because they can use one vendor instead of seven or eight different companies.

“It’s a unique model and it's not been an easy model,” Jenkins said. “We’ve skinned our knees and stubbed our toes quite a few times in this journey, but I am proud to say that every single service we provide we deliver at a very high level of quality and customer satisfaction.”

ABC’s tagline is “a specialist for your environment,” and Jenkins said the goal is to communicate to customers that the people who show up for each service are the most highly skilled technicians the company has to offer.

“The company as a whole can do everything, but the individuals themselves are the ones who are specialists,” Jenkins said. “They’re 100% full-time ABC employees.”

ABC has branches across the state and Jenkins said he has a brother in Houston and a brother in Dallas. There is no common ownership between the brothers, and he said this allows each of them to build their businesses freely. Jenkins has a son, daughter and son-in-law working in the family business and said it is a huge part of the ABC story and company culture.

“It’s a really unique family business model and we’re as close as brothers can be,” Jenkins said. “Both of my brothers have the next generation working in the business, as do I. We’ve gone from first-generation to second-generation and now we’ll try to transition to generation three.”

For more information about ABC’s services and the 12 branch locations, visit the website.

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