Successful entrepreneurs usually exhibit certain characteristics, vision and drive being principal ones. Add patience to the mix and you describe Chris Reynolds, co-owner with wife Jennifer of two businesses in Woodland, California — Hall’s Plumbing and Total Trenchless Supply.
Like many self-starters, Reynolds grew up in humble circumstances and learned early on about hard work and working smart. He was 22 years old and working as a house painter when he was persuaded to become an employee of Hall’s Plumbing. He had a plan.
“I have always been able to foresee possibilities and see where I could get ahead,” Reynolds says. “Soon, at Hall’s, I told myself, ‘I am going to run this place.’”
He subsequently always said “yes” to the owner and did whatever he was asked to do, sometimes working 16 hours a day.
“At one point, I decided that I was going to buy Hall’s and make it bigger,” Reynolds says.
After eight years, he did. The firm did about $12 million in business in 2024.
Two years ago, Reynolds launched a second corollary business, Total Trenchless Supply. It is founded on twin pillars of supplying Perma-Liner products to trenchless contractors and offering them professional training in the various trenchless processes. Total Trenchless Supply is growing, too.
Reynolds attributes some of his success as a businessman to “trials and tribulations” experienced as a boy and young man. The experiences developed in him the ability to set goals and confidently work toward reaching them. It is the helpful characteristic of patience that he says he has finally grasped, knowing when and when not to exercise it.
“I do wish that I would have learned a little more patience earlier,” Reynolds says. “I think I could have helped more people.”
Conversely, he has also learned that it is possible to be too patient.
“I keep people around, always trying to help them. My brother Jason had to tell me, ‘You’re working harder for them to be successful than they are.’”
Reynolds says he is finally OK with letting people work out their own futures.
Referring to patience and an auxiliary characteristic, perspective, Reynolds talks obliquely about a fairly recent managing mistake in one of the companies that was pretty costly. Five years ago, he says, he would have been upset. Now, Reynolds says, he has a firmer grasp of “the bigger picture.”
“I’ve made mistakes that cost us, too,” Reynolds says. “As long as a mistake doesn’t bankrupt the company, I’m OK. We can move on.”
Read more about Total Trenchless Supply in the March 2025 issue of Cleaner magazine.
