a2z Supply - Stevensville, MT
“She was the brains and I was the brawn,” said Brian Hoornbeek, who started his first company, Celebrity Audio Video, in Glendora, Calif., in 1992, but quickly branched out after meeting his future wife Maribel.
Together with Maribel’s father, Meno, Brian and his wife purchased two Chem-Dry Carpet Cleaning franchises and began operational expansion from the first seconds after ownership. After moving the businesses to more spatially accommodating facilities in 1995, they sold Celebrity and explored another service, creating and opening Shine Janitorial, which contracted building maintenance.
Going a very insightful step further, they started another company – Shine Facility Supplies, a new branch that sold janitorial, packaging, material handling and safety supplies to existing clients as well as other companies.
“We built these companies rapidly and averaged about $2.1 million in 1999 and 2000. By then we had about 75 employees,” Hoornbeek said. And that was just the beginning.
While Maribel managed all the businesses, Brian took to the field, getting at the grassroots services of their companies – cleaning, delivering supplies and working sales – while collecting accolades from the Azusa Chamber of Commerce Business of the year, to California State Senator Hilda Solis, State Assemblyman Bob Margett and Assemblyman Martin Gallegos.
Bamcorp was born in 2000 in California. The headquarters were moved to Stevensville, Montana in 2001. With Maribel as the 51 percent shareholder and Brian holding 49 percent, and things really ignited. So in May 2001, the Hoornbeeks sold their Shine companies and focused on the business of Bamcorp – an online source and resource for supplies spanning the industrial and material handling and safety supplies.
Seemingly never content, Brian formed a2z Supply in 2007, making it an affiliate of Bamcorp.
“a2z does a similar type of business as Bamcorp, except I focus specifically toward the government, utilities companies, and especially VOBs (veteran-owned business) and SDVOBs (service-disabled veteran-owned business),” Hoornbeek said. My goal is to become their source for all industrial and safety supplies helping them meet there SDVOB and small business goals through federal contracting incentive programs for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.”
Combined sales of Bamcorp and a2z Supply, an SDVOB, were $800,000 in 2007 and in 2008, combined revenues have been averaging about $100,000 per month.
Hoornbeek started as a radioman aboard USS Crammelin (FFG 37) and served in the Navy from 1988 - 19992.
“I’m not the kind of guy to just sit around and do nothing,” he said. “I took over the general message file system by developing a new tracking database. I researched and drafted an SOP (standard operating procedure) for unsecured voice circuits. While stationed on USS Mount Vernon he was awarded the Mount Vernon Patch Award for exemplary performance.
Even if it might appear that Brian Hoornbeek is an “all work and no play” kind of guy … he isn’t.
“I like to spend time with my family,” he said. “My daughters – Alicia and Cecilia, and my wife are my priorities, after God first. Work is last, but not least, since without my faith and my family, work would not be possible.”
Although Brian Hoornbeek fully attributes his successful business ventures to his faith, there’s more.
“I’ve been in business for myself for 16 years and I’m still kicking,” he said. “It’s been tough, but it’s also made me tough. I started with no capital, no education, and no mentors – nothing but my strong will to succeed.” But then, of course, there’s Maribel.
“She is a remarkable businesswoman,” Brian said. “I could not have done any of this without her; she is a true success story.”
Written by Jack Gordon