This year, A.G. Williams Painting Company reaches 120 years in business, and I have been thinking about that number more than I expected to.
Four generations of my family have been part of this company. But when I look around A.G. Williams today, I know this anniversary belongs to a great many more people than the Williams family.
It belongs to everyone who has worked here, represented our name, taken care of a client, and helped us move forward. That is what I want to write about.
Four Generations of One Family
My grandfather came through Ellis Island from Greece in 1904 as Arthur G. Ratsikas. Two years later, he hired his first employee, founded this company in New York City, and took the name Williams from the Sherwin-Williams paint he used and the clients already trusted.
He could not have known what A.G. Williams would look like this far down the road. He could not have imagined the size of the projects we would take on, the equipment and technology we would use, or the number of people who would eventually become part of the company. What he did was start something our family had the chance to continue.
My father’s generation carried it forward. Then my brother Arthur and I had our turn. Now I get to come to work and see the fourth generation involved in the business.
As a father and a grandfather, that means a great deal to me. There is something particular about watching your children take an interest in something that has been part of your family for that long.
George Jr. and Nick grew up around A.G. Williams, but they are not here because of a last name. They have jobs to do. They have responsibilities. They have to earn the respect of the people they work alongside, the same as anyone else. And they are helping decide what this company becomes in the years ahead.
That is the way it should be. Every generation gets handed something, and then it becomes their job to take care of it and leave it better for whoever comes next.
A Family May Own a Company, but a Team Builds It
Our name is on the trucks and on the building. A.G. Williams has never been built by our family alone.
Hundreds of people have had a hand in this company. Career painters who got up early and headed out to a job. Field supervisors who took responsibility for the work and for the people doing it. The people who walked through homes, listened, and wrote the proposals. The people in the office who kept everything organized. Managers who handled problems most clients never knew existed.
Some joined us early in their careers and stayed for decades. Others spent part of their working lives here and then moved on to something else. All of them are part of these 120 years.
I think that gets overlooked when people talk about a family business. A family may own a company, but a team builds it. There is no A.G. Williams without the people who have put on our shirt, driven one of our trucks, walked onto a client’s property, and understood that they were representing all of us.
That has always mattered to me, and it still does.
The Rule My Grandfather Left Us
My grandfather ran this company by one rule: employees first, yourself last.
He meant it literally. During the Depression, there was almost no work to be had, and he kept all 12 of his employees on the payroll anyway. Through that decade and two world wars, this company never laid a single person off. Neither did my father’s generation, and neither have Arthur and I.
That is not sentiment. It is the reason people stay. When the financial crisis hit, we kept working, and we hired painters whom our competitors had let go. Some of them are still here. A company that holds on to its people in a bad year is a company that has experienced painters standing on a homeowner’s roof in a good one.
Some People Become Part of the History
One of the things I appreciate most at this point in my career is looking around and seeing people who have been here a long time.
You go through a lot together when you work alongside someone for years. Good years and difficult ones. Large projects and hard ones. Clients you never forget. Mistakes you learn from. Changes in the company, and changes in your own life.
You watch people get married, raise families, buy homes, take on more responsibility, and build careers. That creates a bond you cannot manufacture.
I have always wanted A.G. Williams to be a place where someone can come to work, learn something, get better at what they do, and build a good life for themselves and their family. When that happens, I am proud of it.
The older I get, the more I see that those relationships are one of the best parts of building a business. You start out thinking about jobs and sales. Eventually, you understand how many lives end up connected through the company.
A Family Business Has More Than One Family
There is the Williams family, and then there are all the families connected to the people who work here.
I think about that too. Everyone who comes to work in the morning has people at home depending on them. When the company does well, that creates opportunity for a household, not just for an employee. We take that seriously.
Then there are the families we have worked for. Most of our work each year comes from people who have hired us before. You painted the parents’ house years ago, and then one of their children buys a home and calls you. That is the clearest signal I know that we did the work right the first time.
So when I think about 120 years, I do not see one family tree. I see a great many families whose lives crossed paths with this company: employees, clients, friends, business partners, and neighbors in the towns where we have worked for decades. They are all part of the anniversary.
Standing Behind the Work, Then and Now
The thing that has carried this company through four generations is not complicated. We do the preparation properly, we protect the house, we cut the lines by hand, and we tell you the truth about what we find.
We are not perfect. When something is not right, we come back and fix it, whether that is next week or two years from now. Our residential painting is backed by a 5-year warranty on workmanship, but the warranty was never the reason people called us back. The willingness to return was.
Every generation of this family has understood that a paint job is judged years after the crew leaves. That standard was set long before I got here.
What I See Today
I am proud of our history. I am more proud of the company I get to see when I come to work now.
My brother Arthur and I are still part of it. The fourth generation is here. We have experienced people leading important parts of the business and younger people learning and taking on more. And we have painters in the field every day doing the work that decides what our name means to the person who lives in that house.
There is something satisfying about seeing all of those pieces at once. At 120 years, you understand that you are part of a much longer story. There were people here before you. There are people standing next to you. And there will be people here long after you.
This Anniversary Belongs to All of You
Mostly, what I want to say is thank you.
To my family, including the generations before me who gave Arthur and me the chance to carry this forward. To Arthur, who has been beside me through nearly all of it. To George Jr., Nick, and the generation now taking their turn.
To everyone who works here today, and to everyone who worked here before and helped get us to this point. To the spouses and the families who supported them. And to the clients who have welcomed our people into their homes, their businesses, and their properties year after year.
One hundred and twenty years is worth marking. But what I am proudest of is the number of people who can look at this company and say, “I was part of that.”
That is what this anniversary means to me.
George P. Williams Sr.
A.G. Williams Painting Company
