The Crout & Heller Painting Services, Inc. core team (from left to right): Monty Cates, Todd Trigg, Dave Davidson, Barbara Brown, Blake Sickler, Dan Russell and Tim Crout (kneeling).

All interior and exterior painting services for the Crown of Downtown Gilbert, the Heritage Marketplace, were provided by Crout & Heller Painting Services, Inc. for LGE Design Build.

It isn’t surprising that Tim Crout would end up as the Owner and CEO of Crout & Heller Painting Services, Inc. (Crout & Heller). He’s been climbing the ladder since he was a teenager in Michigan, occasionally going to work with his father who was a building maintenance supervisor and also accompanying him on weekend jobs painting homes and hanging wallpaper. Tim’s dad taught him the tools of the trade. “He wouldn’t let me touch a paintbrush for the entire first year,” Tim says. “All I did was watch and learn and mask and cover.”

After graduating from high school in 1980, Tim spent a few years trying out different jobs before returning to his painting roots in 1984. “Little did I know (when I was a teenager) that I was learning a trade that would carry me through life,” he says. Tim has been in the business ever since, honing both his skills and passion for the work, first owning a small painting company and eventually landing a job at OPTCO Painting (OPTCO) in Apache Junction, Arizona, where he spent 16 years.

In 2002, Bruce Heller, one of Tim’s co-workers at OPTCO, approached him about starting their own painting company together. “Bruce came to me with an investor who was willing to back us,” he says. Tim was hesitant; he preferred the field to business and had formed a bond with his boss at OPTCO, Allen Kauffman, who was like a brother to him. Deciding to speak to his boss about the opportunity, Allen told Tim that he controlled his own destiny. That comment, along with assurance from Bruce that he would run the business side while Tim continued to work in the field, sealed the deal. “After putting thought into Allen’s comment, I felt that moving on to my own company was the only choice to fully controlling my destiny.”

According to Dan Russell, Crout & Heller General Manager, a large part of the company’s success has been a willingness on Tim’s part to stay agile—adding services when the need arises and maintaining a diverse client base with a repeat business rate of about 75%. “Quite a few of our clients have been with us since we started in 2002,” Dan says.

For the first six years, the business remained strong, focusing on residential work. But when the recession hit in 2008, Tim saw the need to branch out. Thus, the first evolution of Crout & Heller took place. “Tim knew that he had to get out there and change things up to keep the business going, so we expanded into the commercial market,” Dan says.

These days, commercial and institutional projects make up approximately 60% of its work and include retail, hospitality, casinos, banks, offices, schools and automotive. “I keep saying we’re blessed, and I truly believe we are because we’re extremely diversified. We’ve done hotels like the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa…we’ve been in a contract with the City of Tempe for over 10 years…and we’ve probably painted about 40 stores for Kroger,” Tim says. Although the majority of Crout & Heller’s commercial work is on tenant improvement projects, the company also works on new construction. “If you can put paint on it, we can paint it,” Dan says.

This isn’t to say that Crout & Heller has lost its affinity for residential work, which is largely supported by custom homes and large-scale subdivisions. In fact, some of Tim’s favorite projects are for custom homebuilders. “Homes are very rewarding, because of their size and elaborate details,” he says. “You can take more time with them.” Crout & Heller is currently working with Lifestyle Homes on a project called The Villages at Pebble Creek, a 184-home subdivision for the Empire Group, LLC. The project is located in Goodyear, Arizona, and is a new concept in the area, providing single-family rental homes.

Crout & Heller’s next evolution came in February 2019 when Tim saw the need to expand into drywall and metal framing. “Builders in the commercial arena prefer to work with one sub for multiple services,” he says. To stay competitive, he knew that it was time to branch out again. That’s when Dan joined the company. “I’ve been in residential construction for 25 years and dabbled in commercial construction as well,” Dan says. In 1992, while Tim was still at OPTCO and Dan was at Pulte Homes, the duo worked on a project together and formed a friendship. Flash forward 28 years, Tim approached Dan about joining the company. His partner, Bruce, had left Crout & Heller in 2013, and Dan’s drywall experience combined with a background in business management were a perfect fit for this new endeavor. Dan says that remembering how Tim operated in the past when they worked together was a big factor in his decision to join Crout & Heller.

“We fought to survive, and we have. We keep moving forward, and that’s all part of having a great team,” Tim says. The company has refrained from marketing drywall and metal framing services for the time being, in favor of a slow and steady rollout. “We are offering it to the builders we’re working with right now, trying to take baby steps with a couple of big jumps initially,” Tim says. Those big jumps include a remodel of Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino in Maricopa, Arizona, including 120 guest rooms, the Fort Mojave Convenience Store for the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe (FMIT), and Anya itpak Pre-K & Elementary School also for the FMIT. Crout & Heller worked with A.R. Mays Construction on the school, designed by DLR Group and, according to Dan, felt a great sense of pride when the project was complete. “It was so much fun seeing the excitement of the kids coming out of a modular building into a full-scale school,” he says.

Crout & Heller’s willingness to adapt has served them well, but if you ask Tim what sets them apart most, he will tell you about his staff. “We are about 50-people strong and we are blessed that the majority of the team has been with us for over 10 years, some since we opened in 2002,” he says. “That longevity creates project teams that diligently stay ahead of issues and understand the importance of persevering until every detail is right.”

Dan agrees that the staff is key. He also offers another perspective. “Our company lives and breathes with Tim. He’s our heartbeat. He leads by example and sets the tone for how we’re going to operate. He’s got such integrity and that carries over to the rest of his crew. We certainly want to live up to his name as we perform our day-to-day operations,” he says.

In appreciation for the company’s success, the team at Crout & Heller likes to pay it forward. “We’ve done Christmas in April, Habitat for Humanity, food drives, refurbishing houses for families in need, and park improvements with the cities of Mesa and Tempe,” Dan says. Currently, they are working with Concord General Contracting (Concord) on VALLEYLIFE, a nonprofit organization that provides services to people with disabilities. “Concord reached out to us to provide painting services, and we volunteered to do the project at no charge,” Tim says.

Crout & Heller’s client-centric approach has resulted in several awards over the years, including an Excellence in Subcontracting Award in 2017 from Concord, the Bill Lunsford Award from the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America (PDCA), now the Painting Contractors Association, in 2014 for “personal and professional skills that further the PDCA,” and a Success Award from the Arizona Small Business Development Center Network in 2006.

To further the family environment that Tim and Dan talk about, the company is located in a renovated home that is now part of a commercial district in Mesa. The administrative team operates in an office without walls for transparency and to keep the lines of communication open.

According to Dan, this has created an atmosphere of trust, and the group of people truly enjoys each other’s company. “It’s just a great place to work and it’s all because of what Tim has created,” he says. “What’s the old saying about ‘if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life?’ Well I guess I haven’t had to work for a year and a half.”