ABOUT
Our Business
Ok, so we don’t have a cool and interesting back story about our business and how we started. We just thought it would be great to be able to do the kind of work we wanted, with the freedom of making our own decisions and the flexibility of working for ourselves.
The journey hasn’t always been easy and at times we’ve made the wrong decisions. Sometimes we’ve even made the same mistake twice! But we’ve been in business now for over 10 years and are seriously enjoying it.
Fast forward to now and we've developed some great client relationships that we have nurtured which in turn allows us to continually grow.
Our qualified plumbers pretty much have experience in all aspects of the plumbing industry and can undertake any kind of plumbing project.
While we pride ourselves in this extensive experience, and it’s important when we recruit new people they have a broad range of skills and experience, we do however primarily focus on 2 core service areas. This enables us make sure we are specialising, rather than generalising.
While we occasionally do work for domestic clients - friends, family, friends of friends, family friends, friends of family friends, VIPs we’ve met along the way – usually we work only in the commercial maintenance plumbing space.
Our Management Team
Chris
Chris is the straight shooting, tells it like it is, heart and soul of the business. His experience spans over 19 years in commercial maintenance (reactive and preventative) plumbing in both the commercial and domestic spaces. Boring work stuff aside…….we asked Chris to give us an insight to what makes him tick.
Being a small business owner and operator it comes without saying you work crazy long hours each day, 7 days a week, but what do you enjoy doing when you are not working?
Simply spending time with my wife Mary and daughter Alex! Whether we are hanging out at home, spending time doing sometime fun on the weekend or with our friends or extended family, being with my girls is the most important thing to me.
What’s one thing people wouldn’t know about you?
I’m a dreamer…constantly coming up with ideas and inventions. None of them successful yet but I’ll keep dreaming.
If you weren’t a plumber and in business for yourself what would you want to be doing and why?
I’d be a Police Officer, as a kid I really wanted to be a Police Officer but I know I don’t have what it takes to be a big tough guy. Or I’d be a real estate agent, one that sells high end real estate to multi-millionaires.
Yep, definitely a dreamer!
Mary
We mentioned Chris is the heart and soul of the business but the brains trust behind the operation is the woman who makes it all hum smoothly in the back end, his wife Mary.
What is your role in the company and what do you enjoy doing most?
I make sure the business has what it needs to operate efficiently from OHS to managing the systems and tools we use to support the plumbers in the field, to the super boring stuff like payroll, tax and paperwork. Working for yourself is incredibly rewarding, especially when we see some really positive outcomes to all the hard work we put in.
You have a wealth of business management and project management experience outside of Fitzpatrick Plumbing Solutions, how do you balance this with the work you do for Fitzpatrick Plumbing Solutions?
Some weeks are crazy and tiring. With working in my project management day job then working nights and weekends on the operational side of the business it is a well-planned juggling act so I can devote 100% of my focus to each area I work on at a time. This enables me to ensure I don’t split my focus in more than 1 way at any given time. While Chris is the dreamer I’m the planner, making sure we are always prepared for today, tomorrow and our future.
How would you describe Chris in 3 words?
Ambitious, driven, motivated, which in short means he never, ever sits still (except during NBA playoffs of course!).