Today we’d like to introduce you to A.J. Duensing, Vice President of Texan Glass & Solar Control.
A.J., can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My father (David Duensing) grew up in a small town (Odell, NE) with approximately 300 people or so. He always has had an entrepreneurial mind and would look for ways to make money even at an early age. One of my favorite stories to tell about him is when he was a small boy with his first “business”. He would stay up all night digging up night crawlers then go into town and sell them to the local fishermen. He would keep a little ledger that showed all of his “transactions” – this was a real deal operation! He always knew he wanted to do something different and bigger than where he was at in life so, just after high school, my grandfather told him about a relative living in Texas with an electric company. He told my dad if that’s what he wanted then he should go down there and try to make something of himself – not to settle. So with just the change in his pocket and a ’78 Toyota Corolla, he drove down to Texas to start a fresh life. He jumped around between jobs doing everything from working in the oil industry to working on death row at the prison in Huntsville, TX. In 1988, a family friend got him started doing auto glass work – this is where Texan Glass & Solar Control’s roots began.
After working several years as an auto glass technician, he finally worked his way up into management where he led teams at a few different businesses throughout the 90’s. Towards the end of the decade, that same entrepreneurial hunger he had as a kid came back and he decided he wanted to go into business for himself. Through mutual friends, he was put in touch with asuccessful local businessman named Feroze Bashir. David pitched a plan to Feroze on how he wanted to partner and operate the largest glass company in the North Houston area. He had convinced Feroze that he would achieve this goal within the first two years of operation. So in May of 2000, Woodlands Glass Express opened its doors and began to service The Woodlands and North Houston areas. Within six months, David achieved the goal he had promised his new business partner. By the end of the following year, the company was serving a majority of Houston and its surrounding areas which led to them changing their name to Texan Glass Express. In 2009, Texan Glass Express opened its second location in Corpus Christi, TX. Today we have brick-and-mortar locations in Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and Victoria – we also mobile service the Austin, Beaumont and Bryan/College Station areas!
A year or so after Texan Glass & Solar Control opened its doors is when we began to branch out from the automotive glass genre. We started doing work with solar screens and today are proud to be one of the largest providers in the state! Our solar control services have grown over the years to include roll shades, window film, custom blinds, plantation shutters, patio enclosures and much more. Our glass service portfolio has expanded as well – we now offer a full line of services in both residential and commercial as well as automotive! We cover everything from rock chip repairs to window replacement in homes, shower & tub enclosures, mirrors, tabletops, etc. We also have recently begun to expand our commercial division and are working with contractors, interior designers, home builders, etc. on storefront metal & glass fabrications as well as a lot of the services listed above.
With our service portfolio expanding to the level that it has, we were convinced it was necessary to change the company name one more time – so in 2013, we changed from Texan Glass Express to Texan Glass & Solar Control. One thing we always knew we were missing still thought was an actual showroom. We wanted to give customers the opportunity to see what all we offer and learn how we could help them with their glass and solar control needs. With this in mind, David and his partner sat back down and began to come up with a plan to build a new state-of-the-art facility that would allow us to do just that. At the end of 2016, all plans were put into motion and just a few months later the ground broke on the facility.
Things were moving along well until August of 2017 when Hurricane Harvey made landfall – devastating Houston it’s surrounding areas. We were one of the many businesses that were affected by the massive flooding that came as a result of Harvey. Our existing shop saw four feet of water and everything inside was lost. This included desks, computers, years and years of paperwork, etc. The new building (which is located next door) got about two and a half feet of water and all of the drywall had to be re-done. While this was a setback we continued moving forward focused on company expansion. With the help of an amazing group of employees, family, friends, and our community we were able to clean up the damages and get things back on track in a couple weeks. We still are recovering daily from Hurricane Harvey’s effects, but David and I truly believe it’s made us stronger as a company. It has also allowed for us to appreciate the great staff we have supporting not just the business, but our family. They came up and gave their time – even off the clock to help get things back together and it meant a lot for my family to see that.
Just last week we finally opened our doors to the new building and things are moving faster than ever. We still have long ways to go in getting settled in, but the excitement and energy around here have been incredible. We not only finally have our showroom, but we also built what we are calling the “design center”. This is going to be a room where customers can sit down one-on-one with one of our trained staff members and discuss their project in detail. Here we can go over samples, photos, etc. and figure out exactly what the customer wants and determine how to make it work within their budget. This room is also available for interior designers to bring their clients to as a place to office out of and discuss their projects as well!
We have a lot of great plans on the horizon and look forward to this coming year especially. We will be rolling out several new ideas and will seek to improve the customer experience from start to finish. We encourage customers to come by and see the new facility and meet our amazing staff first hand!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think anything can necessarily have a smooth road when it comes to business. We live in an age now more than ever that requires companies to adapt and react constantly. When it comes to business in particular though, what usually prompts those changes is some sort of conflict in the beginning. As an owner, you either identify the source of the conflict and adjust or you don’t – either way though the road certainly won’t be smooth.
Around 2009 we faced a pretty tough challenge – we lost our biggest client and it affected multiple markets for us. Combining that with the way things were going with the economy in general and we were left with some hard questions to search for a solution to. I personally think everything happens for a reason though and in this case, it forced us to circle the wagons and take a look at how we were managing our operations day in and day out. We were able to streamline certain aspects of the company and become more efficient in our service. Six months later we were able to get that client back and because of our changes were able to provide an even better service at a better cost.
As I mentioned before, Hurricane Harvey recently brought some struggle to our business too. It was hard to wade through four feet of water in the shop with years worth of paperwork floating all around us. Everything we had worked to build up to was either submerged or bobbing in the water and you couldn’t help but feel like the set back was going to be too much to overcome. We had just sunk a ton of money into beginning the new shop and now we had to come up with a way to replace pretty much every tangible object in our current office too. On top of that, you have years worth of data stored that you may never get back (and some we didn’t). It was tough, and I wouldn’t say we’ve 100% recovered, but at the end of the day, our struggle was just a drop in a bucket full of the similar stories across the city and state. We were very fortunate to have some amazing people come to the company’s side when it was time to clean up and that’s something we’ll never forget. We certainly wouldn’t be where we are right now if it wasn’t for their generosity and support.
Please tell us about Texan Glass & Solar Control.
Well, a lot of this I explained in that first part of the interview, but we focus on both the glass and solar control industries. Most people know us for our auto glass service since that is what the company started as but over the years we’ve made some big strides in the rest of our portfolio too. We are proud to have been featured in AGRR Magazine’s Top Auto Glass Retailers list the past four years – always placing within the top 28 in the country. We are even more proud that out of that whole list, we have been the largest Texas-based company all four years. On the solar control side, we are one of the largest solar screen providers in the Houston area and have been doing it almost as long (or as long) as anyone I can recall. I think what sets us apart most though is the spread we offer when it comes to options for the customer and their project(s). It’s always nice when you can combine providers and in our case, you are talking about being able to cover everything from your outside windows to your shower to your blinds/shutters, mirrors and tabletops, etc. all with one company. We love working with people and there’s nothing better than finishing up a job and seeing that smile on our customer’s faces!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Well as I said before, I truly believe everything happens for a reason. Even the struggles are just salt adding flavor to the meal! To change anything would be putting us on a different path than the one we are on – and that’s not our path. If I could go back and start over though, I would tell myself not to take some things so personally. Business is business and sometimes you are just outperformed or outsold by a competitor. When I work with a customer, I treat them as if it were me in their shoes. So when I’d lose out on that opportunity to help them, I’d dwell on what I did wrong instead of focus on how to make it right.
Contact Info:
- Address: Texan Glass & Solar Control
24625 Budde Rd. The Woodlands, TX 77380 - Website: http://texanglass.com
- Phone: 281-296-6200
- Email: sales@texanglass.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/texan.glass
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/texanglass
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/texanglass
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/texan-glass-and-solar-control-the-woodlands
- Other: https://www.houzz.com/pro/texanglass/texan-glass-and-solar-control
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