CABLE Electrical Services, Inc. - The Southeast's Leader in Multi-Family Electrical Contracting!



After 35 years, family's business gets makeover

Orlando Business Journal by Noelle Haner-Dorr, Staff Writer

Date: Monday, July 24, 2000, 12:00am EDT

APOPKA -- Fryling Electric Inc. just got a makeover. The family-owned and operated electrical contracting company has changed its name and logo. Now known as Cable Electrical Services, the business is working toward a more corporate image, while maintaining its family-business roots. "We have expanded our services, and we wanted to reflect this by replacing the founder's name," explains Harrie Crowley, the president of Cable Electrical who runs the company with his sons, Duane and Donald. Mel Fryling launched the Michigan company in 1963. Harrie joined Fryling in 1969, eventually purchasing the business from Fryling in 1981 through a stock buyout. When the construction market in Michigan took a dive in 1983, Harrie took his wife, his children and his business and transported them all -- the Crowley family and the Crowley business -- to Florida, where the weather, and the market, was warmer. "I had lived in Jacksonville at one time, but it was still too cold for me," says Crowley. "I chose Orlando for its central location in the state and its weather." It was the right move. Today, Cable Electrical is a $10 million a year enterprise with such name clients as Post Properties and Beers Construction. The company has wired more than 25,000 apartment units in Florida and completed work for Disney Imagineering, Universal Studios Florida, the United terminal at Orlando International Airport and Winter Park Memorial Hospital. The state-certified firm specializes in three areas: new multifamily residential structures, new institutional/educational buildings and electrical service work for commercial, industrial and institutional facilities. Now, it has expanded its management structure into a two-pronged approach with a new construction division and a service/small commercial division. And it recently unveiled its new Web site at http://www.cableelectrical.com. "Growth has never been a goal," notes Duane, secretary and treasurer of Cable Electrical. "It is merely the byproduct of the attention provided to our clients." The company is attracting some attention of its own: The Crowleys receives almost-weekly overtures from larger electrical companies to purchase Cable Electrical and blend it into their corporate structures. The family, however, has been able to resist this temptation -- because of its biological succession plan. "Companies that have sold out didn't have the legacy we have," says Harrie. "I was lucky enough to have two sons who wanted to be a part of the business."