T&Z Home Improvement celebrates 30 years

Trevor and Zalisha celebrated 30 years in business with a Christ mas dinner and award ceremony on Monday evening at the Cara Suites Hotel & Conference Centre at Claxton Bay among friends, family and politicians. Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon congratulated the couple on the success of their business. “Quite courageous was he in his adult life to become an entrepreneurmy father did the same thing. Not only do I want to commend you on your courage to become an entrepreneur, but on your tenacity. Your leadership is evident, so I want to congratulate you on 30 years in business.”

Before starting his own company alongside his wife, Trevor left a fairly comfortable job as a successful divisional manager in a major conglomerate. “I had everything you could have - a company car, profit sharing, prestige.” Trevor supported his wife and three children at the time on his own salary after Zalisha left her job at the Family Planning Association to care for their children. However, after his company did not follow through on promises made to him, he left the security of a well-paying job in the middle of the 1980s recession to start his own home improvement company.

“People said I was crazy,” said Trevor. By all accounts, he said but people of faith have been known to do “crazy” things before. “Based on the Bible, there are five principles that tell you whether a man is blessed. Number one is having a wonderful wife who is a woman of faith.”

Zalisha stood beside her husband as a director in the company to build their family’s business doing everything over the last 30 years from cashing to mopping floors to being the Human Resource Manager.

Balancing family life and a profitable and expanding business for 30 years has not been without its challenges. Zalisha said, “In a family business, emotions would get in the way and tensions will sometimes rise, but God has been the glue that has kept the family and the business together. I see him as the head of the home, I trust him to lead the family not blindly, but because he has proved himself by making good decisions. My personality is one that wants to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s, but sometimes businessmen do not do that. But we make decisions together and he respects my input.”

Challenges to the success of the business also came in physical form as the company’s warehouse in Chaguanas was destroyed by fire in 2012. Trevor said that his employees stuck with him through the financial loss, his suppliers stood by him by not sending their business elsewhere and banks and friends supported him with loans. The ramifications of the fire are still being felt today, but he said the company is now in a fairly comfortable position after four years.

The family business has crossed Trinidad borders, as one of their sons runs a similar business by the name of Island Style Interiors with three stores in St Lucia one in Grenada, and one in St Vincent. “The second sign of a blessed man is that his children do well,” said Trevor. “He leaves a legacy.”