Tortilla making, carpet cleaning, maid service part of family business

The son of migrant workers, Tomas Contreras started working full time in farm fields at age 12 and wanted a better life for his own family.

So he moved with his wife and children from Texas to Madison. After getting experience at a carpet cleaning business, he started his own company -- T.C. Carpet Care -- in 1992 out of the garage of his home. He hauled the equipment in his Ford Escort station wagon.

It was a one-man operation with his wife, Carmen, doing the bookkeeping.

"I would see these fancy truck mounts and I said, 'One day, I will own one.' " Contreras now owns six vans mounted with cleaning equipment and has 65 year-round employees.

Pamela Cotant is a freelance writer.

Still not content that the carpet cleaning business would be enough to sustain the family, Tomas and Carmen opened a tortilla factory, El Buen Gusto, at 4512 E. Washington Ave., six years ago. It was a natural direction since Carmen had worked full time since she was 12 at the tortilla factory her parents owned in northern Mexico for 27 years.

Because the large carpet-cleaning business now requires a fleet of 24 vehicles and Tomas Contreras often fields requests for certain vehicles from employees, he obtained a dealer's license. That led to creating T.C. Auto Sales on the lot outside T.C. Carpet Care, now located at 231 N. Fair Oaks Ave.

Four years ago, the family bought ProCarpet of Dane -- the company where Tomas Contreras first worked -- and now runs it out of the same building as T.C. Carpet Care.

The family also runs La Buena Vista, a post-construction cleaning business that often leads to the company maintaining the new building once it opens.

Daughters are involved

Today, the couple's two daughters, Carmen, 28, and Sandra, 24, help run the businesses. A number of other extended family members also are involved.

"They (customers) know they're going to get one of us," said Carmen Contreras, who is named after her mother.

In addition, Sandra Contreras has followed her parents' footsteps by starting up her own snow removal business called Brena's Outdoor Care with her husband, Gabriel De La Brena, who also is a carpet cleaner for the family businesses.

For the hard-working Contreras family, running the businesses and family life are intertwined and their employees are brought into the fold. The hub is the shop for the carpet cleaning businesses — a 4,800-square-foot warehouse that is the site of regular cookouts, birthday parties, the annual Christmas party and other get-togethers.

"We're a working family. We're never home," said Tomas Contreras, who lives a block away from the warehouse and can grab a quick meal at the tortilla factory, which also serves lunch.

A highchair and strollers are kept at the shop -- a second home for Sofia, 20 months, the daughter of Sandra Contreras, and Araceli, 9, the daughter of the younger Carmen Contreras.

The refrigerator at the shop is kept stocked and on Friday, steaks are thrown on the grills. Sometimes breakfast is picked up and brought to the shop.

The Contreras family is willing to share and employees sometimes contribute to the cost of the food. Employees hang around after work and stop in on weekends.

When employees need to go to the doctor, a Contreras family member has been called upon for that, too.

Brother enlists in Army

The daughters worked in the business during the summers. Later, their brother, Tomas Jr., 21, also worked there.

The three Contreras children graduated from East High School and went to college -- Carmen Contreras becoming only the second family member on both sides to graduate from college.

The daughters studied subjects -- marketing and business -- that would help them rejoin their family's work. Their brother went to college in preparation for law school and now has enlisted in the Army where he works in the field of nuclear and biological weapons.

Today, Tomas Contreras, 49, oversees the businesses and handles any problems, while his wife, Carmen, 47, is a supervisor for the maid service that's part of T.C Carpet Care.

Sandra Contreras handles clerical, payroll and personnel duties. Her sister deals with clients and obtains new jobs.

"They're the business right now," Contreras said of his daughters. "I troubleshoot."

During the short window of time when apartments rented by UW-Madison students are turning over, the daughters pitch in and clean carpets.

Family deals with stress

The Contreras family does argue but at the end of the day disagreements are left behind.

"With so many businesses, it causes a lot of stress," Sandra Contreras said.

Tomas Contreras found some extended family members would get defensive when he had to correct them, assuming they were immune. He worked through that by letting them know there are boundaries.

"We're family before we get to work and we're family after," he said.

"That's why we cook out, so everybody can relax again," Sandra Contreras said.

In the future, the Contreras family plans to open a shop in the Milwaukee area to make it easier to obtain more carpet cleaning jobs there.

Tomas and Carmen Contreras also bought a ranch in northern Mexico where they plan to build a home and retire in the next two years.