Teresa & Mark, founders and owners of Teremark Electrical Group.
Teresa has always had a desire to do two things, read books and be involved with money. She was that nerdy little girl who made paper money and spreadsheets as a part of her childhood playtime. Even when going to Liberty University to college, her desire was to marry a businessman.
She worked in high school and college to afford the simple things she needed and wanted. She has always been a saver. She has always been a compassionate and generous person; she has a soft heart and loves people and pets. She has taken multiple trips out of the country to serve people in third-world countries, often homeless, orphans and even AIDS patients.
Even while being a full time (and full contact) mom, she worked as she could to provide the little extra that made life a little sweeter especially at Christmas and birthdays. Early on she worked behind the scenes in retail and administrative roles. She often worked in non-profits and volunteered her time as she could. She eventually began her own bookkeeping business in Denver, Colorado helping people who were very disorganized get their finances and paperwork squared away. She worked for a Gas and Oil law firm as their bookkeeper. She worked for restaurants, hospice centers, churches, builders and contractors and even their associations like Associated Builders and Contractors (Rocky Mountain Chapter). She also supported Mark’s startups doing the bookkeeping for Integrity Electrical Solutions, McBride Electric, Royal Handiworks and now stepping into the leadership role as president of TEREMARK Electrical Group.
This is Teresa’s (the TERE in TEREMARK) encore performance. She really desires to make a difference in her community. She wants to see folks realize energy efficiency and she wants to see everyone be able to afford it. She wants TEREMARK to be a place that is a joy for people to work in together, a place where employees want to come to work. She wants to run a profitable business that can in turn give back to the community to support women’s shelters, homeless shelters and pet shelters. She knows that the business will have to have help and be well run to make a profit and make this a reality. But she knows she has the experience and business acumen to make it happen. She recalls a children’s cartoon she watched with her sons where the phrase came up, “See a need, fill a need” and she sees a need in the community that TEREMARK Electrical Group can fill.
Mark began in the electrical industry as an apprentice in 1987 at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Working on a college campus he gained valuable experience in new construction, property maintenance, equipment maintenance, high voltage installation and maintenance. He worked a full work schedule as an apprentice while being a full-time student and serving in an internship. Mark is no stranger to hard work and putting in the tough yards.
Upon graduation Mark and Teresa spent several years in the non-profit sector before moving to Denver, CO in 1996 where he took a job as a service technician with McBride Electric, a respected national electrical and data service provider. Being eager to serve and a quick learner, Mark received only one day of training rather than the normal two-week training and found himself in his own service truck running calls in the Denver Metro. Shortly after joining the McBride team, he was awarded several formal awards for “Positive Attitude”, “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty” and “Employee of the Year” as well as being promoted to a Service Supervisor position overseeing as many as 30 employees at a time. Many of his technicians would say they would “…do anything for Mark and that he was the best boss they ever worked for.” He would often work through the nights on emergency calls with his crews restoring power during outages. He would later become Production Manager and oversee the daily operations of one of Denver’s largest and most productive Electrical Service Contractors. McBride was eventually acquired by a private equity firm. Mark endured the eventual dismantling of the company and formed a partnership with a fellow McBride employee and did an “asset only purchase” of the Denver division and eventually growing it to a healthy multimillion dollar electrical service provider before ultimately resigning and moving to the PNW for a slower pace of life.
After a brief introductory period at CES Post Falls, he was promoted to the newly formed Energy Specialist Group because of his success and previous sales and industry experience. During this time, he earned both NXT Level I and II certifications and sold over $3.5 Million in LED lighting efficiency projects. He spear-headed one of the largest energy efficiency lighting projects in the group at Lamb Weston in Twin Falls, ID. During his time at CED he also established a network with local utilities and was on a first name basis with most of the account representatives and engineers at Avista, Kootenai and Inland Power Utilities. He has been in untold facilities and has earned a reputation as a sales professional and a solution provider.
Teresa and Mark are no strangers to the industry and to business. Seeing TEREMARK Electrical Group as their “encore performance” they wanted to use their combined 60 plus years of life and industry skills to build something “different” in the contracting world in the Pacific and Inland Northwest. They noticed several things in the market that could be improved upon, most notably a higher level of service and professionalism. They wanted to create an organization that made a difference in their community and in the lives of the people they served and employed. This is where the saying comes, they want to be the “oasis in the industry”. They understand the importance of creating the correct culture and believe in teamwork and treating employees with excellence for retention and motivation. They passionately believe “happy employees make for happy customers”.
