Founded in 1984: Family Keeps Hanging Great Garage Doors

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The second generation of the Ciminero family continues Great Garage Doors’ tradition of quality service and value.

Laura Ciminero Pfahler left her teaching job about eight years ago to take over the business that her father, Sam Ciminero, started in 1984.

At that time, Sam Ciminero didn’t think any of his three children, who all had their own careers, would want to run the business. As he planned to step back from day-to-day operations, he expected to sell it.

Pfahler surprised both of her parents with her plan.

“I just couldn’t see it going to somebody without the last name Ciminero, she says.

Sam Ciminero started the business, now on the north side of Youngstown, after working for several years at another garage door company. When he left, two of his colleagues came to work for him.

Ciminero sat his family down and told them he was going to be starting his own business and that things were going to change.

He was confident but his wife, Sandy, was worried about finances. She would work in the new company’s office and was concerned about child care. Only two of her three children were in school at that time.

The company’s beginnings came on the heels of the steel mill closures and the housing recession in the Mahoning Valley. Ciminero focused on the residential as well as retail markets, both installing and repairing garage doors.

“I used to tell people, ‘Well, we’ve done 300 homes this year in Youngstown,’ which was a lot back then. ‘But there’s 30,000 old wood doors that were put on after World War II that are prime candidates for us to sell doors to.’”

About a year after Great Garage Doors opened, a tornado tore through much of the Valley, damaging many homes. Ciminero answered the call when those homeowners needed new garage doors.

Wooden garage doors used to be the standard. But that material has been replaced by steel, which is much lighter.

Styles have changed too, with various colors and textures available. Great Garage Doors is a distributor of Haas Door.

Ciminero prides himself on treating people – both employees and customers – the way he wants to be treated and believes that contributed to his success. He has employees who have been with the company for 35 years. They graduated from high school, were hired and never left.

It’s a business ethic Pfahler continues.

“As long as you are making the customer happy, that’s all that matters,” she says.

And customers notice.

“I have a folder of thank-you notes that customers send, saying thank you for how they’re treated by the people in the field or the people in the office,” Pfahler says. “So that’s, I think, the most important. Everything after that kind of falls into place.”

Technology has been one of the biggest changes over the years with Pfahler guiding the company through much of the transition. Files, formerly kept on paper, are computerized. The company can communicate with its workers while they’re out on jobs and customers get contacted via text message when a worker is on the way.

During college, Pfahler worked at the family business. When she was younger and it was open on Saturdays, Sandy would bring her three kids to work with her.

But Pfahler never expected to run the business. Even though she loved teaching, she thought about the company her dad built and she didn’t want it to be run by someone who wasn’t family.

“One day at dinner, she said, ‘Could I come to work for you? I think I want to quit teaching.’” Ciminero says. “She started crying. I started crying. That’s exactly how it happened because I couldn’t comprehend that this was happening. I never even dreamed it would happen.”

He, Sandy and Pfahler all tear up when they talk about that day.

A third generation may take over the reins when Pfahler is ready to step away. She’s learned at parent-teacher conferences that her youngest daughter, Ava, 10, tells people she wants to run Great Garage Doors when she grows up.

When Pfahler was having problems finding employees and had to work in the office alone, she would have calls forwarded to her cellphone. When she’d pick up Ava and her oldest daughter, Ella, 12, from school, they’d hear her on the phone with customers.

“My older daughter would say, ‘Another broken spring,’” Pfahler says. “They know the terminology of garage doors too.”

She wants her daughters to pursue whatever careers they choose – but she’d be happy if that
meant Ava followed through with what she told her teacher.

“That would be wonderful,” Pfahler says.

Pictured at top: Laura Ciminero Pfahler, owner of Great Garage Doors, stands inside the Youngstown business with her parents, Sam and Sandy Ciminero. Sam Ciminero started the business in 1984.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.