Bazan Painting Company

Since 1977, Bazan Painting Company has been providing full-service painting and decorating contractor services across the country. Located in St. Louis, Missouri, Bazan Painting covers the high-end residential, industrial and commercial sectors and is also involved in concrete floor polishing, epoxy floors and concrete staining.

When the team of brothers Walter Bazan Sr. and Stanley Bazan launched their company, Bazan Sr.’s son, Walter Bazan Jr. was also there while he was still in college. “I set up the accounting system for the company and worked the first year for $0.00,” says Bazan Jr., president of Bazan Painting “In the second year I was bumped up to $3.00 an hour.”

Shortly after the company began, Stanley realized that running a painting business was not his calling and decided to opt out of the business.

Utilizing experience

Due to Bazan Sr.’s experience in the industry, Bazan Painting was able to grow quickly. “My father worked for a commercial and industrial painting contractor for years before he decided to start his own company,” Bazan Jr. explains. “He was the top estimator when he left that job. I was running my own small company doing small painting jobs while still in school and he came to me and recommended that I shut it down so we could start a ‘real’ company.”

The pair was able to use Bazan Sr.’s contacts to gain large accounts and experience success. The company began performing work for a large brewing company as well as a well-known airplane manufacturer, both of which were in the process of expanding. Decades later, Bazan Painting is still working with these companies.

While Bazan Sr. was the owner and president of the company from the beginning until the early 2000s, Bazan Jr.’s involvement with the company and its clients paved the way for a smooth transition when he took over as president. “The customers never even knew a change took place,” says Bazan Jr. “We never had any use for titles but when he fully retired I decided that someone needed take on the president role.”

Strong business practices

The longevity and success of Bazan Painting is attributed to the ethics instilled in the company since day one. “We will always do what is right for the customer, even if it costs us money,” Bazan explains. “We’re interested in long-term relationships and satisfaction. We also always keep our word. We show up when we say we’re going to be there and get the job done on schedule. We won’t pull our crew off a job for a day or two to complete something somewhere else. Our crew will be there until it is done.”

While the standard warranty in the industry only covers one year, Bazan Painting offers its customers a two-year warranty. “We initially started with a one-year warranty,” says Bazan Jr. “We found that we would still be willing to stand behind our work at 14 or 16 months so we just decided to go ahead with the two-year warranty.”

A versatile company

Aside from the major industrial and commercial work performed by Bazan Painting, the company has recently had the opportunity to display its versatility with the work it has been doing with Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis. The company is in the process of completing very detailed and stenciling work of Catholic and Latin symbols on the baldacchino at the altar of the seminary. “There’s a symbol of the Trinity that we’re working on that is quite innate ornate and detailed,” says Bazan Jr. “It’s a great example of our versatility.”

Before taking on the project at Kenrick-Glennon, Bazan Painting completed a job which involved the renovation of a Renaissance Hotel in downtown St. Louis. “This job involved renovating and refurbishing all the rooms of the hotel,” says Bazan. “We did the paint work as well as the wall covering.”

Bazan Jr. says that overcoming the challenges that his company faces on a daily basis is what gives him the biggest sense of pride. “To be able to go from a really big, nasty and dirty industrial job to a very detail-oriented job such as the one at the seminary is one of my favorite things,” says Bazan Jr.

As Bazan Painting looks into the near future, the company wants to experiment with different aspects such as evolving its operations format and shifting personnel around within the company to generate expansion.

While the company progresses, Bazan Painting Company will continue to be a leader in the industry while it maintains the practices that were instilled in the company almost 40 years ago.