In this edition of The Painting Life, we introduce five of the charter members of Hispanic Customer Advisory Board, created under the auspices of Sherwin-Williams. This is Efraín Medina.
Efraín Medina began painting in 1999, two months after arriving in this country when he was 18 years old. “And I haven’t stopped,” he adds. Born in Jalisco, Mexico, he started his company Medina Painting, Inc. in Seattle, Washington, in 2007.
“We had difficult times at the beginning, because like most I was a painter trying to be an entrepreneur, but these two are very different things,” he says.
After trying everything, his company is now dedicated almost exclusively to repainting.
“We do 60 or 65 percent commercial and the rest is residential,” he says. “Commercial work has different demands for training, business structure, number of employees, lines of credit, etc., that do not exist in the residential area. When a company calls you for a big job, they evaluate what type of company you have, how many employees you have, your workload. To make the leap from jobs from $5,000 to $10,000 to $200,000 or $300,000, you do not find the doors open if you are small. You need to grow.”
Medina says he has 11 employees and two or three subcontractors who were previously employed with his company. “So, we have about 17 or 18 people working with us in total,” he says. “We are currently growing, and looking for a larger location to move our operations. My intention is to double the business next year.”
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His favorite products are Sherwin-Williams.
“But Sherwin-Williams is not just an ally on the field,” Medina says. “It was my rep who encouraged me to connect with other painters, go to industry events, and enter a whole world I didn’t know about. Thanks to Sherwin-Williams I have been able to share my experiences, and I am proud that they are now supporting our community with the Hispanic Customer Advisory Board, so that new generations do not go through as many headaches as we did.”
This article was written by Jorge Arboleda, Pintor Pro senior editor, and was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of Pintor Pro. ©2024 Fusable. Photography by Kersti E. Muul.
