BY SUZY STUMP for WEEKLY VOLCANO 6/28/25 |
When Jason Hunt talks about how he ended up owning one of Tacoma’s most trusted trades companies, he doesn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t plan it. He didn’t have a business degree. He didn’t even finish high school. What he did have was a toolbelt, and a front-row seat to how not to run a company.
“I became a victim of the same lack of integrity that too many people face. I worked hard, gave my best, but I was treated like I was replaceable. I kept seeing the same thing — empty promises, no investment in people, no vision beyond cranking out more jobs,” he says. “One day, my boss pulled a deal out from under me — again — and I just snapped. I thought, I don’t care what happens, I have to try. That was it.”
He didn’t just try, he did it. “From day one,” he explained, “the goal was to build something different — a company where honesty, accountability, and real opportunity weren’t just buzzwords. I wanted to deliver high-quality service to customers, but just as importantly, I wanted to create a workplace where people were valued, developed, and supported. A place where people could grow a career, not just collect a paycheck. Thirteen years later, Hunt’s Services is proof that sometimes the best businesses are born not from spreadsheets and investor decks, but from a stubborn refusal to accept bad leadership as normal.”
The secret, if you ask Jason, is not really a secret at all: value people, build systems, and back up your word.
Today, Hunt’s Services is structured to support specialization across four core trades: Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical, and Sewer. Each of those divisions is led by a dedicated service manager who’s responsible for team performance, training, and delivering a consistent customer experience.
He also credits his wife, “And of course, my amazing wife, who holds everything and everyone together — she does more than I can explain and is the glue behind the scenes.”
In the early days, he did everything himself — the work, the scheduling, the hard conversations, and the late-night worry. Like a lot of first-time owners, he learned the hard way that being good at a trade doesn’t mean you automatically know how to run a company. “That first year taught me real quick: if you don’t build structure, if you don’t learn to trust people, you burn out. You have to build a team and let go of control. That was hard for me.”
He also credits Nexstar, a national membership organization that provides training, coaching, and business resources to help independent home service companies improve their operations and grow successfully. “I’ve got to give a huge shout out to Nexstar. I didn’t finish high school, and I came from a pretty rough upbringing. There wasn’t a lot of structure or support early on, so when I started this business, I had to figure a lot of it out the hard way. I knew how to work — I could out-hustle just about anybody — but running a business takes more than hard work. Nexstar gave me the structure, the coaching, and the community I didn’t even know I needed. They helped me shift from being a guy who could fix anything to a leader who could actually build something sustainable. I didn’t grow up around business owners, so being surrounded by people who had already been where I was trying to go — and were willing to share — that made all the difference.”
What he learned about finding and cultivating a team shaped Hunt’s Services into what it is now: a locally owned plumbing, heating, electrical, and sewer company that has built its reputation on showing up, following through, and fixing its own mistakes when it has to. But behind the trucks and tools, it’s really a people business. One of Jason’s proudest stories is about an employee who started with no experience at all. She just wanted out of working in childcare and a shot at a new career.
“She started in the call center, answering phones,” he says. “We trained her up, sent her to classes, gave her room to try, fail, and get better. Ten years later, she’s our Operations Manager. She runs the field, the call center, dispatch — the whole thing. She earned it.”
In an industry where private equity money is buying up local companies left and right, Jason is determined to keep Hunt’s local and community rooted. “You see these companies get bought, and everything changes behind the scenes. They say they’re local, but they’re not local anymore. We still are. We make decisions for the long haul. We answer to our neighbors, not investors in another state.”
That same local-first mindset drives Hunt’s Helping Hands, a program Jason launched to help people who can’t afford critical repairs. Twice a year, the company asks the community to nominate someone who needs help but has nowhere to turn. He remembers a recent case that still sticks with him.
“There was this grandfather who lost his daughter, and he was taking care of his granddaughter. Then a fire took out his only source of heat. He had nothing. We put in a whole new heating and cooling system for him, no charge. It felt good to know we could do that. If I could do it every month, I would.”
Programs like that don’t happen unless a business is healthy. That’s part of the lesson, too: profit and purpose go hand in hand. “We have to run a good business first. We have to be profitable and keep people busy. That’s how we can give back. That’s how we can pay for training and reward people for stepping up.”
Inside Hunt’s, employees live by three simple core values: own it, step up, get stuff done. It’s not marketing fluff — Jason says the company hires, fires, and rewards people based on how well they live those words. They even play a monthly game where staff get to call each other out for going above and beyond — then earn a chance at a cash prize.
“You can teach skills,” Jason says. “You can’t teach attitude. We look for people who want to learn and who care. The rest, we can train.”
He wishes more young people would consider the trades — not just as a job but as a solid path to a good life. “I wish someone had told me when I was younger how good this can be. You get out of high school, go to a trade school or start as an apprentice, and you’re earning while you learn. You’ll never be replaced by a robot. And maybe one day, you run your own shop. There’s good money, job security — and real respect if you do it right.”
Jason’s story isn’t just about plumbing, HVAC, or electrical work. It’s about what can happen when someone sees a broken system and decides to do better — for customers, for employees, and for the place they call home. He knows there are people reading this right now with a dream of doing the same thing in their own field. He has one piece of advice: “Do it scared. Nobody’s ready. Start anyway. Figure it out as you go. But build something that helps other people — that’s what keeps you going on the hard days. And don’t forget: your past doesn’t define your future. It really doesn’t.”
Next time you see a Hunt’s truck rolling through Tacoma, remember — it started with one guy with a better vision for his future and a promise to do better. And if Jason has his way, that promise will keep paying off for his team, his customers, and his community for a long time to come.
