Why he’s PM’s Plumber of the Month: “Wes is part of our leadership team here. His dedication to Henco Plumbing, his customers and the field plumbers is what made me leave a 30-year career to come onboard at Henco Plumbing Services.

“He helps balance and triage the daily schedules, making sure to match the correct skills and talents to the jobs on the board. He then helps get the job folders ready so the parts required are loaded on the vans. Wes also wears the hat of technical advisor to help eliminate questions on difficult jobs. He also helps with twice-weekly training meetings we hold to align our plumbers with job knowledge and procedural knowledge to get everyone on the same page. He is the ‘Leatherman’ of the company — there when you need him, capable of anything and your glad he is on your side! Wes is a part of the glue that helps make the rest of the team understand our ‘can do’ culture. He is never without a smile and always is working to solve a problem. Out of everyone on the team, he is the number one candidate for ‘cloning!’

“Recently, we had a customer who was ultra-analytical and having difficulty understanding the true capability of the tankless water heater with a recirc pump. Rather than push this back to the installing plumber, Wes knew it needed a fresh set of eyes, so he got into the truck and immediately went to speak with the customer and take a deeper dive of the situation. He immediately established rapport with the customer and explained what the water heater will and will not do, but also noted that there may be an underlying issue. Wes then jumped into action, went under the house to investigate and found the issue. He took detailed photos and video to show the customer. He discovered the previous re-pipe work on the house was not done properly and a return line loop was not running the entire length of the system, thus not effectively allowing the system to function properly. We made some changes and fixed the issue with the plumbing and the customer. In more than one way, Wes closed the loop on a bad situation. Wes is always a constant, always present, always engaged, always willing to jump in and always running at full speed. I never see him dragging and his energy picks up the others.” — Jay Mello, operations manager, Henco Plumbing Services

Hendrickson’s thoughts: “Growing up, my dad owned a plumbing and HVAC company. He eventually sold his plumbing side to my uncle. So I grew up doing mostly HVAC and a little bit of plumbing. My uncle’s son, my cousin, Owen — he’s the owner of our company — he got me into plumbing when I was 16. After high school, I went to work for him in North Dakota doing new construction when he started his own company, Henco Plumbing. Eventually, I grew tired of the area and moved to the West Coast and worked for another plumbing outfit, this time doing service plumbing. Owen called me up a year later and asked about the market, and I told him, if he moved here, we could build the greatest service plumbing company in the area. So he did.

“The best thing about Henco Plumbing is we treat our guys really well. Owen’s motto is to treat the employees well in order to keep them. We all have really great chemistry. If you work hard and do well here, there’s no real limit to the amount of money you make or the amount of learning you receive. Owen just recently sent me through CEO Warrior training, and we have several guys out now for Nexstar Network training.

“My favorite thing about being a plumber is going to a customer’s house and solving their problem — but we don’t just stop there. We provide them with a bunch of additional solutions to prevent future issues and get their plumbing system to 100%.”