Century Commercial Service is celebrating 40 years of excellence and growth, providing commercial property managers and owners with outdoor lighting maintenance and LED upgrades as well as electrical, plumbing and mechanical contracting services. Headquartered in Auburn, the company has team members and a fleet of service vehicles based strategically throughout Northern and Central California.
Keith Estes founded the company in 1984 as Century Lighting, specializing in wholesale distribution of commercial-grade lighting products. “In the beginning, my wife Traci would pack up our kids in our station wagon to pick up products from our supplier and then I would make deliveries to customers. By the mid-1990s, we expanded service to handle outdoor lighting maintenance, which became our niche, and now we hold more than 3,000 lighting maintenance contracts.”
Century has further added electrical, plumbing and mechanical contracting services based on customer demand. “Customers tell us we’re their best vendor for delivering high-level customer service,” says Estes. “We are the one-stop shop for commercial property managers.”
Century remains a family business with Keith Estes as CEO, his son Brent Estes as president, daughter Sherra Freeland as office operations manager, daughter Lorin Courtney as accounts receivable manager, son-in-law Keahi Freeland as fleet manager, and son-in-law Tony Courtney as purchasing manager.
“Looking to the next 40 years, we’ll continue taking care of our team and our customers, providing the best service in the industry.” — Keith Estes, Founder and CEO
Century’s 225 employees are at the core of the company’s success. “We have a phenomenal team and do all we can to recruit, develop and retain these loyal, hard-working people,” says Estes. “Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to successfully grow at the remarkable rate of up to 40% annually for the past several years.”
Even with that rapid growth, Century has retained its substantial customer base, and Estes forecasts continued growth in the future. “Looking to the next 40 years, perhaps it will be our grandchildren taking care of our team and our customers, providing the best service in the industry,” Estes says.
