GARAGE BUILDINGS - Key Persons


Stephan Michaels - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Founder
I am a partner/owner in both of our manufacturing facilities and have 23 full-time employees in our office at our HQ and combined with both plants 150 employees and 50 million in annual sales. After graduating from Randolph Macon College in 1990, I had to get the snow bug out of my system. I had skied every weekend for 10 years or so and I felt the urge to move to Colorado. At that time no one could have steered me away from the Rockies. After the ‘90-‘91 ski seasons bartending, waiting tables and guiding, I returned to Virginia Beach to find a very depressing job market. After sending too many resumes to count, I wound up getting hired by a local steel building company as an entry-level salesman in which my father in law was an original investor. I quickly became one of their top salesmen, traveling VA, MD, DE, NC, and SC. After close to 2 years, management thought the amount of money I was making was too much for a 25-year rookie, so they decided to cut our commissions. The next year they cut commission again and I decided to give my notice and Powerbilt Steel Buildings was formed. In the summer of ‘95, I connected with the manufacturer of a similar product which I had been selling (which I am now a partner) and started selling buildings out of what would soon be my daughter's bedroom. (As a sidebar, as I write this, she turned 22 Monday, April 1st, 2019.) After a long arduous non-compete suite that was finally settled in my favor, one of the guys that I had known at the previous company had left for the same reasons I did, and he decided to join my team. We had to move out of the bedroom into the dining room of our small house. This really made my wife happy seeing 2 people in her kitchen every morning especially as the pregnancy progressed. We were rocking and rolling selling buildings all over the country, we were expanding buying new computers, fax machines, copiers, desks, software, etc. Well, then Isabelle came along, my wife Kate finally put her foot down and said you got to go, get out of my dining room, go rent an office. I was thinking to myself wow this is scary, rent, how could I possibly do this. I would quantify things in terms of building sales, I thought to myself just another couple of building I would need to sell every month to cover the expenses. Getting out of the house was a godsend, 5 buildings a month turned into 10, then 20 and we couldn't keep up with the phone calls and sell at the same time, I was in a catch 22 processing paperwork, customer service, ordering, advertising, etc. and I didn't need a full-time secretary, so I hired my mother to answer the phone. Many times she would be in her office reading a book between phone calls and processing orders. 2 years went by quickly and the owner of the office in Charlotte, NC wanted to move to Florida, so we inherited 2 more salesmen/saleswomen. We were now 4 strong selling about 40 buildings a month. I had also sold a building in Puerto Rico using the 8 years of Spanish I had learned in college and that sale turned into having a sales rep in PR. For years we were importing buildings to businesses like Pfizer, Mitsubishi, Pioneer Hybrid and more until the untimely death of Noel. During this time, a small office has become available for sale near my home. I negotiated the sale of small office 1000 sq. ft unit that is now our headquarters in an 8,000 sq. foot building. Over the last 24 years, we have expanded tremendously, we have delivered buildings in every state in the US all over Europe, Mexico, South America, American Samoa, the Philippines all over the Mediterranean and Eastern Block and many more countries. Budweiser, the US Navy, Disneyland, US Marines, and Coca Cola are just a few of our customers. I am now a partner/owner in both of our manufacturing facilities and have 23 full-time employees in our office at our HQ and combined with both plants 150 employees and 50 million in annual sales. Just by happenstance, I stumbled into this profession and If had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. We thank you again for giving us the privilege of being your steel building supplier.