Meet Bill Grable

Ha! I never thought I'd end up being a plumbing contractor. In college I was studying neuro-anatomy and had my sights set on the quintessential bragging rights job - the brain surgeon.

The big glitch in my plan was how to pay for all of that education.

The country at the time was muddling its way through a recession, and part- time jobs were scarce. No problem, I spied a job in the paper for a plumber's assistant, which paid $4.35 an hour. Since minimum wage was $1.60 at the time, I jumped on it.

Installing plumbing in high rise buildings in the daytime and attending the university in the evenings was a tough balancing act. Despite that, I became fascinated by the similarities of a building's anatomy with that of the circulatory and nervous systems in our bodies.

My five-year apprenticeship in plumbing took me through eight different shops throughout the South. It led me into every phase of our industry from underground utility installation, high-rise construction and commercial plumbing maintenance. I ended up with a master's license in the great state of North Carolina as well as one in my home state here in Florida.

During my years in new construction plumbing, I saw a sad trend beginning to overtake our industry. Construction contracts were falling to the lowest bidder and in far too many cases, to the least qualified. Shoddy work became a new standard in construction.
It was then that I realized there was a tremendous opportunity for a plumbing company that specialized only in commercial and residential service work.

Hiring only the most qualified service technicians in town, grooming them with excellent customer service skills, and outfitting them with the latest diagnostic equipment and state of the art technologies, I launched Grable Plumbing in the spring of 1978. The idea worked and quickly put us on the map as Tampa's premier plumbing service company.

So this is where I am today, a sort of Chief Resident if you will, consulting daily with my plumbing technicians, making rounds, assisting in critical situations, teaching, and working with new technology such as ultrasonic leak detection, infrared, x-ray, and video imaging.
Even though I haven't yet achieved my dream of becoming a neurologist, I have had the nerve-wracking experience of raising three beautiful children while running a small business and daily caring for the woes of over 198,000 customers in our database.