Windows of Opportunity
Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)

Cherie Strain, For the Camera

Phillip Bregstone, owner of Dr. Glass, washes a window in a Boulder home. Bregstone recently expanded his business to include the Boulder and Denver area.

Philip Bregstone of Nyland, a co-housing community in Louisville, is an expert on squeegees and towels. House windows are his forte, and the Boulder and Denver areas will be his new showroom.

Perhaps it`s an unlikely profession in which to earn the big bucks, but a 20- year reputation in Washington, D.C. has given him the liberty of only working four months out of every year. Bregstone has been able to continue his job from Boulder County since his family moved here six years ago, flying to the East Coast several times a year. Now he`s decided to let Washington take care of itself. He`s not only going to wash Colorado windows, he`s also establishing a consulting company, teaching others to start their own window-washing businesses.

The local housing boom will likely make Bregstone successful as a window washer himself and by training others, said Ed Trunck, a local builder and residential developer. Trunck has been one of Bregstone`s few Boulder County clients for the past four years.

"There is shortage of most skills in this area," Trunck said.

Bregstone, who said he never dreamed there would be such a thing as a window-washing consultant, will not limit his consulting to locals. Recent features in USA Today and Kiplinger`s Personal Finance Magazine have brought Bregstone a barrage of calls from all over the country.

"I had no idea people would see the articles and think, 'I would love to do that,`" he said, but added, "It`s a real business where you have to work. It`s not a pie in the sky."

The Colorado angle will change the nature of Bregstone`s business. He has worked seasonally and only in the same few Washington neighborhoods since he was 18. Now, it`s growing into a year-round, multi-faceted project that includes customers thousands of miles apart and trainees across the country.

He will advertise in Colorado, something he never did in Washington, thanks to his reputation. He said he does well enough financially that increasing his income isn`t his motivation for creating a Colorado company.

"I`m increasing my business here because as my children get school age, it gets more difficult to go back and forth," Bregstone said.

Consulting seemed a natural transition, following his personal success and his East Coast success training others, he said.

"It wasn`t like, 'Gosh, I need to make more money,`" he said.

Bregstone wouldn`t reveal his annual revenue, saying only that he makes six figures before expenses and there is little overhead.

"I spend a couple of thousand dollars a year on office stuff and window-washing equipment and a couple of thousand on insurance," Bregstone said. "I don`t have a store front. I don`t have inventory. I don`t have any employees, in the traditional sense, or specialized fancy equipment." In fact, top-of-the-line squeegees and imported towels are Bregstone`s primary tools.

He has been able to operate his company alone, thanks to modern conveniences. Without an office or staff, he often conducts his business from a ladder, keeping a dictator and cell phone in his work belt and taking his laptop computer everywhere, he said.

Relying on subcontractors for the first time will allow Bregstone to pursue Colorado business, a task that he has been hindered by his annual absence from Colorado during the peak season. The people he has trained will take over most of the Washington clients, but Bregstone will offer his handiwork to the his most longtime, devoted clients in Washington.

"I`m not ready to give it up yet, but I`m going to do less there," he said. "Over the course of the next five years, we`ll (his family) probably have to give this up."

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