Pablo Pena started small with three employees, including himself, his wife and a friend.

It was 1964 and the beginnings of Central Plumbing Supply in Weslaco on Kansas Avenue, just adjacent to the city’s iconic Tinaco cement water tower. Pena had worked in the plumbing supply business for a local company that closed when its business affairs weren’t properly managed.

Starting his own small business, Pena knew he would do things differently, building customer relationships and paying his vendors. 

“My dad said, ‘I’m going to pay my bills and take care of my vendors,'” said Gene Pena, the current president and chief executive officer of Central Plumbing & Electric Supply Co. 

A Family Affair

It was a classic small business operation. Pablo ran the company, built it from scratch, with his wife, Eva, by his side doing the bookkeeping.

“My mom was in the background but she was a big part of the business,” Gene Pena said. “My dad had that persona, outgoing, working with his customers, doing it all.”

Pablo Pena would go on to be Weslaco’s first Hispanic mayor in the early 1970s. By then, the company he started so humbly was established and on its way to bigger things. In the mid-1970s, Central Plumbing Supply had moved to its present location on Airport Drive in Weslaco. A young Gene Pena was finishing up high school and was sure where his work future lay.

“I’ve known since I was 8 that I wanted to be in this business,” Gene said. “I told my dad, `Why do I need to go to college? I know what I want to do.’ He insisted I go to college, so I did, and I’m glad I did.”

After an education at the University of Texas at Austin, he was back home, put in charge of buying and selling operations of Central. He learning more from his father as he groomed the company’s next leader. Today, Central Plumbing & Electric is a 120-employee company with locations in Weslaco, McAllen, Pharr, Harlingen and Brownsville. Most recently, it added appliances to its line of products with the acquisition of Stevenson Appliances stores in Brownsville and McAllen.

Keys To Success

Gene Pena walks the grounds of his multi-building headquarters on Airport that includes more than 50,000 square feet of warehouses and storage. 

The ability to be well stocked with inventory is one of the keys to Central’s success in competing against big box stores and the online shipping giants. High quantities of on-hand stock at affordable prices gives customers the products and parts they are seeking without having to wait days on shipments. Central can add in the generations of building individual business relationships with customers, a personal touch that can’t be replicated elsewhere.

“It is a relationship business,” Pena said. “My dad helped many plumbing businesses in the Valley get started years ago and that’s something people don’t forget. We have third-generation business relationships all over the Valley.”

Central itself is a multi-generational business. Pena and his two brothers, David and Pablo Jr., are partners in the business. Gene’s wife, Nori, works at the Pharr store, and the three brothers have sons and nephews involved in the business. Central is a business that has grown organically and steadily over the years. A McAllen store was opened in 1983. Then in the 1990s came store openings in Pharr, Harlingen and Brownsville. Electric supplies were added as well in the 1990s.

“The vision was we needed to cover the Valley,” Gene Pena said. “It went well quickly when we opened the new stores. People knew us.”

Staying Strong

The acquisition of the Stevenson’s stores added a major piece and fulfilled a long-held goal to sell appliances.

Next comes the goal of adding e-commerce to the mix with the immediate goal being servicing Valley customers with quick delivery after they order online. At 64, Pena remains enthused about running the business his parents started nearly 60 years ago. 

“To me, it’s not work,” he said of running and operating Central with his brothers.

For all of his family’s business successes, Pena is still not satisfied, or complacent. 

“The day you think you’ve made it is the day you’re done.”