Hawkins Electric Service, Inc.
Laurel, Md.
Founded 1918
Jay C “Pop” Hawkins, founder of Hawkins Electric Service, Inc., developed a knack for tinkering with electrical systems in the early days of electrification. In 1918, he pedaled his bike through the neighborhood to perform electric repairs for his neighbors. Over the decades that would follow, Pop Hawkins steadily grew a successful business.
After operating the business out of his home in Riverdale, Md., Hawkins opened a store in Hyattsville, Md. in 1942 to sell and repair appliances. In addition, the store sold Lionel model train sets, which attracted a future leader — Nevin Shatzer, a teenage model train collector — to work for the company.
In the late 1950s, Shatzer cleaned the Hawkins Electric store in exchange for Lionel train cars. Eventually, he was promoted from stock boy to an apprentice electrician in his after-school hours. Over the next few decades, Shatzer helped wire thousands of homes in the region, and in 1972, he and two partners purchased the company. Shatzer also passed the love of the electrical trade and his business down to his two sons, Eric and Todd.
Back when he was only eight years old, Eric remembers visiting a job site with his father and learning how to install switches and plugs. Today, he is a master electrician, the president, and CEO of Hawkins Electric Service, Inc., and has two sons who are learning the family business.
“My father started working at the company when he was 14, and he loved the company so much it was the only place he ever worked,” Eric Shatzer says. “He eventually bought the business and carried on the company’s business model of doing the right thing. My father instilled those values in my brother and me when we were teenagers working at Hawkins.”
Since 1972, Hawkins Electric Service, Inc., has been owned by the Shatzer family, but it still bears the Hawkins name — a tribute to the original founder.
“We thought about changing the name over the years, but it was such a well-known name, that we thought, ‘Let’s leave a good thing alone,’” says Todd Shatzer, current executive vice president of Hawkins Electric, which specializes in commercial and multi-family projects.
Over the last decade, the company has doubled its revenue, tripled its facility space, and tripled its number of employees. The contractor, which is celebrating its centennial in Laurel, Md., this year, also has invested in new technology and training for its 90-plus employees and focused on building relationships with industry partners.
“We are confident that this business model will carry us through the next 100 years,” says Eric Shatzer.
