APS’ goal: Giving region’s businesses what they need
The Memphis Daily News/The Memphis News
Dec. 14, 2013
APS Facility Maintenance was founded by Lorenzo Myrick as a janitorial staffing company in 1998.
With 50 employees at the time, the vision was a simple one with the Memphis area as a customer base.
“We never thought of going national, but just staying local,” said company vice president Melissa Myrick.
Lorenzo and Melissa Myrick are president and vice president of APS Facility Maintenance, a company that has grown since being founded in 1998.
(Photo: Andrew J. Breig)
Begun as Amnesty Professional Services, it took a national tragedy – and the subsequent market interruptions and economic tremors – to cause APS to refocus its efforts and expand its scope and mission.
“When 9/11 hit, it almost put us out of business and that’s when we turned to facility maintenance,” Myrick said. “Staffing is not necessarily a need, but keeping your building clean is a need so we went into the mind-set of providing what people need rather than what they want.”
And that need appears to be rampant as the company has grown over the past 15 years to 180 employees working in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Facility maintenance and janitorial providers must be certified in any state they work in, and APS has a wide range of certifications from the state-mandated to that of a minority-owned company with the Tennessee Minority Supplier Development Council, the Mid-South Minority Business Council Continuum and the Governor’s Office of Diversity Business Enterprise. In addition, they are an 8A certified company authorized to bid on federal projects.
To further fill that need, APS does more than “keeping your building clean” and handles commercial lawn and landscaping services, as well as light construction. “Companies like one-stop-shops,” says Myrick as she ticks off services such as pressure washing, lawn care, window washing, carpet cleaning and water damage restoration, and parking lot striping . . . (read more)