An old World War II-era hanger at the Santa Maria Public Airport is home to a company owned by a Latina who, by sheer determination, has pulled together a multi-million dollar enterprise.

Teresa Arredondo, owner and CEO of Art-Craft Paint Inc., which grossed $2 million last year, knows what it is to work in the fields, struggle with the language and fall on her face time and time again for lack of knowledge

But she has also known what it is to forge ahead, get back up on her feet and learn from her mistakes - turning a bankrupt company into a internationally known firm.

After 25 years at the helm of the airplane paint and upholstery business, Arredondo is not relaxing.

“Last month, 16 employees were working painting 20 planes,” she said.

The company specializes in classic planes, by restoring them as close as possible to the original. To carry out that task, they research aviation books and magazines, interview veteran pilots, and take exact measurements of the lines, letters or stars, Arredondo explained.

“That's what's given us recognition, being specific in our work,” she noted.

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Inside company offices, a couple of photo frames display two classic commercial planes that they've painted, a DC-2 and DC-3 with their TWA and United insignias, both currently managed by the famous aviator, Clay Lacy, the only person in the world to have clocked more time in the air than on the ground. Art-Craft has worked on some 23 of his planes.

Arredondo explained that the company has painted everything from experimental planes to Gulfstream jets.

Currently, they are contracted to paint two of Red Bull's MIGs for use in air shows as a marketing tool.

They also have done work for Dukes of Hazard actor John Schneider, and television personality Lorenzo Lamas. And this year, they have painted planes for presidents Vicente Calderon of Mexico and Alan Garcia of Peru.

Apparently, no job is too

complicated for the company, as Arredondo puts it, “if a human being can put it together, a human being can take it apart.”

One of the jobs that stands out in her memory was having painted the experimental Logan Easy owned by recording artist John Denver, who came to pick it up when it was ready, and who the very next day lost his life when the plane went down in San Francisco Bay.

In addition to the great detail she gives her work, Arredondo takes pride in her customer service. Art-Craft was recently named third best in the country in customer service by Aviation Consumer magazine. And just last Friday, she received recognition in San Francisco for best customer service for an air maintenance corporation in the Western United States.

“My greatest publicity is customer satisfaction,” she said, adding that “if I had to start a job again from scratch in order to make a customer happy, I'll do it.”

Here theme is “go to Teresa, she'll make it happen.”

Arredondo revealed that one of her strategies is “when I assist a customer, I focus all my attention on him/her, I don't answer my cell phone ... that's a fatal mistake.” With a customer, “you have to be yourself, be someone special.”

Another one of her strategies is to stay competitive with her prices.

“We don't pay for publicity. It's all done through referrals. I'll tell a customer that I prefer giving him/her a discount if he/she gets me a referral.

“I have to think it over several times before raising my prices; (I do it) only if I feel I'm worth it, not because everyone else is doing it.”

However, all this success and recognition has come with a price, and this strong-willed woman from Mexico has had her share of sacrifices.

At age 7, she sold Jell-O, flowers and candy to help make ends meet.

“We were 10 siblings without a father, raised by aunts in Michoacan. Mother left us behind for 10 years while she worked in the States,” she recalled.

But when her mother returned, she brought back with her 10 visas so they could legally enter the United States. For a number of years, she worked in the fields, and at age 19 she leased her own field to plant strawberries.

But she wasn't happy

“It hurt me because I knew I could do more than that ... I always wanted to be a lawyer.”

Her dissatisfaction led her to CET, where she took electronic assembly, English as a second language and math.

From there she worked several jobs, while tending to a husband and family. Then she had a life-changing revelation.

“The birth of my third child changed everything. He led me to seek another path,” she said.

In 1983, she paid 25 cents for a Santa Maria Times, and saw in the classifieds that AeroFlare needed an upholsterer for restoring airplane interiors.

Though she was not given the job because she was a woman, she filled out an application for her ex-husband, who was hired right away. He in turn brought her on as his helper.

Because of her hard work and usefulness, she was hired on her own merits, and some time later was offered the upholstery half of the business.

“By that time, instead of making $17,000 a year as an employee, I started making $30,000 as a business owner,” she recalled.

A year later she was able to purchase the other half of AeroFlare, which she ended up purchasing for a total of $75,000.

However, in 1994 Aeroflare filed for bankruptcy, but within a week, she started up Art-Craft Paint Inc., because “I realized that it was a gold mine,” she said, though she still didn't know how to manage the business.

In 1997 she decided to take a Women's Economic Ventures (WEV) business training class in English in Santa Maria, because she came to the conclusion that the business world was run in that language.

“WEV was a second step for me after CET,” she added.

The woman with an eighth-grade education continued fighting and surviving, particularly after the airline industry plunge following Sept. 11 and then again in 2006.

The break came after she was awarded a grant to study at the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

There she learned a much better way of managing her business.

“I changed three things: Eliminate those workers that only cause problems, eliminate customers that only cause headaches, and pay greater attention to those employees I've selected ... I grew the company's earnings by a half a million just by adopting those three principles,” she said.

September 2, 2008