I'm a Captain Paramedic with the Phoenix Fire Department. I've spent two decades running toward the calls most people run from — and I spent 18 of those years, on my off days, building a residential irrigation company from a single truck.
For the first half of it, I did what most owners do: I priced off what the other guy charged, worked myself ragged, and couldn't have told you what an hour of my own labor actually cost. I was busy, and I was barely making it. The business owned me.
What changed
The fix didn't come from a business book. It came from the firehouse. On a scene, you run a process — size up, identify the critical factors, make the call, act. No guessing, no ego. I started running my company the same way, and I built it into a method any tech could follow. We call it the SDM — the Strategic Decision-Making Model.
Underneath it was boring math that changed everything: I learned my true cost to put a tech on the road for an hour. I built flat-rate packages off that cost so any tech could quote a job that already protected my margin — without calling me. And I paid my guys a base plus a cut of what they produced over their cost.
The result
The company ran on $850K+ in revenue with three techs, each earning $80–100K with full benefits — and it ran without me in the truck. When I sold it, the new owners kept the exact same system and pushed it to a $1M+ run rate. The system didn't depend on me. That was the whole point.
I Explained This System
Two Years Before I Sold Software.
An hour with the Irrigation Contractor Club podcast — the burden rate, the 250-day year, the daily quota, the package ladder, and what the techs took home. No product to sell. Just how we ran it.
The numbers you'll hear are what we ran in 2024. They moved every year — recalculating them is the system, not a correction to it.
Since then the system has grown to handle seasonal shops, two-man crews, equipment, and any CRM — the core math hasn't changed.
That's the system running. Here's what it costs to have me build it on your numbers →
Why I built Blue Collar Pay
I've watched too many good owners — skilled, hardworking people — stay trapped in the truck because nobody ever showed them the numbers. So I put the entire system into software: burden rate, quota, flat-rate packages, and the commission split, all in one place. Blue Collar Pay is the thing I wish I'd had at year three instead of year thirteen.
I'm not a software guy who decided to sell to contractors. I'm a contractor who built the thing, lived on it, and sold a company because of it. I've got the scars to back up every number on this site.
Where the method came from
I spent 20 years with the Phoenix Fire Department, now a Captain Paramedic. On every scene the process is the same: size up, identify what's critical, make the call, execute. I built my trades company the same way, and called it the SDM — the Strategic Decision-Making Model. It's the field method every tech on Blue Collar Pay runs. Read the SDM Training →
What it did for Water Wise
These are the numbers from Water Wise Sprinkler Repair LLC — Queen Creek, AZ — sold December 2025.
| Base salary ($30/hr × 2,000 hrs) | $60,000 |
| Commission (performance-based) | $31,844 |
| Company vehicle | ~$12,000 |
| Employer health insurance | $3,168 |
| 401k employer match | $2,061 |
| Total compensation value | $109,073 |
New owners — no prior service business experience. Added a 4th lead tech after the sale. Same SDM, same flat rate system, same commission structure.
A career worth keeping
The trades burns people out because most companies don't have a system. Offer 40 hours, benefits, a company vehicle and performance pay, and you become the company every skilled tech wants to work for.
- 40 hours. Monday–Friday. No weekend calls. Protected time builds a sustainable career.
- The company van goes home. It lives in the community he serves. Trust built house by house.
- Hire from your community. Performance pay gives local guys a real shot. Build people up.
Run an irrigation business? Join the Irrigation Business Owners Group By Blue Collar Pay on Facebook — owners talking pricing, pay and running crews.
See the system I built
The same method that got me out of the truck — burden rate, packages, quota, and pay — now runs as software.
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