He turned a single garage-door truck into one of the largest home-service companies in the country — and taught a generation of trades owners how to do the same.

If you run a home-service business, you have probably already learned something from Tommy Mello. He started A1 Garage Door Service in Phoenix in 2006 and grew it into a national operation — and then did something most successful operators never do: he gave the playbook away. Through two bestselling books (Home Service Millionaire and Elevate), The Home Service Expert podcast, and a long-running Inc. column, he has shown thousands of owners how to hire, systematize, and grow.

That is exactly why we put him in our Local Service Spotlight. Tommy is what we call a “lighthouse” — a leader whose real-world results are undeniable. The lesson for every other local-service owner is the one he lives: the business and the person behind it are two different brands, and both are worth building deliberately.