Industrial Applications started with young Jay Thomason, starting his own lawn mowing company at 12 years old, pushing the lawnmower from yard to yard until he was old enough to drive.  Jay worked with a few older kids in the neighborhood at first who were also going out on their own.  But, right from the beginning, Jay worked harder than many.  Pushing himself and others to be better was in Jay’s work ethic right from the beginning.  He grew the business by referrals from happy customers, with no inherent marketing or sales skills, Jay let his work speak for itself.

By the time he was 19 years old, Jay had a substantial client base, including the City of Hernando, and had started branching out into scrubbing parking lots with a used sweeper he had bought from one of his lawn mowing customers.  He sold the lawn care part of the business for $20,000, dove into his expanded business and built it while earning his Bachelors Degree, paying his own way through college with the proceeds of his business.  One of his first epiphanies was when he landed a scrub and seal job in a 50,000 square foot facility and made as much profit in a few days as he did in 6-7 months of cutting lawns.  The business man in Jay saw a great opportunity if he was willing to work hard and learn the trade.

He began to do work all over the country, taking on jobs that required some quick learning and a lot of long hours and hard work.  Jay learned all he knows through the school of hard knocks, making mistakes, fixing them until the customer was delighted, and working himself to the point of exhaustion.  Jay began to build a team and hired the best of the best when a large materials vendor closed their contract applications division and decided to refer out their work.  Industrial Applications was originally formed as an LLC and later incorporated.

Jay learned about business and about sales from the customers who hired him and the companies he subcontracted for.  Continuously learning, Jay continued to do incredible work and make the customers happy, and his business grew.  Over time, the company’s reputation grew and more work came through vendor relationships and directly from customers, and less and less IA was a subcontractor.

Jobs don’t always go perfectly.  Defining moments for Jay are when something needs to be done to make a job right for the customer and we unequivocally make it happen, and for IA when the customers realize they can trust that we will make it right.

In 2008, Jay bought a business to open a division in Birmingham, started a supply company (Tri-State Supply Solutions) and brought on a Director of Operations to manage the crews during a strong growth phase – which continued while the rest of the country was battling the recession.  He bought a building and relocated the company offices from Ferrisview Rd near to the airport to its current location at 5665 E. Raines Road in Memphis.  Opening a division in Pittsburgh in 2011, Jay continues to desire to grow the company further in the future.