Hatfield built Homestar from the ground up
Published Monday November 2nd, 2009
Business: Quispamsis man was recently presented the Young Entrepreneur Award by the Kennebecasis Valley Chamber of Commerce
QUISPAMSIS - As a teenager, Mark Hatfield practised the same motto he does today: work harder than everyone else and you will succeed.
The adage has helped the Quispamsis business owner operate his growing company Homestar Inc. and is something he started to do at the age of 16.
"I was working for a lumber company, working for $6 and hour, eight hours a day and I came home and mowed two lawns in two hours and made $50 so it didn't take long to put two and two together that I could make more money in an hour mowing lawns," said Hatfield, who grew up in Rothesay. "I said to my dad 'If I find 10 lawns (to mow), can I quit my job?'"
From there, Hatfield started his first business - a lawn-mowing company that he ran for about five years.
Hatfield, 30, recently won the Young Entrepreneur Award at the Kennebecasis Valley Chamber of Commerce's awards gala for Homestar Inc., a home renovation, landscaping, and property management company.
Hatfield, who completed a marketing and accounting degree at Mount Allison University, said he expected to go on to work at a large corporation before a life-altering accident changed his future.
While driving his motorcycle along Highway 2 near Amherst, N.S., Hatfield was struck head-on by a vehicle.
"I didn't walk for about a month," Hatfield said of the aftermath of the collision. "I had seven surgeries in the course of three years."
Hatfield had no broken bones but suffered from serious soft tissue and dislocation injuries.
He began to work at Xerox as he was going through rehabilitation, but after a brief stint there, he decided to start working for himself again.
"I started doing things I could do on my own hours like house sitting and plowing so I could sit in the truck," he said. "That's how Homestar started."
What began as a one-man, odd-job company has evolved into a business with three major divisions with 13 staff members, Hatfield said.
"As I got better, I grew the company to what it is today," he said. "It has three major divisions: property management, landscaping and renovations. Each one has their key guys."
The company, which was officially launched in August 2002, also has a unit rental arm called Property Star.
Hatfield said his knack for odd jobs started when he was a child and loved to build things.
"I built all kinds of camps and forts as a kid and my dad showed me a lot of things," he said. "I just look at something and I can figure it out. I have a lot of skilled people working for me and I learn from them."
Hatfield and his wife, Kelly DeCourcey, have two children - Beau, 4 and Capri, 2 - and he credited them for supporting him in the earlier days of the business.
"I live and breathe it. I'm up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and I'm usually home by 9," Hatfield said. "My family sacrifices but I'm trying to build something that someday I can pass on to my kids. When you love something, you want to do it all the time. The customer always comes first."
DeCourcey said she is proud of her husband's accomplishments even though the work is time consuming.
"Having parents that worked as well, you know what you're getting into," she said. "That's all we know. We have to be a little more creative when it comes to family time. It's more quality verses quantity."
The couple said they make sure to sit down for a family dinner every night.
"(My family) always had supper every day at 4:30 and now we want to implement that," Hatfield said. "Even if it's only for a half an hour - it's a tradition."
As a self starter, Hatfield said he would tell young entrepreneurs to set the sky as the limit and work as hard as possible.
"Never give up," he said. "It's a tough road; it's a long battle. My motto has been you can have everything as long as you work at it."
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