Nathan Morgan

How he got into the trade

Nathan meant to be a veterinarian. Chemistry got in the way, so he fell back on the trade his father was in, and his father helped him into a training program. Electrical work was one of the things he’d said he wasn’t going to do. “It ended up being a great career for me,” he says, “and I don’t regret a minute of it.”

He started as a helper on a large industrial job in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and then spent several years with a regional contractor. After that he traveled, working on natural gas pumping stations and power plants. For a time he, his father and a close friend ran their own contracting business, licensed in Louisiana and Texas, with chemical plant accounts, commercial build-outs, churches and a lot of homes.

When the family settled in Georgia and later North Carolina, the traveling stopped, and the work became a mix of small industrial, commercial and residential jobs. That’s still the mix today.

How he works

Asked what he does differently from other electricians around here, Nathan’s first answer was three words: “Answer the phone.” His second was to show up when he says he will, and if something gets in the way, to call or text with the reason. He hears a lot from people whose contractors never showed and never called.

He tells people the minimum service charge on the phone, before he drives out, so nobody is surprised by the bill. He’s also plain about price: “Good work’s not cheap and cheap work’s not good.”

He has turned down jobs where the customer wanted the work done cheaply in a way that didn’t meet code.

“I’m not going to put my name on something that I’m not proud to go back and look at later.”

He pulls the permits on his jobs and is there for the inspections, so anything the inspector wants changed can usually be corrected on the spot. And he follows up. After replacing a faulty breaker in an office in town, he checked in with the customer the next time he was nearby to make sure the problem had been fixed.

The business today

Nathan does much of the work himself, with part-time help to call on when a job needs it. About half of the calls come from homeowners. The other half come from builders, who tend to stick with a subcontractor once they find one they’re happy with.