Where did you and your brother grow up?

Tom and I were born in Houston, and then a lot of our youth was spent living overseas. We spent five years in Scotland and two years in Singapore. We did move back to the Houston area when we were in middle school. Then, after graduating from Clements High in Sugar Land, TX, we moved to Fort Worth to attend college at TCU. Obviously, my brother and I are very close… but living overseas and moving around to different countries, there were times when all we had was each other.

Tell us about your respective families.

Tom has four boys: the oldest is Tyler, and then he has the triplets – Carter, Blake, and Grant – all are middle schoolers. My wife Emily and I have three boys – twins Matthew and Caleb, and then Luke. They are also all in middle school. We are involved with our church – Trinity Presbyterian.

Wow, seven boys between the two of you? I was going to ask you about hobbies, but you may not have time for any (laughing).

I know, right? With seven middle school boys between us, pretty much all of our hobbies, at least at this point, revolve around chasing the boys around. I know that Tom enjoys playing golf and traveling, and I love to fly fish and backpack. We’re both huge TCU fans and members of the Frog Club. Pretty much anything involving the Horned Frogs has our attention. Tom and I both coached our boys ULL baseball teams, FW youth soccer, and YMCA basketball teams, and now we act more as fans. So, as you can see, it all pretty much revolves around the boys, which is certainly not a bad thing.

What prompted the two of you to start your business?

Tom got started in the home-building business right out of school as a warranty manager. He got promoted to builder and flour-ished, winning builder of the year for his area two years in a row. Then, he was promoted to oversee multiple subdivisions, which was where he was able to see behind the bricks and mortar and really see how the home building business was run.I was working for a local engineering firm (Recaro Aircraft Seat-ing). When we decided to start the business, I felt like I needed to learn more about almost every facet of running a business, so I went back to TCU and got my MBA.

We started Glendarroch Homes because we felt like we could meet a need in the local home building community … which was providing exceptional customer service to the client and building a quality home at a great value.

Did you ever question the idea of going into business with your brother?

No, not once. Fact is, Tom and I have always been in business together. In middle school, we brought candy (Lemonheads) to school and sold them out of our backpacks – 1 for 15 cents and 2 for 25 cents. When we got to high school, we started diving for golf balls. We would spend long summer days cleaning and sorting them and then spend the weekend selling them. All of the proceeds went toward rods/reels/tackle and ulti-mately a john boat for us to bass fish. As I said, we’re very close and we knew we could work together well.

Is there something that you feel is unique about Glendarroch Homes, something that sets you apart from other builders?

Tom and I are still involved in every aspect of the process. Our back-grounds in home building and engi-neering give us the diversity usually associated with a larger company, yet we’re still small enough to maintain the agility necessary to adapt to new and changing situations.Please consider Tim and Tom Bates, owners of Glendarroch Homes, for your next project: brothers, business owners and home builders who are involved in every aspect of the process.