CE Pro September 2022 - 34

CE PROFILE | Pair Electronics
Processes in Place to
Leave Lasting Legacy
Pair Electronics has a long-established family name in
Greenville and rural eastern North Carolina. With rapid
growth in revenue and staff over the past few years, the
third-generation owner has implemented steps to secure
an efficient future. By Arlen Schweiger
AT JUST 44 YEARS OLD, Jason Pair
has owned and operated his own
Quick Stats
Company: Pair Electronics
Location: Greenville & New
Bern, N.C.
Website: pairelectronics.com
2021 Revenue (residential/
commercial %): $4.9 million
- 70% residential/30%
commercial
Number of Employees: 22
Key Brands: Coastal
Source, Control4, Samsung,
Klipsch, Sonos, Screen
Innovations, Sony, Anthem,
Paradigm, Snap One
FYI (One piece of advice to
another dealer): " Believe
in your people. Do the job
once. Exceed the customer's
expectations. "
business for more than half his life; " I did one
semester of college and college was not for
me, " he says. " Nobody ever taught me, this is
how you run a business. There are a lot of
things I wished I'd learned earlier on. "
But education in the school of life and lessons
learned running an integration firm have
provided a veritable business degree for the
owner of Greenville, N.C.-based Pair Electronics.
The company has a well-recognized name
with a long history serving eastern North
Carolina. This year it earned a spot (No. 73)
in the CE Pro 100 for the first time, piling up
a remarkable $4.9 million in revenues in 2021
from a mostly rural area. But as Pair points
out, the company must continue to evolve.
His biggest lesson might be the one he's
willed himself to accept over the past year
in particular... he has learned to get " out
of the weeds " and delegate, put others in
decision-making roles, and rely on processes
more than trying to continue wearing all the
hats. As someone who realized success in a
lawncare business before turning to custom
integration, Pair has figured out how to take
care of the weed situation and put Pair Electronics
in a rosy position for the future.
Family Tradition with a Plot Twist
Pair considers himself " old school, " which is
unsurprising given Pair Electronics' rich family
34 | CE Pro September 2022
history and his hard work ethic instilled by
his father and grandfather, who started the
company more than 50 years ago.
Pair's grandfather Percy was in the parts
supply business " when back in the day you
had small companies that sold parts and
capacitors, picture tubes and things like that.
He worked for an electrical supply house in
the Southeast, " he says. In 1969, Percy Pair
decided to break off and begin a business with
a half-dozen reps on the road selling those
types of electronics. The original Pair Electronics
was like a distributor or wholesaler in the
video business, Jason Pair says. " We had reps
that called on the small mom-and-pop stores
- they needed to repair picture tubes, get
your TV back going, put on an antenna. "
After Pair's father, Todd, got out of high
school, he added what turned into a successful
hi-fi division of Pair Electronics, fueled by
the golden days of home stereo consoles,
turntables and reel-to-reels of the 1970s, and
into tape decks, CD players and car stereos
of the 1980s. From about 1975 to 1995,
the stereo shop expanded next door to the
original Pair Electronics. " Back in the day you
had Rotel, Bose 901s, JBL, Marantz... he sold
so much JBL with those L100s, " Pair says. " It
was a neat thing. "
But in the mid-1990s, a technology shift
had begun impacting Pair Electronics and Jason's
granddad was stubborn about changing
tunes, he recalls. Eventually it led to an exit
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CE Pro September 2022

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