CNBC shines a light on San Antonio plumber making $105,000 a year
CNBC went On the Job with a San Antonio plumber who says he earns six figures a year.
The national outlet’s On the Job series highlights people who have a creative or nontraditional career path. Richard Armendariz tells CNBC that trade jobs were part of the push for Churchill High School graduates. The 30-year-old dropped out and earned his GED, then started work on his associate’s degree at a San Antonio community college. He says he was three credits shy of completing his degree, but a psychology textbook stood in the way.
“At the time I was 19 and I just couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t muster up the money to get it,” Armendariz says in the CNBC interview. “I was very disappointed because I really, really wanted to get my associate degree. I think I was maybe three credits away from it and it crushed me. It did. I didn’t know what else to do and my girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife, she had just found out she was pregnant. So I really needed to push to get something done. I didn’t want to not have a stable future.”
He says he felt judged by his peers for not taking a more traditional route.
Armendariz picked up work with a pool company, but didn’t have stable pay. Though nervous, he decided to switch paths and looked to his dad, who he hadn’t spoken to in years, for direction. The two met at a diner, so the elder Armendariz could meet his grandson and offer some fatherly advice. He pointed his son to a plumbing apprenticeship.
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Ten years later, Armendariz says he expects to earn $105,000 this year. He says he started in the industry earning $12 an hour but quickly earned pay increases, especially after becoming a journeyman. He’s currently working to earn his master plumber license, which could put him in the position to earn $86 an hour working for Bluefrog, a local plumbing company.
“A tradesman license allows you to work in residential [buildings], where a journeyman allows you to do both residential and commercial and you can run job sites,” he tells CNBC. “The master license here in Texas is more for if you’re going to own your own company.”
Armendariz says the money helps his family. His wife has an expensive surgery coming up that they’ll be able to pay nearly in full for without insurance. Still, the days can be grueling.
His typical schedule is Monday through Friday, but on-call days on the weekends leave him with no time for anything else. He says that even during his normal schedule, he knows when he’ll start the day, but the time he gets home can be a toss up. He’ll get home as late as 9 or 10 p.m. some days, sometimes without eating.
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He tells CNBC the biggest part of his daily routine is comforting the customer.
“A big part of our job is just consoling the customer. I would say that’s probably good 60 to 70 percent of our work,” he tells CNBC. “It’s very important that we have some kind of empathy for them because for us as plumbers, we see it every day. I leave one house and it’s flooded. I go to another house and it’s flooded. So for me, my work environment doesn’t change. But for them, this is the end of the world as they know it.”
That skill was most important in February, during the winter storm. Armendariz says he received up to 500 calls a day, while his family went without water for sevent days straight.
“I’m very glad I stuck with this career because it paid off,” he says. “Plumbing, yes, there’s money in it. But it’s fun, I enjoy it. It’s nice to go and help somebody. It feels good. It feels good to help somebody that just happens to make money doing it.”
