Brad Smith

It started out as a joke — Brad Smith working for his good friend Rob Kimbel at Kimbel Mechanical Systems in Springdale.

Smith, 44, was in charge of operations at a now-defunct retail chain when he joked in a Bible study class that he should come work for Kimbel. A month later, Kimbel said he had prayed about it and decided Smith should.

That’s how Smith became the fourth employee at Kimbel in 2000. He started off as a plumber, but as the business grew, so did Smith’s responsibilities, culminating in his role as CEO.

“It turned out to be a pretty good move,” Smith said.

From the humble days with fewer than a handful of employees, Kimbel has grown to 230 employees with another 200 subcontractors it uses for work in 22 states. Kimbel also added electrical and HVAC work to its initial plumbing services.

Kimbel works strictly on residential buildings, either single-family homes or multifamily residences such as apartments, military housing or assisted-living facilities.

“We were just trying to do the best we could,” Smith said of the company’s growth. “I don’t think any of us expected it. We were just trying to be professional.”

Smith may be CEO now, but his employees know he stills knows his way around a job site. “It gives me a ton of credibility,” Smith said. “They know I’ve done what they are doing. They know I’ve been down in the ditch or in the mud. I worked my way up from the very bottom. I did everything a plumber would do. We’re not asking them to do anything we haven’t done ourselves.”

Smith was born and raised on a farm in West Virginia, where, he said, he honed his mechanical inclination by fixing up his family’s equipment. While in college, he came to Arkansas as part of a church missionary trip in 1991 and ended up staying.

Smith’s goal as CEO is to see Kimbel reach $100 million in sales within the next three years.