Amarillo, Texas · founded 1926
Four generations of one family, and the same three words on the wall.
Courtesy, Quality, Service. Cecil Honea chose that motto when he started the business in 1926, and every generation since has been measured against it. Below is the company's own history, told in the order it happened.
The shop years
Appliances, radios and light fixtures, with contracting alongside.
1926
Cecil Honea opens the doors
The business starts in Amarillo selling and repairing appliances, radios and light fixtures, with electrical contracting alongside. Cecil's motto is Courtesy, Quality, Service.
1934
Mamie takes it through the Depression
Cecil dies suddenly, leaving his wife Mary Cecilia Lyons Honea, known as Mamie, to run the company. She carries it through the Great Depression and the Second World War.
1950s
The shop closes, the contracting stays
Under their son James C. Honea, Sr., the retail sales and repair side is dropped so the business can concentrate on residential and commercial electrical contracting.
The contracting years
The retail side goes, and the work widens from houses to grain elevators.
1975
The third generation arrives
Sons James C. Honea, Jr. and Michael L. Honea come aboard. Customers still ask for Jim and Mike by name in reviews written fifty years later.
1980s
Amarillo grows, and so does the map
New housing and shopping centres follow Interstate 40 across south and west Amarillo, and Interstate 27 is built from Lubbock, letting Triangle Electric widen the area it can reach.
1995
Incorporated
The company incorporates as Amarillo's Triangle Electric Company, Inc., doing business as Triangle Electric Company. The name on the trucks does not change.
2006
James C. Honea, Sr. retires
After more than half a century in the business, the second generation steps back.
Today
The fourth generation, and the farms
With Mike's son Christopher M. Honea, the business has expanded into industrial and agricultural contracting. That is why a company known for wiring houses is now found at grain elevators.
“Through 99 years of business the key to Triangle Electric’s longevity has been each generation’s adherence to Cecil’s motto: Courtesy, Quality, Service.”
What has not changed
The licence number is on the door, where you can read it.
Texas Electrical Contractor licence TECL# 18914. It is printed on the trucks and on every page we publish, because a licence you cannot check is not worth quoting. We are also an authorized Cummins Generator dealer, and we service and repair other makes of generator besides.
A hundred years in, the business still runs Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and still answers the phone at any hour when something has gone wrong.
Ready to talk about the job?
Whether it is a kitchen circuit, a church sanctuary or a grain leg that will not start, the number is the same and so is the family answering it.