Five years ago, two teenagers in Huntsville started a window cleaning and pressure washer business in high school and saved money to attend Auburn University.
Today, they are planning to expand their business to two more cities and across the state, aiming to give back to the campus community. And they haven’t graduated from Auburn yet.
Josiah Hart and Joshua Quattlebaum founded Quality Care Exterior Solutions by students from Grissom High School in Huntsville.
In 2017, when they were in third grade, they were looking for a way to save for college.
Hart said they wanted to start a business, but they didn’t know what it would be.
One day, Quattorbaum called Hart and asked if he could help clean the windows at the local Circle K gas station in Huntsville. Hart said he wasn’t excited about the idea at first, but he agreed to take on the job.
After they finished their work, Hart said the manager was impressed and asked if he would like to add six other Circle Ks to the area. Quattlebaum replied “yes” and the two began cleaning these seven gas stations once a month.
“I guess something about the community watching young children. We were in the third grade of high school and were working. They liked it,” Hart said. “People will come to us and ask if we want to clean their homes and so on.”
Shortly thereafter, Hart and Quattlebaum decided to turn their gig into an official business. They were licensed and insured, and things started from there.
In 2019, Hart and Quattlebaum came to Auburn University to establish branches in Auburn and Montgomery while maintaining the Huntsville branch.
“We continued this and thought about using it to graduate from college,” Hart said.
Each is now 21 years old and a senior at Auburn, Hart majors in business administration and Quattorbaum majors in finance.
In their business, they served both commercial and residential customers, added homes, roofs and gutters to the list of cleaning services, in addition to window cleaning, and pressure-cleaned various surfaces. ..
They were also able to save for college or hire employees who were already enrolled.
According to Hart, Auburn’s first employee was Daniel Laughlin, 21, who works to graduate from college.
Second grade PE Laflin saved money by transferring from Jefferson State Community College after taking a break from math during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He joined the Quality Care Exterior Solutions team in January after meeting Hart and Quattlebaum.
“It was a great blessing, and it was just great to circumvent my school schedule,” Laughlin said. “It was a great experience and the community really welcomed me.”
Hart and Quattlebaum said they love meeting and listening to new people. In Auburn, they say they cleaned the homes of college professors and other “interesting individuals.”
They plan to continue their business after graduation and hope to expand throughout Alabama.
“We are dreaming at this point,” Hart said. “There are plans to do that, but it’s not easy.”
Hart said he didn’t expect the business to grow this much, but he felt “very grateful.”
“The amount of support we receive from people is incredible,” he said.
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