BUILT ON SERVICE, STRENGTHENED BY FAMILY
When Josh Shelton talks about plumbing, leadership or the future of the trades, he’s not speaking from theory. He’s speaking from a lifetime spent absorbing the values, work ethic and resourcefulness that shaped Shelton Plumbing, long before he ever considered taking over the business his father founded the same year Josh was born.
“My dad started Shelton Plumbing in 1983,” Shelton recalls. “He grew the company to around 20 employees at one point, but he found out that he didn’t really enjoy the management side. It got out of his control, and he decided to downsize.”
For more than a decade, his father, John Shelton, operated as a one-man shop, just him, a truck, deep roots in the Alle-Kiski Valley and a loyal customer base built on trust, craftsmanship and doing right by people. Those years became, in John’s words, “the best times of his career” because he regained control of his schedule and re-centered the business around service.
But eventually, a decision had to be made about the future. One day John approached Josh with a direct question: either take over the business or he would sell it. It wasn’t a path Josh had expected.
TURNING A RELUCTANT BEGINNING INTO A CALLING
Despite spending his childhood summers digging, repairing and tagging along on plumbing jobs, Josh never planned to become a plumber. “I didn’t choose the plumbing path because I spent my childhood helping my dad to make money and I just didn’t really like plumbing when I was a kid,” he admits.
He also didn’t choose college; instead, he chased work, any work, traveling the country doing labor-intensive jobs at fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. He describes himself then as someone who “loved to work,” but not yet someone who had found his purpose.
The turning point came quickly after his father’s ultimatum. “Two weeks later, I was enrolled in plumbing school and never looked back,” Josh says. From the first day in the field as an apprentice, everything changed. Working beside his father not only taught him the trade; it reshaped their relationship. “Those first two years were such an eye-opener. I got to go into his world and see what he did to provide for the family, the sacrifices he made. It built a bond we never had before.”
