Twenty-one years, one trade

James Karos got his first plumbing job at sixteen, on a high-school co-op. Twenty-one years later he's a master plumber licensed in three states, trained under some of the best tradesmen America has ever seen, and still the guy who answers the phone.

He started JP Karos Plumbing & HVAC in 2022 with a simple read on the market: the big brands had turned into call centers with coupon walls, and homeowners were paying for it. The company he built does it the old way with new tools: the owner quotes the job, the crew does the work, and the license numbers are printed right on the card.

Today the company runs from East Hampstead and is moving its shop to the Portsmouth area. Seven of every ten jobs are commercial: boiler plants, food-production gas piping, multi-residential mechanical work. The rest is the residential craft the trade was built on, everything from a kitchen drain to a whole-home heat pump. James's line about the trade says it all: plumbers protect the health of the nation. Clean water in, waste out, safe gas, warm houses. That's the job, and it's worth doing right.