Cultivating Success in the Desert
She Builds – By Doug Donaldson
Meghan Thomas, the multitasking backbone of Pahrump Rentals & Hardware, shares her experiences being raised in the retail hardware business and how she grew up seeing her mother fight to be taken seriously.
Meghan Thomas calls herself the perfect everyperson at her mom’s hardware store, Pahrump Rentals & Do it Best Hardware in Pahrump, Nev. Meghan is the bookkeeper, IT support staff and, of course, has been helping customers in the store since her teens. Meghan’s mother, Karen Thomas, became owner of the store in 1979 after being one of the first women in California to earn a contractor’s license. During her years as a general contractor, Karen served as a manager on California highway construction projects and on refurbishing a military base on Catalina Island.
The store began as a rental business, which offered equipment to local contractors, who asked the business to also carry hardware and supplies such as PVC and nuts and bolts. Those requests dovetailed into adding a full hardware line in 2005. Responding to community needs, the 2,500-square-foot store added paint and hobby arts supplies in 2016. More recently, the store, which has seven employees, has developed an outdoor living and lawn and garden niche, partnering with the local gardening club for events such as landscaping tours.
Here, Hardware Connection caught up with Meghan to ask her about her distinct perspective of growing up and then working in a woman-owned hardware business.
What was your introduction to the hardware business?
I was very, very good with computers and sort of fell into helping adapt computer systems into store operations. I was 10, 12 years old teaching 50-year-olds how to use the POS system. I’ve been doing work at the store in the background for more than 23 years, but I’ve worked here for about 18 years.
