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At Colorado’s Drywall & Painting, the work is measured in homes: builds, custom projects, and semi-custom jobs across South Carolina. Based in Columbia, SC, the company provides drywall and painting services for homeowners and builders. It’s work that relies heavily on steady coordination between crews, vendors, materials, and the office.
Behind all that is a family business with deep roots. The company began in 2004 with Laura and Erick Colorado’s father Pedro, who started out doing much of the work himself before the business grew into a broader drywall and painting operation.
Today, Laura manages office operations, billing, small business payroll, and accounting for the company, while her brother, Erick, serves as CEO and Chief Operations Manager. Erick has been with the business for more than two decades, helping carry forward the company their father built from the ground up.
“From where we were and where we are right now, seeing the company grow has been amazing,” Erick says.
With more suppliers, purchases, day-to-day costs, and additional expenses like travel and parking, finding a better way to organize corporate spending was critical for Laura.
That’s where the American Express® Corporate Program – and its American Express® Corporate Cards1 – began to make a difference.
The company now uses four American Express Corporate Platinum Cards® across the family business: one for Erick, one for their father, one for Laura’s office purchases, and one for another brother who helps manage business expenses for fuel and field needs.
“We can use [the Cards] to pay some of our major vendors,” Laura explains.
For Laura, one of the biggest advantages of the Cards has been their simplicity. Rather than handling every company purchase as a separate payment, Laura and her team use their Corporate Cards to centralize spending.
“We’re using our Platinum Card for gas; we use it when Erick has to travel. We sometimes use it for lunch meetings,” she says. “It’s easier to just make a one-time payment for all your expenses.”
For the busy manager, using the Cards can help to provide more order to spending across the business. “It has helped us a lot in the way that I do have more control,” she says. That control, along with increased visibility into spending, has been instrumental in helping improve day-to-day operational efficiency.
While control has been vital for Laura on the finance side, the Cards have also delivered value beyond regular expense management. Enrolling in the American Express Corporate Membership Rewards® program2 enables the Colorado's to earn Membership Rewards points at the company level. In turn, the team uses those points to help offset the cost of travelling to client visits.
Lately, the company is also thinking about using Membership Rewards points to recognize employees. “We just decided, maybe at year-end, to use points to award one of our employees a trip,” Laura says.
Service from American Express has helped to enhance the experience even more. Laura says their Amex Corporate Program specialist helped explain the benefits, connected them with the right people, and made it simple for the company to add more Cards as more family members employed by the company needed access.
“He keeps checking in with us,” she smiles. “He’s very, very, very helpful.”
For a family business still growing carefully and with intention, that combination of organization, rewards,3 and support has made the Corporate Program feel like a real and relevant part of the company’s next chapter.
“At the beginning we weren’t sure,” Laura admits. But as they learned how the Corporate Program could help support the way they already worked, the value became clear. Now, with the backing of Amex, Colorado’s Drywall & Painting can be intentional about their growth.
Terms & Conditions
1 The American Express® Corporate Card Program is subject to application and approval. Terms and fees apply. To learn more, call an American Express® Specialist at 855-531-3491 or visit americanexpress.com/corporate.
2 Corporate Membership Rewards® Program
Enrollment in the Corporate Membership Rewards program is required. Only the American Express® Corporate Green Card, American Express® Corporate Gold Card, and American Express Corporate Platinum Card® are eligible to enroll in the Corporate Membership Rewards program. The Program Administrator is charged a $90 annual enrollment fee for each enrolled Corporate Green Card. A program fee is not applied for the Corporate Gold Card and Corporate Platinum Card®. Get one Corporate Membership Rewards point for every dollar of eligible purchases charged on enrolled American Express® Corporate Cards. Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents. If the Corporate Card Member is transferring from an existing Membership Rewards program to the Corporate Membership Rewards program, the Card Member will have 30 days to use any existing Membership Rewards points before they are forfeited.
The redemption value of Corporate Membership Rewards points varies according to how you choose to use them.
For the full terms and conditions for the Corporate Membership Rewards® program please visit americanexpress.com/corporatemrterms for more information. Participating Corporate Membership Rewards partners, available rewards, and point levels are subject to change without notice.
3 Not all Cards are eligible to get rewards. Terms and limitations vary by Card type.
