Daniel Gallagher is a tradesman’s tradesman. The Philadelphia business owner is a master plumber, specifically, but his respect for skilled tradespeople knows no bounds.

“I was on a job in a veterans’ home a couple of weeks ago,” he says, “and another plumber walked in.” A bystander remarked something along the lines of, ‘Oh, oh, dueling plumbers.’ Gallagher doesn’t think that way. 

“I walked over to the other guy and said, ‘Hey, if I can ever help you with something, let me know.’ I have a Philly mentality by nature and, sure, you have to be tough out there, but we have to stop eating our own, you know what I mean?”  

Respect for skilled plumbers, electricians, roofers and so on was embedded in Gallagher as a young apprentice. He attended a Master Plumbers Association meeting one night and unexpectedly found some role models.

“The master plumber I worked with and some others were up there in three-piece suits. They held themselves in a certain way, as if to say, ‘This is how you do it when you are a plumbing professional.’”

Gallagher says he considers himself “really, really fortunate to have run into those guys. Today, I’m usually either in my work clothes or in a suit and I handle myself the exact same way they did.”

He also emulated his mentors by becoming an active member of the city plumbers association. He worked himself up from sergeant at arms to became president six years ago, a position he held for three years. Organization membership grew dramatically under his leadership and today he sits on the board of the state Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association.

FULLY EMBRACING THE INDUSTRY

Eighteen years ago, Gallagher opened the doors to Daniels Plumbing and Heating in his native Philadelphia, having learned the trade and fully embraced the ethos of his professional mentors. It is a family business by every definition. His mother Theresa Gallagher manages much of the paperwork in the office. His sister, Caitlyn, works there as well, keeping an eye on bills and other bookkeeping necessities. 

While his wife Judy is not officially a member of the team, without her support the team leader would not be able to function at the high level he does. “She allows me to devote all the hours, blood and sweat that I choose to put into the business.”

Typically, he’s the first one in the company office, usually by 6 a.m. Long days generally follow. His interview for this article was at the other end of his day — 6:30 p.m. — not an unusual hour to find him wrapping up a day’s work. 

His service team rolls out in a half-dozen trucks ranging from pickups to box trucks. In mid-June, Gallagher added a new unit to the fleet — a Ford 550 pumper truck with a 1,200-gal tank. He says he procured the unit in response to customer demand. 

Each vehicle is brightly wrapped in a red-and-white “Daniels-Philadelphia” logo. The company owner is convinced that a company’s trucks are an indicator of the company’s vitality. “You can kind of see when a company is in a final stage by the condition of its trucks.”

By that measurement, Daniels Plumbing clearly is an early stage of vigor. The impression is strengthened when a truck is trailering a Bobcat skid-steer or JCB backhoe or hauling a Spartan 738 jetter for those calls when a clogged sink or toilet has turned into an impacted sewer lateral.

In the vehicles’ tool storage areas are General Pipe and Spartan cabling machines and RIDGID battery-operated hand tools. Because most of the city’s water lines are copper, soldering equipment and ProPress pipe-repair tools are always carried. A Spartan Trapjumper pushrod camera unit is in Gallagher’s truck; he does most of the company’s pipeline inspection work.

And nearly 90% of the time the destination for Daniels trucks on service runs is a residential address in the city, including the company’s contracted responses to the city’s low-income housing units. “The housing unit work orders come in waves and keep us moving.”  

PROMOTING THE TRADE

The main 7,000-square-foot Daniels Plumbing shop is on Torresdale Avenue in the city proper, not far from the Delaware River separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Last year, Gallagher opened a location in Bucks County to be nearer its 650,000 residents as well as those in neighboring Montgomery County. He soon will have two service trucks running out of the office and hopes in another year to have four.

The Bucks County facility undoubtedly is unique among plumbing shops in the country — the second floor of the building has been turned into a podcast studio to talk about trade work. Its woodwork and wall treatments are more bespoke than a typical office, with custom ornate woodwork and wall treatments. “We’re going to have cappuccino machines and a cigar bar with a smoke-eater so that when people come in they will really be comfortable,” says Gallagher. “We dumped a lot of money in it.”

The core part of the floor is a dedicated podcast booth where Gallagher will hold forth as host of “The Boiler Room,” a venue where tradespeople will talk about their crafts, whether it be electrician, plumber, HVAC tech, carpenter, roofer or some other trade. “The premise of each podcast will be, ‘Tell me your story.’”

The hope is that three or four show segments can be produced each week — Gallagher has hired a production crew to help make it happen. He envisions a program format similar to, say, the old Johnny Carson TV show, with guests and hosts having frank and entertaining discussions about trade work.

“I want to be sort of an ambassador of the trades and to encourage a younger generation to pick up the tools. This is important. The country needs roofers and plumbers.”

Gallagher is an advocate of networking, which he believes has been a fundamental practice in Philadelphia through the years, and believes the podcast is another networking facet. He said when a practicing tradesman comes on his show, Gallagher’s goal will be to help him build his brand and, in the process, expand Gallagher’s own network of blue-collar professionals.

“I’m already getting a lot of excitement from people in the industries,” he says. He hopes to launch “The Boiler Room” in September.

The Daniels company owner and peers have been working for a couple of years to reopen a plumbing apprenticeship school. The task has proven to be fairly daunting. In May, the organizers finally received the 501(c)(3) nonprofit status necessary to make it financially viable and have found a building in the 5000 block of Frankfort Avenue to house the classrooms. 

Now the organization is waiting for the Department of Labor to approve the proposed curriculum. The goal of the school is to attract at-risk youth looking to start a career, but it will be open to anyone wanting to enter the trade. 

The need for more trade schooling and training is constantly evident, Gallagher says. Because the city has padded its plumbing code with 30-some amendments, causing tradespeople to fail the licensing exam, the plumbing association recently held a code course for 42 journeymen and master plumbers. On another front, in March, the association ran a backflow test course — the first such course offered in the city in 25 years — and 20 people passed it.

IT TAKES MANY

Gallagher is, first, a plumber and plumbing company owner, but clearly his trade advocacy work is a close second priority. He expresses confidence in his employees and gives them credit for the company’s ongoing success.

“I represent the company, but my guys are doing the work. Some say it takes a village. I say it takes a full shop. I’ve a good group of girls in the office and guys in the field. I don’t micromanage them. They all do their work and do it well. Good people work here — not just good plumbers, but good people, you know what I mean?”

He keeps his lines of communication open with customers, different lines to different people. “I talk to homeowners about their options, you know,” he says. “The young families with a hundred flushes a day of the toilet. The older couples who I help get by and encourage them to put a little money aside. I really try to help everybody.”

Running a company and ramrodding an industry is life in the fast lane. It is stressful. Gallagher came to understand that in the last year when three men he knew suffered heart attacks. It gave him pause.

“There’s a story in the Bible [in the 12th chapter of Luke] where a man has a big house and harvests lots of crops and thinks he really is set and then the Lord says, ‘Tonight, I am going to take your soul,’” says Gallagher. Thus, cautioned by scripture about taking things for granted, Gallagher decided one day last year to get fit so he can withstand the rigors of his work pace.

He went to his full gym in his shop and began to sweat. He changed his diet — no carbs — and pumped the iron. The result? He dropped more than 60 pounds, shrank his waist size from 42 inches to 36 and now has the stamina to build the company he wants to build.

“I have to keep my body where my head is. With God’s grace, I’m going to keep it together.”