Local Business Owner Has Deep Bowie Roots

Lifelong Bowie resident Mike Baird knows how to tell a story. He can remember when Belair at Bowie was only just built, when Rt. 197 was just one lane, when Old Chapel Road was all dirt.

As owner and operator of Mike’s Seamless Aluminum Gutters for 30 years, he also knows how to run a business.

A Local Businessman

Baird, who lives and runs his business on Old Chapel Road, right across from the home where he grew up, started nailing gutters when he was 14. He quit high school at 16 to work full time, and just ten years later, incorporated his own business.

His first customer was Pulte Homes, who hired Baird to hang gutters on 900 homes in 1983.  A friend of Baird’s was running the east coast division of the company and contacted Baird about the job.

“He said, ‘I need a gutter guy.’ I didn’t have a gutter machine or anything,” Baird said.

It was this very first job that got Baird his start, and where he found his niche—working with contractors as opposed to individual homeowners. Baird’s company installs most of its gutters on homes in new developments.

Though the country has been going though an economic downturn, Baird says his business has not felt the bite of the poor economy.

“The last three years are the best years I’ve had in 30 years. It’s not because the economy is good, it’s because so many guys have gone out of business,” Baird said.

Baird says the keys to the success and longevity of his business are staying competitive, saving money and being fiscally responsible. Though when he first started his business he was at times up to $1 million in debt, these days Baird’s business carries no debt at all.

Deep Family Roots

Baird’s family has a long history in Bowie.  At one time, his grandfather, Martin Fladung, was the city’s undertaker. There’s a photo of Fladung hanging in the Old Bowie Town Grill, sitting on a horse-draw buggy, picking up the city’s dead. He also served as the city’s blacksmith.

Baird attended Bowie High, though he dropped out in 1973 and later received his GED. Baird’s daughters—Brittney, 25; Emily, 22; and Molly, 17—give him a hard time about quitting school.

“They always get on me because I quit school. Almost everyone I went to school with quit school,” Baird said.

Across the street from his current home is the farm where he was raised. Things were different back then, Baird said.

His daughters have all gone to private school and were raised in the fairly spacious Baird residence and, for the most part, have had everything they've needed or wanted. Baird grew up in a more modest home, knowing that when he entered the workforce, he was going to have to start out doing manual labor and work up from there.

“You made do with less,” Baird said.

He and his wife of 31 years, Pam, met in Bowie’s Hilltop shopping center. He was going to the drive-thru liquor store and she was coming out of the 7-11. They’d known each other from years before, and although Pam recognized Baird, he did not remember her at first. He went to see her at a party shortly later, and the rest, as they say, was history.

The two bought the five acres where their home and business now sit in 1986, and she work does the billings and collections for Mike’s Seamless Gutters.

Moving On

Although he’s lived in Bowie for 56 years and raised his family in the city, Baird says he’s ready for a change.

“I had a wonderful time growing up here, but done with it,” Baird said. “Between the taxes and the traffic and everything is so expensive. Ten more years I’ll be in Costa Rica.”

He doesn't think his daughters are interested in taking over the business, so when he does retire, he will likely sell Mike's Seamless Gutters.

But until he retires, Baird says he'll keep working in the field, preparing job estimates and hanging gutters.