When Mark Garlington left his longtime plant job in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment move. After years in a steady role that never quite felt like the right fit, the U.S. Army veteran made a conscious decision to look for something that offered ownership, deeper community ties and a clearer sense of purpose. That search led him to Fresh Coat Painters, where he soft opened his franchise in November in Calcasieu, with a grand opening planned for February of 2026.
That intentional mindset shows up in how Garlington is building the business from day one. He is investing heavily in marketing, trying out new crews even when it means losing money on early jobs and focusing on training and loyalty with the people who work alongside him. His approach reflects a personal standard for how he wants his customers to be treated. “One thing they can know about me is, if something isn’t right — if something does go wrong for whatever reason — I’m going to get another paint crew out there and I’m going to make sure it’s to their liking,” he said. “Whether or not they pick out the next crew, I’ll pay for it. I’m going to make sure I leave them right.”
For people thinking about franchising, Garlington’s story shows what can happen when a career change is driven by values instead of impulse. With Fresh Coat’s systems and coaching behind him, he is using the franchise model to step out of a job that never fit and into a business he can shape around his family, his team and the community he calls home.
1851 Franchise sat down with Garlington to discuss his franchising journey with Fresh Coat, his commitment to community and his ambitious plans for growth. Here’s what he had to say:
1851 Franchise: Frame your personal story for us. What do you want us to know?
Mark Garlington: I’ve spent most of my life working with people and trades, so Fresh Coat Painters feels like a natural next step for me. I grew up here, graduated from Sulphur High School in 2000 and later served as a cavalry scout in the U.S. Army, supporting coalition efforts in Iraq.
When I came home in 2005, I went to SOWELA Technical Community College and then spent about 15 years working as an operator with RNCI Carbon and Cheniere LNG. Along the way, I worked alongside a lot of skilled tradespeople and found that what I enjoy most is helping people reach their goals and making sure the job gets done the right way — safely, on time and to a standard I can be proud of.
1851: What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?
Garlington: In this area, the plants are a big part of our community. I worked at LNG, which is natural gas plants, and that has been the real big thing in the United States over the last 10 years. Oil and gas is really big around here, so it is almost a no-brainer. If you want to make money in this area, you go work for the plants.
Coming out of the military, the transition was either into law enforcement or the plants, but there’s no money in law enforcement, so you gravitate where the money is. I went there, and that is where I had been working. I kept moving up, and no matter where they moved me in the plant, I was never happy.
My boss even had that conversation with me when I was resigning. He said, “Mark, we pretty much moved you everywhere we could put you and you’ve never been happy.” He meant it in a good way — they knew that wasn’t where my mind was at and that I wanted more than what those jobs had to offer.
It has always been me wanting to run my own business. My dad runs his own A/C business. My sister does her own thing. It is just a part of me. Something kept pulling me away, like, I don’t want to work 20 or 25 years for somebody else. Even though it’s a good retirement, it’s just not what I wanted. I like having some kind of stake and ownership in the decision-making process.
1851: What was your perception of franchising prior to becoming a franchisee, and what do you want people to know about franchising now that you are in it?
Garlington: Working in the plants, you have a lot of spare time sometimes, especially on nights, so I had plenty of time to research. I think I kind of already knew what I was getting into. I knew it had its positives and its negatives. Obviously, a lot of the money goes to the franchise, but at the same time, you’re getting a lot of support.
I didn’t want to mess this up. I wanted to make sure I was going to be successful. The success rate is something in the 70% range, and I think it is still at 50% even at year five. I knew that if I put everything I had put into my careers prior into this, I should be in that top 50%.
I want people to know that, because I get support from coaches, I have a responsibility to make sure the job is done well. I am always going to have my background checks done and I am going to honor my warranties because I basically have a corporate office that I have to answer to. That accountability and support are important parts of franchising that people might not see from the outside.
1851: What made you pick this brand? What excites you most about this company?
Garlington: I first started exploring Fresh Coat nearly 15 years ago and began doing my research early on. As I continued to learn about the brand over time, it became clear how much Fresh Coat has built out its support, resources, and owner community. Having access to a strong system and the ability to connect with other franchisees played a big role in my decision to join.
The first thing was narrowing down what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted something in construction, especially in this area with all the hurricanes and things that need to get repaired and rebuilt. I was mainly looking into roofing at first. I despise finance. I hate credit cards. I didn’t want to go the finance route because I feel like people don’t trust those types of people, so that was off the table.
With roofing, I didn’t want to be responsible for a guy that falls off a roof. I was trying to get as safe of a career as I could, too. A buddy of mine, Wes, over in Lafayette owns a Fresh Coat franchise there. He’s my neighbor about an hour and a half from here. He made a comment to me that made a lot of sense: No one is ever in a rush for paint. It’s never an emergency to paint something.
A roof, on the other hand, if you have a leaking roof, you need it now. At the plants, you have emergencies almost daily. Something could blow up, a valve closes or something, and you always have an emergency. With painting, this has been great. I don’t have to run anywhere. There are no fires anywhere — and if there are, I’m leaving. That lower level of emergency, plus the support and the network of other owners, is what really drew me to Fresh Coat.
1851: What do you hope to achieve with your business? What are your plans for growth?
Garlington: I think about growth way ahead of time. I’m trying to make sure I don’t scale too fast. I want to make sure I’ve got the reins on and I’m holding back a little bit where I need to.
Mainly, I’ve been spending money on marketing and trying to get our name out there. I feel like as soon as we come out of the holiday season and warm up a little bit, it could snowball based on the marketing efforts I’m putting in.
I actually have two painters right now. I subcontract them. One of them is working on my duplex right now doing full construction, not even paint. He does full remodels, but he’s a painter also. I’ve got another person who works for me right now, and she’s not painting yet. I’ve got her doing marketing. She’s going out and putting door hangers out, so we’re hitting that part hard first.
I’m spending extra money and I’m going to lose money on a job coming up, but I’m trying out two other painters from a guy who runs a crew of four. I’m going to bring them in, and I’m going to pay my girl to work with them. I’m going to lose on her pretty much on that job, but she’s going to help with the work and learn more about sanding and things like that because it’s a ceiling sand. She did mostly new construction before, so I’m tying her in with them because they’re more professional on the repaints and then re-sanding and staining.
I think I’m building my basis right now. I’m building loyalty with other paint crews and with the two people working for me by giving them my rental house work as well, keeping them busy until more paint jobs come. I truly do care about people, and I want to make sure everybody gets paid, so I don’t think that will be an issue as we grow.
1851: Is there anything else about your story you want us to know?
Garlington: I have a full commitment to the community. I really want to meet people and make them happy and leave them happy once the projects are complete.
What I told my last customer we just did is that one thing they can know about me is, if something isn’t right — if something does go wrong for whatever reason — I’m going to get another paint crew out there and I’m going to make sure it’s to their liking. Whether or not they pick out the next crew, I’ll pay for it. I’m going to make sure I leave them right.
1851: What advice do you have for other people thinking about becoming franchise owners?
Garlington: I feel like some people don’t realize the amount of money they’re about to spend, and they really need to have that knowledge. I knew what to expect because I researched it, and the brand does show that the investment can be somewhere up to around $180,000. Even though the franchise fee itself is small, in the $42,000 range, I think people don’t fully understand that part.
I also don’t know if people come in really understanding how long it might take before you’re getting enough jobs to actually support the business. I did enough of my own research to know that, and I came in all in. I have a 401(k) I’m willing to go through if I need to. I came in prepared for the unexpected.
I didn’t actually know if I could trust the amount of support I would get, and I feel like it has been way better than my expectation was. That’s something on the positive side that I would want people to know when they are thinking about becoming franchise owners.
To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit https://1851franchise.com/freshcoat/info.
ABOUT FRESH COAT PAINTERS:
Fresh Coat Painters, the residential and commercial painting franchise under the Strategic Franchising Systems umbrella, offers a low-cost, high-margin business model that gives entrepreneurs from all walks of life the chance to become successful business owners in the communities they serve. Since starting in 2004, Fresh Coat has expanded to over 190 franchise locations nationwide. Thanks to its unparalleled professionalism and affordable business model, it has become one of the leading concepts in the booming residential and commercial painting segment. With continued year-over-year growth, Fresh Coat is well on its way to achieving its overall goal of becoming a truly iconic painting brand.
Fresh Coat
SPONSORED
For Mark Garlington, franchising offered a way to trade steady plant work for ownership, community impact and a values-driven path that better fit his long-term goals.
When Mark Garlington left his longtime plant job in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment move. After years in a steady role that never quite felt like the right fit, the U.S. Army veteran made a conscious decision to look for something that offered ownership, deeper community ties and a clearer sense of purpose. That search led him to Fresh Coat Painters, where he soft opened his franchise in November in Calcasieu, with a grand opening planned for February of 2026.
That intentional mindset shows up in how Garlington is building the business from day one. He is investing heavily in marketing, trying out new crews even when it means losing money on early jobs and focusing on training and loyalty with the people who work alongside him. His approach reflects a personal standard for how he wants his customers to be treated. “One thing they can know about me is, if something isn’t right — if something does go wrong for whatever reason — I’m going to get another paint crew out there and I’m going to make sure it’s to their liking,” he said. “Whether or not they pick out the next crew, I’ll pay for it. I’m going to make sure I leave them right.”
For people thinking about franchising, Garlington’s story shows what can happen when a career change is driven by values instead of impulse. With Fresh Coat’s systems and coaching behind him, he is using the franchise model to step out of a job that never fit and into a business he can shape around his family, his team and the community he calls home.
1851 Franchise sat down with Garlington to discuss his franchising journey with Fresh Coat, his commitment to community and his ambitious plans for growth. Here’s what he had to say:
1851 Franchise: Frame your personal story for us. What do you want us to know?
Mark Garlington: I’ve spent most of my life working with people and trades, so Fresh Coat Painters feels like a natural next step for me. I grew up here, graduated from Sulphur High School in 2000 and later served as a cavalry scout in the U.S. Army, supporting coalition efforts in Iraq.
When I came home in 2005, I went to SOWELA Technical Community College and then spent about 15 years working as an operator with RNCI Carbon and Cheniere LNG. Along the way, I worked alongside a lot of skilled tradespeople and found that what I enjoy most is helping people reach their goals and making sure the job gets done the right way — safely, on time and to a standard I can be proud of.
1851: What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?
Garlington: In this area, the plants are a big part of our community. I worked at LNG, which is natural gas plants, and that has been the real big thing in the United States over the last 10 years. Oil and gas is really big around here, so it is almost a no-brainer. If you want to make money in this area, you go work for the plants.
Coming out of the military, the transition was either into law enforcement or the plants, but there’s no money in law enforcement, so you gravitate where the money is. I went there, and that is where I had been working. I kept moving up, and no matter where they moved me in the plant, I was never happy.
My boss even had that conversation with me when I was resigning. He said, “Mark, we pretty much moved you everywhere we could put you and you’ve never been happy.” He meant it in a good way — they knew that wasn’t where my mind was at and that I wanted more than what those jobs had to offer.
It has always been me wanting to run my own business. My dad runs his own A/C business. My sister does her own thing. It is just a part of me. Something kept pulling me away, like, I don’t want to work 20 or 25 years for somebody else. Even though it’s a good retirement, it’s just not what I wanted. I like having some kind of stake and ownership in the decision-making process.
1851: What was your perception of franchising prior to becoming a franchisee, and what do you want people to know about franchising now that you are in it?
Garlington: Working in the plants, you have a lot of spare time sometimes, especially on nights, so I had plenty of time to research. I think I kind of already knew what I was getting into. I knew it had its positives and its negatives. Obviously, a lot of the money goes to the franchise, but at the same time, you’re getting a lot of support.
I didn’t want to mess this up. I wanted to make sure I was going to be successful. The success rate is something in the 70% range, and I think it is still at 50% even at year five. I knew that if I put everything I had put into my careers prior into this, I should be in that top 50%.
I want people to know that, because I get support from coaches, I have a responsibility to make sure the job is done well. I am always going to have my background checks done and I am going to honor my warranties because I basically have a corporate office that I have to answer to. That accountability and support are important parts of franchising that people might not see from the outside.
1851: What made you pick this brand? What excites you most about this company?
Garlington: I first started exploring Fresh Coat nearly 15 years ago and began doing my research early on. As I continued to learn about the brand over time, it became clear how much Fresh Coat has built out its support, resources, and owner community. Having access to a strong system and the ability to connect with other franchisees played a big role in my decision to join.
The first thing was narrowing down what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted something in construction, especially in this area with all the hurricanes and things that need to get repaired and rebuilt. I was mainly looking into roofing at first. I despise finance. I hate credit cards. I didn’t want to go the finance route because I feel like people don’t trust those types of people, so that was off the table.
With roofing, I didn’t want to be responsible for a guy that falls off a roof. I was trying to get as safe of a career as I could, too. A buddy of mine, Wes, over in Lafayette owns a Fresh Coat franchise there. He’s my neighbor about an hour and a half from here. He made a comment to me that made a lot of sense: No one is ever in a rush for paint. It’s never an emergency to paint something.
A roof, on the other hand, if you have a leaking roof, you need it now. At the plants, you have emergencies almost daily. Something could blow up, a valve closes or something, and you always have an emergency. With painting, this has been great. I don’t have to run anywhere. There are no fires anywhere — and if there are, I’m leaving. That lower level of emergency, plus the support and the network of other owners, is what really drew me to Fresh Coat.
1851: What do you hope to achieve with your business? What are your plans for growth?
Garlington: I think about growth way ahead of time. I’m trying to make sure I don’t scale too fast. I want to make sure I’ve got the reins on and I’m holding back a little bit where I need to.
Mainly, I’ve been spending money on marketing and trying to get our name out there. I feel like as soon as we come out of the holiday season and warm up a little bit, it could snowball based on the marketing efforts I’m putting in.
I actually have two painters right now. I subcontract them. One of them is working on my duplex right now doing full construction, not even paint. He does full remodels, but he’s a painter also. I’ve got another person who works for me right now, and she’s not painting yet. I’ve got her doing marketing. She’s going out and putting door hangers out, so we’re hitting that part hard first.
I’m spending extra money and I’m going to lose money on a job coming up, but I’m trying out two other painters from a guy who runs a crew of four. I’m going to bring them in, and I’m going to pay my girl to work with them. I’m going to lose on her pretty much on that job, but she’s going to help with the work and learn more about sanding and things like that because it’s a ceiling sand. She did mostly new construction before, so I’m tying her in with them because they’re more professional on the repaints and then re-sanding and staining.
I think I’m building my basis right now. I’m building loyalty with other paint crews and with the two people working for me by giving them my rental house work as well, keeping them busy until more paint jobs come. I truly do care about people, and I want to make sure everybody gets paid, so I don’t think that will be an issue as we grow.
1851: Is there anything else about your story you want us to know?
Garlington: I have a full commitment to the community. I really want to meet people and make them happy and leave them happy once the projects are complete.
What I told my last customer we just did is that one thing they can know about me is, if something isn’t right — if something does go wrong for whatever reason — I’m going to get another paint crew out there and I’m going to make sure it’s to their liking. Whether or not they pick out the next crew, I’ll pay for it. I’m going to make sure I leave them right.
1851: What advice do you have for other people thinking about becoming franchise owners?
Garlington: I feel like some people don’t realize the amount of money they’re about to spend, and they really need to have that knowledge. I knew what to expect because I researched it, and the brand does show that the investment can be somewhere up to around $180,000. Even though the franchise fee itself is small, in the $42,000 range, I think people don’t fully understand that part.
I also don’t know if people come in really understanding how long it might take before you’re getting enough jobs to actually support the business. I did enough of my own research to know that, and I came in all in. I have a 401(k) I’m willing to go through if I need to. I came in prepared for the unexpected.
I didn’t actually know if I could trust the amount of support I would get, and I feel like it has been way better than my expectation was. That’s something on the positive side that I would want people to know when they are thinking about becoming franchise owners.
To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit https://1851franchise.com/freshcoat/info.
ABOUT FRESH COAT PAINTERS:
Fresh Coat Painters, the residential and commercial painting franchise under the Strategic Franchising Systems umbrella, offers a low-cost, high-margin business model that gives entrepreneurs from all walks of life the chance to become successful business owners in the communities they serve. Since starting in 2004, Fresh Coat has expanded to over 190 franchise locations nationwide. Thanks to its unparalleled professionalism and affordable business model, it has become one of the leading concepts in the booming residential and commercial painting segment. With continued year-over-year growth, Fresh Coat is well on its way to achieving its overall goal of becoming a truly iconic painting brand.
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