Boyes Electric: Old-School Standards in a Consolidating Industry
- Jul 8
- 3 min read
If you've tried to hire an electrician in the Bay Area lately, you may have noticed something: a lot of the bigger names you used to call are now owned by someone else. Private equity has spent the last few years quietly rolling up the electrical trades: buying mom-and-pop shops, professionalizing the sales operation, and stacking them into nine-figure portfolios. (Case in point: Champions Group, which acquired the firm where our newest vendor learned the trade, was itself recently acquired by BlackRock for around half a billion dollars.)
Which is why finding a real independent shop, with old-school craftsmanship standards and a real person answering the phone, is worth paying attention to. Meet Borin Reyes and the team at Boyes Electric - the newest electrician in the Property Atlas Vendor Program.
The training
Borin learned the trade at Main Electric under an owner (an old-school Italian gentleman with very particular ideas about how an electrical business should run) who described his outfit as "the BMW of electrical companies." Team meetings at 6 AM. Pledge of allegiance every week. Pressed uniforms, immaculate trucks, plastic laid down on every floor before the work began. By his fifth year there, Borin had absorbed the entire playbook. When he started his own shop, he brought all of it with him.
What that looks like in practice
Borin's team - 17 strong - shows up in uniform, in clean trucks, neatly groomed, with a roll of plastic in the back. The standing instruction: leave the space cleaner than they found it. Customers notice. Headquartered in Oakland, the team works within a 30-mile radius covering most of the Bay Area, with a secondary service zone around Stockton.
Their services side is broad for an independent shop:
Full-house rewires: a real specialty, running anywhere from $20K for an 800-square-foot home up to $100K for a historic property.
Both single and multi-family properties: It’s a combination most electricians don't take on. Property managers get panel replacements, panel relocations, and PG&E upgrades; homeowners get rewires, outlet work, and fixture repair.
Repair before replacing: Especially for older light fixtures, wherever possible. It’s cheaper for the client and less invasive than ripping into ceilings.
Permit-package consulting: For buildings with 6+ units, where PG&E coordination gets complicated, they'll handle the permit and engineering work even if the client ends up using a different electrician for the install.
In-house line diagrams: important for routine permit work, with an electrical engineer on call for larger jobs.
Client-first orientation
This is what most stood out in our conversation. Borin builds his team around a simple rule: educate the client, don't take advantage of them. He'll tell you when you don't need a permit. He'll tell you when an "insurance hazard" letter is overblown. He trains his crew to do the same. In an industry where PE-trained sales teams are increasingly optimizing for ticket size, that's hugely valuable.
Why we're glad to have them
The Property Atlas Vendor Program exists because finding contractors you can actually trust is exhausting. Every vendor we feature is personally vetted, recommended, and proven on the kinds of buildings our clients deal with every day. Borin and Boyes Electric fit the bill perfectly. Have an electrical project, single-family, multi-family, or one of the trickier rewires nobody else wants to touch? Reach out and tell them Property Atlas sent you.
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