About Us

Garage Door Specialists Inc. was started in 1976 with the intention to fill a need in the community for a quality garage door company.  Barry and Peggy Georges begin with nothing but a dream and $5.00.  The business began with a lot of hard work and blood, sweat and tears.  In the early years, the business was difficult and there were a lot of struggles to keep the business running.  Barry and Peggy found the garage door industry to be highly competitive and very cutthroat.  They found that any “Joe Schmo” could install a commercial door or residential door but not every person could install a door in a quality way.  That lead to our motto being born “Quality before Quantity”. 

They realized that quality installs separated them from the competition and before long the community realized that same thing.  The first decade of business for Garage Door Specialists was basically Barry running a truck and going home at night and doing the paperwork required.  In the late 80’s Peggy decided that she would come on full time and run the office because the business was growing and needed a dedicated office manager.  With her as an addition, it allowed Barry to focus on customer service and growing the business.  He began the process of training installers and service technicians to take over his truck and transitioned into the office to handle the overwhelming growth the company was experiencing. 

The Beginnings

In the late ’80s, Barry and Peggy decided that Hickory was the market they wanted to explore and bought a building in Hickory and opened their first storefront to showcase doors and openers.  This turned out to be a good transition as it allowed them to have a showroom to show customers the different designs and options of garage doors. 

The garage door market of Hickory was a great place for Garage Door Specialists Inc. to be in the late 80’s and early 90’s and proved to be a growth generator for the company.  They were able to add a couple more technicians and trucks to accommodate the growth of the company.   The Catawba area allowed GDS to build relationships with local contractors and homeowners alike in the residential market.  It also gave us good exposure to the commercial door market of Hickory and allowed us to begin growing our commercial footprint. 

In the middle to late ’90s, GDS had become known in the industry as a quality residential door company with a small focus on industrial and commercial doors.  We moved the business back to Morganton in 1994 because that is where the owners lived and it only made sense.  GDS had been in the Hickory market for 8 years and had created a good network of homeowners and contractors.  Barry and Peggy decided that they could provide the same world-class service whether they were in Morganton or Hickory and leased a building on East Union St. 

At the time it was the largest building that the company had ever leased and it allowed us the space needed for the next phase of growth we experienced.  This same year we were lucky enough to hire a man named Robert Elder who would turn out to be with the company for 25 years and serve as the Lead Service Technician for over 2 decades. 

In the late 90’s GDS purchased their current location on 111 Benview Lane in Morganton NC.  This 10,000 sq ft building was the largest to date and allowed us the necessary space to handle the needs of our customers.  When we moved into the new building we had a total of 7 employees at the time.  The 2000s proved to be a challenging decade with some ups and downs in the economy but ultimately was a good year for the company and allowed us some growth in the industry.  In 2002 Barry and Peggy’s son came onto the team and started his career as a doorman. 

He started from the bottom working as a helper on a truck and learning the industry from the technician’s side of the business.  In a couple of years, he was running his own truck installing and servicing residential and commercial doors.  In 2005 we were lucky enough to hire our current office manager Debbie Best and this hire helped the company become a more “numbers” based business.  Her knowledge of bookkeeping and business management made the company a better run and managed company. This gave our customers a better overall experience with their garage door needs. 

In 2009 Dusty acquired the business from Barry and Peggy allowing them to retire and become “professional grandparents” and allowed them to travel and pursue hobbies.

If you’d like to learn more about our team, visit our meet the team page.

Contact us today if you’d like to talk to a garage door expert!