Brandon Lewis

Staff Photo by Lesley Onstott Painter Ready employees, Joe Shadwick, left, and Ricky Pemberton, paint the outside of a condo in the Village of Ashwood off Shallowford Road. Painter Ready is a new contracting service that performs a variety of services for residential and commercial clients.

After a few less-than-stellar home improvement experiences, Brandon Lewis decided to open his home repair business.

Painter Ready started two years ago, and today, Mr. Lewis already has a staff of 15 employees and a fairly steady stream of business.

But that's not all Mr. Lewis, 29, has done in the past two years. While starting and running Painter Ready, he's been simultaneously running a political fundraising business called the Lewis Group. He says the two businesses are not that different.

"Painting and politics are very similar because they're always trying to cover something up," he said jokingly.

With both Painter Ready and Lewis Group, he is providing a service, though the work may be raising money for a political candidate or doing painting and drywall work on a customer's house.

"There are fundamental principles that resonate through every business model, whether it be service or professional consulting," he said.

And it helps that Mr. Lewis is extremely driven. He hasn't turned on his television in three weeks and says his typical workweek averages about 65 hours.

His reputation has earned him great respect from his clients. Bill Raines, owner of commercial real estate company The Raines Group, has had Painter Ready do some work on some property he owns, including his church, St. Mark's United Methodist Church in North Chattanooga.

"Sometimes dealing with contractors can be a frustrating, time-consuming unreliable performance business, and I have found him to meet at the right time and place to look at the work required, give back a very competitive bid and begin it and end it on time," Mr. Raines said. "Those are great accolades for contractors."

Mr. Lewis, originally from Arab, Ala., holds a degree in marketing from Jacksonville State University and an MBA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

He spent much of his career working with nonprofit organizations and served as finance coordinator for now U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. He also served as major gifts officer at Baylor School during a capital campaign.

In addition to running his two businesses, Mr. Lewis participates in numerous civic organizations.

Somehow, even after all of that, he still manages to have a social life.

"It's about making a big list of things to do and just hammering through them," he said.