By Dance Aoki
Daniel Rosell, president and owner of Glass Concepts LLC in Tamuning, takes great pride in the way sunlight enters a building through panes of glass. He gets excited about new innovations in his field, innovations that allow natural light to fill a room without raising the temperature of the room and windows made of material three times stronger than typhoon shutters.
Rosell launched the company when he was still a teenager in Southern California. Glass Concepts sells, installs and maintains the glass built into the doors and windows of projects large and small.
One of the greatest milestones in the company’s history — and in Rosell’s personal life — was moving his business to Guam 20 years ago. Here, he fulfilled a childhood dream of living on a tropical island.
“Growing up in the desert, I always wanted to live on a tropical island, and here I made it,” he says.
Glass Concepts is now responsible for ordering and installing the glass pieces needed for large federal projects as well as helping a customer in need of repair for a broken window.
His company started out much smaller than it is now, but as Glass Concepts took on bigger and bigger projects, each milestone meant Rosell was able to hire more local employees.
He’s developed a strong relationship with his employees, some of whom have been working with him for 19 of the 20 years Glass Concepts has operated on Guam. He says he’d like to create ways for the people who work with him to earn a better wage.
“I want to see the locals get paid what they’re worth,” he says. “I would like to see the guys make what they make in the states here.”
Rosell would like to get his employees licensed as contractors and offer them subcontract work so they can earn more on their own.
“If the wage can’t change, let’s get them licensed,” he says. He would like to provide mentorship for those who would like to become independent contractors. “I’d love to be the guy standing behind them. They can do it.”
The company’s longevity has also come with some hard lessons about how Rosell wants to run his business.
“There’s a lot of work in Guam,” he says. “What we like to do is service work with the people, and by stepping into some bigger projects, it hurt our retail business because we couldn’t be there when the customer needed us.”
Now, he says the company only manages three large projects at any one time so that he can be able to provide excellent service for his customers.
“I really enjoy taking care of the customer,” he says.
As the owner of his business and also being goal-oriented, he says it’s not easy to relax. When he returns home at the end of the day, work is always on his mind.
“You’re mentally thinking of the job all the time, or your customers,” he says. “Work and a personal life — balancing that is very difficult.”
He also says he compartmentalizes his personal goals and professional projects into different boxes, even though he’s working all the time.
“Put it in a box, open it up when you’re ready to deal with it, close it when you’re not,” he says. “You put in a lot of hours for your work, but if you love your work, the hours are nothing.”
Keeping things organized in this way has helped him achieve many of his goals.
When he is able to take a break, he enjoys a few simple pleasures that can be easily satisfied by spending time with nature.
“Normally, in my time off I like to be around the house, I like working in the yard, I like going to the beach,” he says. “I just really like my life. It’s almost everything that I thought it would be.” n
Daniel Rosell
Owner and president, Glass Concepts LLC
Favorite vacation spot: Bali or Vietnam
Favorite app: None. Though he does have an iPhone, he wishes he had his flip-phone back.
Guilty pleasure: Coca-Cola and collecting Coca-Cola merchandise
