Trinidad sits at the foot of Raton Pass, 13 miles north of the New Mexico line and about 195 miles south of Denver. Interstate 25 runs straight through it. The town grew up on the Santa Fe Trail and then on coal mining in the hills around it. It is the county seat of Las Animas County, and the 2020 census counted 8,329 people, down about 8 percent from 2010. The Census Bureau's estimate for July 2024 was a little lower, about 8,200.
If you own a plumbing, electrical, heating, roofing, welding or general contracting company in Trinidad and you are thinking about what comes next, this page is for you. Kent & Tamarack helps owners of small trade and service companies sell, with honest talk about what is possible and a process that stays private.
A town that has seen booms and busts
Trinidad's economy has gone up and down for more than a century. The coal mines that fed the town for decades are closed. Gas companies have drilled for coalbed methane in the Raton Basin for decades. After Colorado legalized retail marijuana, many stores opened in Trinidad. In 2019 the ranch land around Fishers Peak, just south of town, was bought to become Colorado's newest state park. Only part of it is open to visitors so far.
Local trade companies have lived through all of it. Some did oilfield and gas work in the busy years. Some built out storefronts during the cannabis boom. Most have kept a base of home and commercial service work that carried them through the slow years.
That base is what a buyer cares about most. When we prepare your company for sale, we show several years of numbers side by side, so a buyer can see the steady work under any short-term spike. If one boom inflated a single year, we explain it up front instead of letting a buyer find it.
A smaller town means a smaller buyer pool
Selling a trade company in a town this size takes more patience than selling one in Colorado Springs. Fewer people are looking, and each one takes longer to find.
Buyers for a Trinidad company come from a short list:
- One of your own techs or your office manager, who knows the work and the customers.
- A competitor in Trinidad, Walsenburg or Raton who wants your customers and your people.
- A company in Pueblo or northern New Mexico that wants to cover the I-25 corridor near the state line.
- Someone moving to southern Colorado who wants to buy a working business.
With several of these, part of the price may be paid to you over time. That is called seller financing. It helps a buyer who cannot pay everything at closing, and it widens the pool. It also means you carry some risk after the sale, so the terms need care. We explain the trade-offs in plain words and work with your attorney on the papers.
Training the next tech
Trinidad State College has taught students in Trinidad since 1925. Its career and technical programs train students for skilled jobs. For a local trade company, those students are a source of new hires.
A buyer will ask whether you can keep a crew together in a small market. If you already hire from the college, or if you have trained a young tech who plans to stay, show it. A company with a trained second-in-command is far easier to sell than one where only the owner knows how to do the hard jobs.
Work on both sides of Raton Pass
Raton is only 21 miles south. Many Trinidad companies take jobs on both sides of the state line. A buyer will want to know how much of your work is in New Mexico, what licenses and registrations it requires there, and how you handle taxes for it. Put that in writing early. It turns a possible question mark into a plain fact.
Books that show what the company really earns
Owners in small towns run lean. Family members help in the office without a paycheck, or get paid more than the job would pay anyone else. A truck does double duty for the business and the household. Each of these is common, and each one hides the true earnings of the company from a buyer.
Before we show the company to anyone, we sit down with you and your accountant and sort it out. Personal costs that run through the company get added back, so the earnings look as strong as they really are. Gaps in the records get filled where we can fill them. A buyer, and any lender behind a buyer, can only pay for what the paperwork supports, so this step matters more in a small deal than in a big one.
When the sale stays close to home
In a town where most people know each other, word travels fast. We keep your name out of every early conversation. A buyer learns who you are only after signing a confidentiality agreement. We do not call your shop line, and your crew and customers hear about the sale from you, when you are ready.
What your company is worth
In a small market, a fair value rests on what the company earns for an owner in a normal year, how much of the work repeats, the crew, the condition of the trucks and tools, and how clean the records are. We give you a range and the reasons for it. If the honest answer is that the equipment and customer list are worth more than the company as a whole, we tell you that too.
Next steps
Our process has four parts: a private first call, a clear price range, a quiet search for a buyer and a close handled with your own accountant and attorney. See the steps here. Contractors can also read our guide on selling a construction company.
To talk it through, call (983) 900-6537. You will speak with the founder. For the larger market to the north, see our Pueblo page.