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Go Back (to archives)Last week we visited the new Comex paint store in Puerto Peñasco and met the owner, Rogelio Villalobos. The store is really impressive--there are cans of paint everywhere--sitting on the shelves, standing in rows on the floor, forming partitions, furniture, and decor. There is paint for any project you can imagine--for swimming pools, roof coating, textures, boats, food storage, wood, masonry, and cars. Rogelio has lacquers, enamels, latex, varnishes, sealers, aerosol sprays, and of course a good selection of brushes, rollers, knives, and trays. We asked him how many gallons of paint he had in the store, and he laughed. But he said that in December he had received a delivery of 1000 cans, so that gave us an idea.
Rogelio has a lot of experience in retail sales. His family owns the hardware store Proveedora Villalobos, and he worked there for 13 years. He knew that Comex was high-quality paint, and he became a salesman for it, with many customers in Las Conchas and other subdivisions. So when he decided to open his own store, he had a product he believed in and knew he could sell.
Comex is one of the biggest paint manufacturers in the world. It has over 2500 stores in Mexico and sells in Arizona and California as well. Its vinyl paint is considered the best in North America. Comex paints are one of the few certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Comex also sells paint widely throughout Central and South America. It has a facory in Guadalajara and another in Monterrey.
Rogelio is one of 6 brothers and 2 sisters. His family came here from Mexicali in the 1970's. We met his wife Yadira, who was there working in the store. She is from Sinaloa, but her family has also lived in Puerto Peñasco for a long time. Her brother is Dr. Jose L. Contreras of the Clinica Santa Fe. Rogelio and Yadira have just celebrated their 11th anniversary and have three children, Maribel, 10, Berenice, 8, and Denisly, 4.
Rogelio told us they had started with a small shop and six months ago moved to this one, which is very spacious. It is located behind the Tecate depository, right next to Electrica Veel. He and Yadira also have another smaller store on Av. Dominguez and a third in Sonoita.
The most interesting thing in the store is a large computerized paint mixing machine, the only one of its kind in Puerto Peñasco. Rogelio started telling us how it works. The customer selects a color, or brings a sample to be matched. He finds it in his color book, dials in the number, and that's all there is to it. While he was explaining, one of his salespeople, a young woman named Aranza, had a real order to fill, so we watched her. She found the type of paint required, opened the can and set it on a platform. Then she punched in the color code on the computer, and we watched as tiny streams of paint ran into the can--we saw yellow, purple, green, and some others. Then Aranza put the lid back on the can, placed it on another platform, tightened a clamp to hold it in place and turned on the power. The paint was shaken by the machine for about five minutes. When Aranza took off the lid, we saw a beautiful shade of turquoise, presumably just what the customer had ordered.
Rogelio told us that the machine uses 12 primary titanium-based tints that can be combined to make 1700 colors. He says he has the formulas for the exact colors used by Pemex, Tecate, Corona, the army, the navy, Bancomer, Coca-Cola, and many other organizations and businesses. So by using Rogelio's machine, these customers can always get the same exact shade of color for their advertising.
When we had been suitably impressed by this piece of high-tech equipment, Rogelio beckoned us to come into the back room. There we saw a human paint mixing machine. As we watched, he dribbled a little of this color and a little of that into a gallon can of paint, until it was the exact shade he needed. Rogelio introduced him to us. He is Ernesto Sierra from Sinaloa, a specialist in car colors. His 30 years of experience mixing paints requires no machines or formulas. There are few Ernestos around, however, so ordinary mortals have to use mechanical help.
We had recently bought paint for a sign in Tucson because we didn't know whether we could get it in Puerto Peñasco. If we had only known then about the Comex store, we could have bought it here. In the future, whenever we need anything in the way of paint, we will consult the specialist, Rogelio Villalobos.
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