Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 157 How A Bergen County Electrician Built Trust, Tech, And A Team That Shows Up
Tired of contractors who ghost after the estimate and leave you guessing about what’s behind your walls? We sat down with Gladiator Electric’s owner, Mike Pecoraro, to unpack how a modern trades business earns trust: clean, code-compliant installs, fast and clear communication, and a team trained to solve problems the right way the first time. From a single van to 800+ five-star reviews and an award from Orange & Rockland for top EV charger installs, Mike shares the systems and mindset that keep customers coming back.
We dig into the realities of home EV charging that dealers rarely mention. Panel capacity, route length, copper costs, permits, and utility programs all shape your total project price and safety. If you’ve got a standby generator, you’ll hear why load shedding is essential. Mike explains how to choose the right equipment, which pitfalls to avoid, and why licensed, inspected work pays off over the long haul. You’ll also learn how small jobs—fixing a dead circuit or swapping a fixture—can be a chance to plan for bigger upgrades like Level 2 charging or backup power.
Beyond outlets and panels, Gladiator Electric builds convenience into the whole home: permanent holiday lighting that stays up year-round, smart-home integrations, low-voltage networking, cameras, and even Panasonic ductless mini split systems installed by techs with universal refrigerant licenses. The new push into monitored burglar alarms centers on reliability over bargain kits, with central station partnerships that prioritize fewer false alarms and longer service life. Mike’s through-line is simple: scope clearly, show up on time, do neat work to code, and make safety non-negotiable.
If you care about dependable electrical work, smarter EV charging, or a home that’s future-ready, this conversation will save you time, money, and stress. Enjoy it, share it with a neighbor who’s considering an upgrade, and subscribe for more local stories that help you hire better and live safer.
Gladiator Electric
Mike Pecoraro
111 W. Madison Ave. Dumont, NJ 07628
201-381-6942
mike@gladiatorelectric.com
gladiatorelectric.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Doug Drohan:Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I am your host, Doug Drohan. It is uh a cold and wintry day here in in Bergen County, New Jersey. But uh, you know, we're inside of our studios here, and I'm joined today by Mike Pecoraro the owner of Gladiator Electric, based out of Dumont, New Jersey. Mike, welcome to welcome to the show.
Mike Pecoraro:Hey, Doug. Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me on. Um Gladiator Electric, we're an electrical contractor based out of northern New Jersey. Um, I started Gladiator Electric back in 2013. Um, at the time, uh, I was a homeowner myself. I dealt with contractors for all kinds of things. We book my wife and I bought a fixer upper. Um, and it just seemed like contractors really missed the mark um over and over again. All different kinds of contractors from painters to flooring, um, everything you could imagine. Um, so at that time, I had uh was working for a large electrical contractor. I was a foreman. Um, and I had just passed the state exam uh to be a master electrician. And um, you know, I was just tired of seeing the way contractors from all trades, they rush the jobs, they would give you confusing answers. Um, you know, that was kind of my motivation to be different. Um at Gladiator Electric, we focus uh clear communication, um, neat and safe, code compliant uh jobs, and we're super proud of it. Uh yesterday, actually, we received an award for the second year in a row from Orange and Rockland Utility Company for being the top uh EV charger installer. Um yeah, so it's uh proud and happy of that.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. So when you say contractors missed the mark, what what were you what do you mean by that?
Mike Pecoraro:Um, you know, you just have situations where the the quality of work is poor or uh like the contracts are vague and you don't really know what you're getting. Um this is just scribble on a piece of paper, you know, a number and some, you know, some vague things. And then the next thing you know, you get they start the job, and halfway through it's like uh, oh, this wasn't a part of it, or you were supposed to provide this and they were supposed to provide that. Uh, not showing up on time. You know, I we all know things come up, especially around here, everybody's so busy. Um, but you know, at least provide some sort of arrival window and try and stick to it. And if you're not gonna make it, something happens, that's okay too. But provide some sort of uh, you know, heads up of what's going on. You know, are you on your way or are you not on your way? You have no idea.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, I think communication is probably the worst attribute of most contractors. Yeah, just returning your call. Like I used to say, I don't want to, I'm not gonna beg you to take my money if you don't want my it's it's crazy. If you want the job, that's fine. But you know, they they come out to your house, yeah, I'll get back to you with an estimate, and you never hear from them again. It's like okay.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, and I hear that over and over again, which is shocking to me because there's like just, I mean, my experience running a business is just as an electrician, obviously, but um, you know, I'll go to somebody's house for an estimate or somebody's office, and they're like, You're the third guy to come, are you actually going to send me an estimate?
Doug Drohan:Right, right.
Mike Pecoraro:And they just I don't understand why you would spend your time drive somewhere, yeah, somebody, and then just not even provide them with what you were there to do.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, I mean, I guess business is so good, you don't need it.
Mike Pecoraro:So maybe I don't know. So be it. Yeah, not gonna be good for very long if that's how you run your business.
Doug Drohan:No, no, and I feel like people have gotten um kind of lazy over the years because the economy's been, you know, whether through ups and downs, COVID and everything, you know, people kept buying houses and moving out to the suburbs and upgrading their homes. And I think it's been really easy to be a contractor because there were so many jobs out there, you know. Easy to be matter if you treated people like crap because you know, you're gonna get the work anyway.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, yeah, like like you're saying, exactly. I mean, there's a lot of guys out there like cowboys, they're just flying by the seat of their pants. They're you know, I I always say all the time, just because you just because you're really good at swinging a hammer or with a paintbrush, that doesn't mean you're a businessman. Right. And a lot of contractors, they probably should have, they probably would have had better careers and should have stuck working for somebody that does have the business mind. Um probably would have been more successful, but you know, they have a dream, they want to do this, or they think it's gonna be easier on them, and uh they just run, you know, a haphazard business basically.
Doug Drohan:So, all right, so you um, you know, in in 2000, you start working in the in the industry, but you go off on your own in 2013, so it's been over a decade. Um like what do you think were the attributes that like you didn't own a business before, right? So, how were you different than these guys? Like, what did you understand about running a business that a lot of these guys didn't?
Mike Pecoraro:Well, yeah, so it's a good question. When I first opened my business, um, it was just me, uh Van and some tools. Um, I had very little money. I had just uh only been married for a couple of years. I had a pregnant wife. Um, we were uh just bought a fixer upper house that I was working on every day and night. Um no, no college uh diploma, um, no business mentors, nothing like that. Um, I built the company with with grit, and I picked myself up by my bootstraps. Um, I spent a lot of years reading. Um, the first couple years was basically everything from marketing, creating company procedures, learning from mistakes, um, a lot of books, podcasts, um, books on tape, a lot of books on tape while I'm driving to a job.
Doug Drohan:Yeah.
Mike Pecoraro:And then implementing implementing things slowly, seeing what works for me and what didn't. Um, my first website I built myself. I I read a book on website building. I read a book on search engine optimization. Um, and I did all of that myself. Uh at that time, back in like 2013, social media was already a thing. Um, and a lot of the older contractors who were kind of just reaping the benefits of just the fact that they've been around for a while, yeah, um they didn't do that work because they didn't need to. You know, they had an ad in the L yellow pages, maybe, um, or uh, you know, just word of mouth being around for a long time. So it kind of ended up giving me an edge because in 2013, 14, 15, there wasn't many guys that were that had done the the legwork that I had done in that area. Um, so that gave me a nice uh head start. Now it's totally different. Everybody, you you can't even be in business if you don't have but um yeah, that's where it is. And you know, what separates us from everybody else, we don't have over 800 five-star reviews for nothing. We work our ass off um every day to maintain our reputation, uh, prove to our customers that we care. Um, we want to do the best for them that we can. Um, and like I said before, it's not just whether the light turns on. Um, you know, you flip the switch, the light turns on. Whoop do you do? Um make that happen. Um, but it's not just about that. It's about was it done up to code? Was it done correctly? It's what you see behind the walls and what you see behind the scenes. I can't do everything myself. Um, I have an awesome team from my technicians, my manager, uh, my office staff. They're all highly skilled and trained. Um, we we also hire for personality as well. Um we just look for genuinely nice people.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Pecoraro:I mean, it's tough to uh, I guess, in an interview, you can get a sense, I guess, but um, you know, sometimes people can fool you in interviews, but uh yeah, in a job interview, everybody's the best that they ever were. They, you know, they tell you everything is yeah, smooth sailing.
Doug Drohan:So say I I want to uh get an EV uh or a hybrid, what what should I know about outfitting my home for a charging station?
Mike Pecoraro:Um, some key components is and the most important, uh, is your electrical system in your home adequate to handle the additional load of an EV charger? Okay. Um, what happens is customers go, we we've been installing EV chargers since 2014. Um, when we started doing them, um all the other guys that I knew that were electric, they would laugh at me, oh, those aren't going anywhere, nobody's doing them. Why are you focusing on that?
Intro/Close:Right.
Mike Pecoraro:Um, and then fast forward a couple of years, I was the only one doing them, and maybe doing one or two a month, and then now you do it, we're doing one or two a day for like the last five years. We have tons of partners in the industry. Um, the the salesmen at the dealership want to sell you a car. So they kind of give you the the sweet story, oh yeah, everybody gets it, it's no problem, it's everything's all good, you know. Right, right. And they conveniently often push you towards not looking into your installation till you till it's close to your delivery date of your vehicle, right?
Doug Drohan:Right.
Mike Pecoraro:So you're kind of like all in already.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, well, yeah, and that's one thing you don't realize. I that happened to me. I I got a hybrid, and my so some of my neighbors got uh a Tesla. Yeah, and uh I didn't want to go all electric at the time, and uh, but they recommended this guy that did their you know EV charger outlets in their house. And I got lucky that you know my house could handle it. But my driveway and garage is on this side of my house, sure, and my electrical box is on the other side in the basement. So he had to run. I mean, the amount of money we spent just on in materials to run it all the way from around my house and in yeah, it cost, you know, cost a lot more than I thought it was gonna cost, but the yeah, yeah, the dealer didn't tell me that. My my E's no big deal.
Mike Pecoraro:My EV team, um, they do them every day, so they're like magicians a lot of times getting the wire from point A to point B. But sometimes you have no choice. You have sometimes the way a basement may have been finished, yeah. You have to run through the basement, it's just um, you know, it's a chore. And uh wires doesn't come cheap nowadays, so that adds to the cost. But the more the more expensive, the more expensive thing and important thing is is your electrical service can it handle that? Do you have a generator? Um, because we have to do something called load shedding, which shut shuts down the charger. Okay, overload your generator. Right. Um, but there's tricks of the trade, there's all kinds of things we have to do, and more importantly, make sure you hire a licensed electrician. Um, you don't want some guy that's coming, you know, a friend of a friend that says that he knows how to do it, that comes in a bit. We go clean up these things after the fact, uh, you know, after these poor installations, and they do get scary um if not done correctly.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. Yeah. No, it's definitely uh, you know, now I have a total electric, you know, I went from hybrid to the complete electric. So I'm glad I already had the uh you know the 220 already set up.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, you dip your toe in with the hybrid, you see how it goes, and then you see that there's plenty of charging stations anywhere. They're great. I have an EV, it's it's awesome.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. So, you know, when you so that's that's one of the things you focus on. And um, but I noticed like, you know, to be a little bit different than a lot of electricians I know, um, you get into like on your website, you get into more blogs about like educational articles, like should you hire an electrician to install an attic fan, or you know, landscape lighting, is it worth it? Or uh how about professional holiday lights? Like you look at some of these houses that have these incredible lights up on the top of their guy didn't get up down a roof himself and do that. I would never do that. They must have hired somebody, and I see signs on street corners now during the holiday season about doing holiday lights. But I, you know, I you know, just from you know, looking at what you've built, it's you're not just a typical electrician contractor, you know, you're you're offering people advice, uh, and I guess from your SEO studying, you know that having articles and keywords helps your company get found easier. Sure. Um but uh are there any other ways that you leverage your um expertise outside of like what's on your website?
Mike Pecoraro:Um yeah, I mean, one thing leads into the next. So we we not only, you know, our website is a good source for information, even if you don't use our services, um, it'll get your feet wet for a lot of different subjects that that you may be interested in. Um, you brought up the holiday lighting. We do uh permanent holiday lighting, um, which is nice because you don't have to take it down, put it up every year, every Saturday. Um, we also do Panasonic ductless mini split systems, which a lot of electricians don't do. We're uh myself as well as a few of my technicians are all uh we have universal refrigerant licenses. Um, so we do some basic HVAC work, which mainly is ductless systems. Um it's nice for that aspect because it's a all-in-one service, whereas an HVAC contractor has to hire an electrician. Um, we do it all in-house. Okay, we do all the pipe fitting and everything in-house. Um, the EV chargers you spoke of before. Um, this we also do network wiring for computers, we do smart home systems, we do cameras. Um starting in 2026, we are now doing burglar alarms um for residential and small uh small businesses. So the the point is that one thing leads to the next. If you could, if we could, if you like our service and you use us for uh anything, maybe you had a light fixture out in your living room, you can't figure out what's wrong with it, you try changing the bulbs, it's just not right. You call us for that, but here you are. We notice that um you have an electric vehicle in the driveway and you don't have a charger, or you don't have a burglar alarm system, or you have um, you know, a generator that needs work. So all of this stuff, it makes it so that we could service our customers, not just like um, oh sorry, we don't do that, call another guy, you know.
Doug Drohan:Right, right. So you do small jobs like somebody's everything. Yeah.
Mike Pecoraro:Everything their ring doorbell isn't working or everything from a ring doorbell to, I mean, we'll go change a light bulb up that's high on a house because you don't have a ladder that um gets there.
Doug Drohan:We don't so the bird, the the burglary systems, are you uh recommending what system they buy or they buy it from you?
Mike Pecoraro:And so it'll it'll be in-house. Uh currently, right now, we're trying out some different systems. We're looking for basically the most important thing to us is reliability. Um, a lot of these commercial brands, um, like an ADT or or other companies similar, they're they're more like budget type of stuff. We're not trying to be uh the cheapest budget company. We want it to be reliability. We want to make sure that we don't have nuisance alarms going off. We want to make sure that uh these systems will work for years to come. Um, so that's what we're doing right now. Um, we're just testing out systems and we're seeing what we like the best um reliability-wise.
Doug Drohan:And they're wired into the police department or fire department, they'll be monitored by Central Station.
Mike Pecoraro:Um, Central Station, which would is a third party that will we will partner with um that will they they will then call the police department.
Doug Drohan:Okay, so people pay for the installation and a monthly like maintenance.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, for central station monitors.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, it makes sense. No, I mean, listen, there's you know, as we said starting out, there's a a difference between just you know calling a guy up who, you know, first of all, they don't call you back or they come and they never follow up. Uh to trusting somebody who can do like your house, as you know, like you start with one project, and maybe as you as you um you know make more money and as your family grows, you you feel this new needs that you have, like, okay, I don't have the time to put my Christmas lights up or my house has gotten bigger. I need somebody to help me with that. Or yeah, maybe things have changed in the neighborhood. I need an alarm system, or you know, we have not had a power outage since I've lived up here in 2009. I know Hurricane Sandy was probably a big boon for generators, but uh it's one thing to buy a generator, it's another thing to get it installed and making sure that your house is equipped for it. So, you know, there's a lot of things that you can grow with your client that uh, hey, maybe they're getting an EV, you know, now, although you know the tax credits went away, so that might change. I know I got my I got my EV right before the uh expiration September 30th. So dealers were anxious. I got a really good deal to to uh trade in my old car to get a new one. But uh, you know, it's it's it's great to know that you can grow along with your customers, you know.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, I mean they're still offering the incentives uh for the EV charger installations and the off-peak charging for now at least. Uh okay. So the chargers, but not the cars.
Doug Drohan:Okay.
Intro/Close:Yeah.
Doug Drohan:So now you're you're called I said you're based in Dumont, but you're actually based in New Milford.
Mike Pecoraro:Uh so the business is based in DuMont. I live in New Milford. Um right now. Okay.
unknown:Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Drohan:My my wife is from New Milford.
Mike Pecoraro:So okay, great. Green County. I live there my whole life.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, she graduated from New Milford High School. Her parents still live on the boulevard. Oh, no, you say me too. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so tell me a little bit. So we're going back, we're getting a little bit personal here. So um aside from being a um, you know, business owner, an electrician, you dabble, I'll say you dabble a little bit in in martial arts. Is that do you do that so um when you show up for a customer who hasn't paid you in a few months that you can just uh you know, you can you can flip them or put them into submission hold?
Mike Pecoraro:No, nothing like that. In fact, my super polite, nice uh admin will be the first person to call you if you haven't paid your bill. Yeah, there you go. I'm like the third call if you haven't paid your bill. Got it. Uh no, I've been doing it forever. Um, since I'm a little kid, um, started when I was young through my teenage years. Um into my 20s, I started getting into MMA and uh I'm uh currently a uh first degree Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. Um I off I also have been boxing since I'm 19 years old.
Doug Drohan:Okay.
Mike Pecoraro:But my competition days are over, though. Those those guys more or less ended uh a lot of injuries. It's it's tough to be a 43-year-old athlete.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously you still practice, but I I dabbled in different things and um just having that knowledge. I mean, if you don't do it all the time, then you you'll lose your flexibility, you get older. But you just have that confidence, that knowledge that you know you know where to strike if you have to.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, it's it's fun, it's fun. It's it's good for exercise and you know, to hopefully keep me young. And uh now passing this down to my son. Uh that's great. He's 11, so he's uh he's Been wrestling since kindergarten and I coach his wrestling team. So there's a fo more focus put on him now. Uh yeah.
Doug Drohan:Yeah.
Mike Pecoraro:Let's torture him a little bit.
Doug Drohan:Right, right. Yeah. That's great. That's great. So, Mike, how do how do people reach you if they wanted to contact you?
Mike Pecoraro:Uh, the best way is by phone. Uh, you could call us at 201-381-6942, um, or through our website, our Instagram uh websites www.gladiatorelectric.com. Um, that's where you could find all that awesome information you alluded to earlier. Um, and you could find contact info through there as well.
Doug Drohan:That's great. And then just to recap, like the services you um you do commercial as well as residential.
Mike Pecoraro:Yeah, like light, like commercial. Um, early on, we were doing a lot of industrial stuff. We kind of pushed that away years ago. So now it's more like commercial work, like offices, retail, uh, that sort of thing.
Doug Drohan:Got it.
unknown:Yeah.
Doug Drohan:On the residential side, it's like no job is too small, but you'll go as far as pretty much any any type of residential job that people need.
Mike Pecoraro:Correct. As far as rent residential goes, uh, no job too big or small.
Doug Drohan:That's great. Well, Mike, thanks for joining the show. I wish you guys and your family a great holiday season. You too. Yeah, thank you. You and I'll be right back.
Mike Pecoraro:All right.
Doug Drohan:All right.
Intro/Close:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen.com. That's gnpbergen.com or call 201 298 8325.