Grown from the ground up

P&F Services co-founders Quentin Fojtik, Jason Fojtik, and Jamie Perry on local expertise, a growing business, and what it means to show up for your community.

Quentin and Jason Fojtik grew up a mile down the road from where P&F Services operates today. Their grandmother raised eleven children their father farmed and managed a cotton gin.

Jamie Perry came to Fort Bend County from the Texas panhandle in 1998, met Quentin at the local feed store, and the two eventually went into business together. Today, the three co-found and run P&F Services, a vegetation management company that maintains solar sites across Texas and beyond. They spoke about their roots, how solar changed the direction of their lives, and what it means to them to be part of this community.

---

“
Jason and I were born and raised on the same land our great-grandfather worked. Our grandmother raised eleven kids on a hundred acres by herself. That is where we come from.

Our dad farmed and managed the cotton gin. We did everything the farm required growing up. Jamie ranched. Between the three of us, before P&F ever existed, the full range of what this land needs was already there. And none of us have fully stepped away, keep cattle and pasture. The business grew up alongside those roots, not instead of them.

We got into solar vegetation management almost by accident. Quentin heard about a site that nobody could get under control. We went in, built a program around what the land actually needed, not just a schedule, and it worked. One site led to another and another. Jason's oldest son is on the team now.

We have kids, family, and neighbors all woven into how we operate. That is just how we have always done things.

What makes it work is that the knowledge we brought in is the same knowledge we grew up with. The chemistry we use on a solar site is basically the same chemistry we used in pasture management, same products, slightly rates and mixes depending on what we are trying to propagate. I have always enjoyed going into a piece of land that is overrun with weeds and coming back a year later to see nothing but good grass. That is what we do now, just in a different setting. We are still managing land. We are still reading what the ground needs and building a program around it. The solar panels are new. The work underneath them is not. In a way, we never stopped farming. We just found another way to care for the land we grew up on.

The relationship with Ørsted started with one small section and it grew from there. What sets Ørsted apart from everyone else we work with is common sense. They trust the people who know the land to make the calls. When something needs to happen, they figure out how to get it done. That is pretty rare, and it matters.

It also means we are able to bring our community into the relationship. We are connected to Needville, Damon, West Columbia, the county fair, the volunteer fire department, and the local ambulance service. When there is a benefit, we show up. We bring the grill. And when something comes up that Ørsted could support, we bring it to them. They show up too. Their people come out, they get involved, they become part of things here. That is how it should work.

These communities depend on volunteer services that have to raise money for a new ambulance. When a company gets involved in the right way, people notice. And when they do not, people notice that too.

Our advice to any local business in a community where solar is growing: the expertise you have here is exactly what this industry needs. The land knowledge, the neighbor relationships, the understanding of how a specific piece of ground behaves in a wet March versus a dry one. That does not exist in a manual. It exists in people who have been here. Find the good in it. Get involved. Work with them. Because it is coming either way, and you want good neighbors on both sides of that.