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Window of opportunity
Neither did his kindergarten classmate, Teri Baptista, who eventually would become the other "T" in T & T Tinting Specialists Inc.
Not that they've been sweethearts since then. Perhaps because of concerns over cooties, each didn't know the other existed at St. Joseph School in Waipahu.
Nevertheless, they met up again during high school -- he at Pearl City, she at Sacred Hearts Academy -- as they worked for Canteen Corp., then the concessionaire at Aloha Stadium.
They started dating at 19, after graduation.
"We were going through my old photo album and Tommy said, 'What are you doing with this picture? That's my class!' And I said, well, there's me, and he said, 'there's me,' " Teri laughed.
Silva started tinting windows as a hobby, on his own car and cars belonging to family, friends and teachers. Serving that last group of clientele produced a profit in the form of sweetened report cards. "It sure did," he chuckled.
His sister showed him a help-wanted ad seeking an experienced auto glass tinter, promising starting pay of $2,000 a month. At the other end of the ad he found a man with boxes of window film piled up in his apartment.
He told Silva he'd taken out an ad in the yellow pages and had sort of forgotten about it, until the directories were distributed and his phone started ringing off the hook.
"He didn't even have a tinter," Silva said.
The forgetful entrepreneur who started At Home Auto Glass Tinting inspected the self-tinted windows on Silva's Mustang and handed over a clipboard full of appointments. The business grew over the next three years to 20 employees, but it stopped being mobile after opening two locations.
The first owner sold the business to a mainland investor, who "ran it into the ground, taking cash out ... We'd go to work and there was no electricity because he didn't pay the bill ... and sometimes there was no phone." On paydays, Silva and his co-workers would race to the bank, where "maybe the first five checks would clear."
Tommy and Teri Silva were in the same kindergarten class at St. Joseph School in Waipahu. Tommy is the boy in the top row, third from the right, and Teri is in the row below, sixth from the right. She's wearing a frown because she had lost her tooth and didn't want to smile. They waited until after high school before they began dating.
Tommy and Teri Silva celebrate the first anniversary of their tinting shop.
"We started in 1982, which was the year my wife and I got married," he said. "We used our wedding money to open the shop."
That was May. In October, news headlines blared officials' intent to ban auto tinting because it was viewed as dark and unsafe.
"When I opened my business, I didn't even do my homework ... I didn't think about the legal side of it," he said.
Silva hired a lobbyist, dove into research and found Hawaii did not have a state law regulating automotive window tint. The federal standard to allow 70 percent light transmission applied to automotive manufacturers and states that didn't have their own laws.
"Oh boy, we'd better get our own law on the books or we're breaking the law with any car we do," Silva realized.
He had to let his workers go, "the landlord nicely let me out of my lease," and he went mobile again. Teri's accounting job covered their $270 monthly rent and other bills while Silva advertised free removal of window tint.
Silva and his lobbyist found laws in Sunbelt states that served as a model for Hawaii. For the 1983 legislative session, "We wrote our own bill and submitted it" and it was championed by then-state Sen. Duke Kawasaki.
The legislation made it to then-Gov. George Ariyoshi's desk -- and Silva got word the governor would allow the bill to die.
"We arranged to pick him up that evening ... the night the bill would have died -- and we took him for a ride around the capital," Silva said. Ariyoshi was then satisfied that tint allowing for 35 percent light transmission was safe. "We dropped him off and we had it signed that evening. It was definitely the 11th hour."
It was good news, but the business essentially had to start over from scratch, to re-educate the public that window tint was legal.
The mobile operation was beefed up with an aging Dodge van and new accounts at auto dealerships. Fifteen to 20 percent of the company's sales were poured into advertising.
Those were slim times, said Silva, "our pork-and-beans-and-gravy years."
Teri remembers those times, too, "but I had all the confidence in Tommy ... I knew that if that didn't work out, he would have found something else."
Times, and sales, got better. In 1985 he opened a shop in the old McKesson building off Sand Island Road. The company expanded to several locations, including Kaneohe, the once-swarming former Salt Lake Costco location on Lawehana Street, and on Oahu's military bases. The company had 70 employees at its peak, but the expansion proved to be too much, too fast. T & T now employs 30 people.
By the early 1990s, T & T's only location was in Salt Lake, but business was good, with 700 to 800 cars a day coursing through the Costco Center parking lot.
In March of 1995, Tommy, then 35, was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes.
He had surgery to remove the tumor and chose the intensive, earlobes-to-kneecaps radiation option that would give him a 75 percent chance of survival. The other radiation treatment offered a 25 percent chance.
"The radiation for 45 days wasn't the big thing," he said. "It was having my body recover from all the damage caused by the radiation."
His wife kept him going, while his core crew minded the store.
"They kept the company going as if I was still there ... It was incredible to see how everybody pulled in and picked up the load," said Tommy. He was home for six months.
Tommy Silva gives God the glory for healing his cancer 10 years ago. "We both do," Teri said, also thankful for the "the loving support of our family."
Vice President of Operations Henry King credits Silva for the survival of the business. King has worked with him for nearly 21 years. "He gave the right authority to the right people to do certain things. He's a great leader and it's very easy to follow a great leader."
"The only scary part was him and his health," King said.
Costco moved to a larger store in Iwilei in 2002, slowing the daily gush of traffic through the parking lot to less than a trickle.
"We had to change our focus for this location," Silva said. They sought out wholesale business from auto dealers.
Demand for window tinting for homes, condos and commercial buildings also had been growing over 15 to 20 years. From "one or two guys doing it ... we now have nine crews (of one or two people) working six days a week" statewide. It represents 65 percent of T & T's business versus 35 percent from automotive work.
Rising energy costs have Waikiki hotels and downtown high-rises looking to trim bills. A $100,000 investment in the right type of window film pays for itself in two years, Silva said. Certain window films eliminate 99.9 percent of UV rays, reduce glare by 70 percent and block 65 percent more heat than nontinted windows, Silva said. Therein lie the energy-cost savings.
Hurricane season and other safety concerns can cause residents and businesses to think about window film, but buyers better beware, Silva said. He urges customers to check out a company with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and Better Business Bureau, where he said his company's record is "impeccable ... a total pat on the back to my guys."
Some products are advertised as hurricane-proof or bulletproof, "but I would strongly investigate those claims," he said
"To be bulletproof, the industry recommends one-inch-thick lexan. It's very difficult to get 'bulletproof' out of a film."
Video demonstrations of bullets being fired at film-covered windows are often used in misleading advertising. "We've seen the fine print," Silva said. Such demonstrations often use half-inch-thick glass with 15- to 20-millimeter thick film on both sides. "That will make a few bullets stick in the film and glass, compared to a home on the west side that has one-eighth-inch-thick glass and 4-millimeter thick film on one side."
"The whole science of trying to make something more hurricane-resistant goes back to what you're starting with," such as the strength of the home, and whether window film is merely applied to the glass, or physically attached to metal framing.
The International Window Film Association is an industry group that requires members to abide by certain standards as well as a business code of conduct that also regulates advertising practices. They are outlined on the membership requirements page of its Web site.
Graffiti protection also is offered by certain films, which can provide replacement-cost savings. "We have a 4-mil (thick) clear graffiti guard that we apply on mirrors of bathrooms ... anywhere where kids can sit for long periods and etch their names."
For example, stainless steel elevator doors "are excruciatingly expensive," about $5,000, where film on a door can be replaced for "a couple hundred dollars," Silva said.
Etched glass is popular but costly and the window film industry has taken to building an alternative mousetrap. Frosty-looking film on glass can offer a similar appearance for a much lower cost, Silva said.
"The hotels love it," as it can be applied temporarily to enhance an interior design, but can be changed simply as trends change.
The growing business placed a greater burden on Tommy and his core crew, so Teri Silva left her 16-year job in the Liberty House credit department Dec. 31, 1999, to join the family business.
"I felt if I could take a part of (Tommy's workload), that would give us more time to enjoy."
It has worked "wonderfully," she said.
Teri works primarily on the still-growing residential and commercial side of the business and offers "input, when needed and if asked."
Do the two small words "if asked," contribute to their success in business and as a couple?
"I think so, I really do," Teri said.
The two speak of each other as if they are newly in love, despite more than two decades and two traumas together.
"Her name is T-e-r-i, like teriyaki," he glowed.
At the Hawaii Lodging, Hospitality & Foodservice Expo last month, Tommy Silva spoke matter-of-factly about tinnitus and other side-effects from intensive radiation he underwent during his cancer battle, but he was smiling. "I'd rather be alive," he said.
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