Controlling the Current

Allegiant Electric’s Andrea Vigil uses the clout she accumulates to advocate for herself and others

BY Jana Marquez

In October, Las Vegas resident and Allegiant Electric Chief Operating Officer Andrea Vigil sat around a table with seven other small-business owners to talk about the needs of Latinx communities. But this was no ordinary roundtable — it was in a conference room at the White House. At the head of the table was Vice President Kamala Harris. The group had been invited in recognition of their small-business acumen; Vigil, for instance, was named Nevada’s 2022 Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

Though Vigil shared being a Latina and small-business owner with others at the table, she was the only Nevadan and electrical contractor. She took advantage of the opportunity to shed light on the lack of skilled labor and knowledge of resources that the state’s small and minority-owned businesses are facing. Vigil was operating according to her standard playbook. Accustomed to being the only something (woman, Latina, small-business owner) at most tables, she’s learned to get the lay of the land, cultivate expertise, and then use her credentials to take up space and lift others to success.

Vigil says that her husband Anthony’s background of 20 years’ electrical experience, paired with her background in the solar industry, led to their cofounding Allegiant Electric in 2015. What started with the couple and three employees has grown to a total of 18 employees who offer a wide range of services.

“During the pandemic, when other companies were shutting down, we hired another 11 people,” Vigil says. “So, we’ve continued to grow. Our services have really expanded. We’re not only doing solar, residential, or commercial work.”

Projects on the horizon for Allegiant Electric include the installation of electric vehicle charging stations for Tesla in

Primm and Mesquite, a partnership with Forté Specialty Contractors, and bidding on electrical for various subdivisions with Toll Brothers. For 2022, Vigil expected Allegiant Electric to bring in about $3 million in revenue.

How did they get there? It began with education. As a first-time business owner, Vigil felt it was important to learn as much as possible about the electrical industry in Nevada. She immersed herself in all the locally available resources she could find.

“I got involved in a lot of small-business programs,” she says, noting SBA’s Emerging Leaders and Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship initiatives, and UNLV Cox Cares program, as well as various state programs. She also participates in the National Association of Women in Construction. As she networked with industry veterans, they advised her to get as many certifications as possible. So, she did: “I got certified as a WBE, which is a Women Business Enterprise; SBE, a Small Business Enterprise; DBE is a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. ...” The list goes on.

The couple also got woman-owned, emerging small business, local disadvantaged, and other statuses for their company, allowing it to tap into specially allocated funds and qualify for contracts that require specific accreditation.

Vigil serves as vice chair for WBECWest, the Women’s Business Enterprise Council in Nevada, because she wanted to be a voice for her peers and share her knowledge on how to grow with them.

Both her business success and professional service helped Vigil capture the SBA award, which recognized small-business leaders’ entrepreneurial development and community impact, particularly during the COVID pandemic. Allegiant demonstrated this by adding staff and service vehicles, meeting payroll, and increasing its job-bidding capacity to $1 million.

When awarding this distinction, the SBA looks for engagement with other small-businesses, the community, and participation in SBA assistance, says Nevada SBA District Director Saul Ramos.

“Our mission is to help businesses start, grow, and recover. We go back to educating them, through training or mentorship,” Ramos says. “At the end of the day, we want to position them to compete, succeed, and thrive. So, we’re always looking at ways in which we can help them improve efficiency or hedge these high interest rates in the long term.”

Vigil believes more small businesses should avail themselves of state resources, which helped Allegiant. “The SBA has been great,” she says. “They’ve championed me all the way, with any questions I’ve had, especially when COVID hit. When there was so much confusion with the Paycheck Protection Program, you couldn’t get a hold of anybody (nationally). But guess what?

I got a hold of our local people.”

Vigil is committed to using her platform to advocate for small businesses in the Hispanic community. “A lot of us, we’re cash-based,” she says. “We’re mattress money people, so we don’t necessarily go out and build a line of credit as small-business owners. So, how do you learn how to do that?”

She is also a woman, heightening the obstacles in her path — particularly in the construction field, where fewer than 11 percent of jobs are occupied by women.

According to Vigil, general contractors have questioned her presence at job sites countless times.

“Fortunately for me, I have my husband and an amazing project manager, who back me up and say, ‘She’s the owner and an educated woman,’” Vigil says. “I know what we’re doing, and I’m knowledgeable and capable of the work that we’re out there doing.”

Such experiences have encouraged her to use her voice, something she encourages other women to do, too. “I don’t come to the table with an ego. I come willing to listen and ask for advice,” she says. “For the women in the construction industry, I think it’s so important for them to go out there and not be afraid. In any industry or field where it’s male-dominated.”

Mark Rogge, Allegiant Electric’s project manager, says his boss walks this talk. “She’s not afraid to go and put herself in front of people,” he says. “Some of these contractors, they’re the big boys. A challenge is, to get up the gumption.”

Vigil believes teamwork and collaboration not only set her apart in a male-dominated space but will also help solve the skilled labor shortage her industry is facing. Allegiant Electric fosters this approach by bringing in workers for on-the-job training opportunities and sharing knowledge of the trade in the community.

“I just really hope that we all share our knowledge, and we all learn from each other and continue to build each other up,” she says. “It would be better for us to all work together within our state.”

To give back to the community that’s supported them, Vigil and her husband partnered with groups such as HELP of Southern Nevada and donated services to their daughter’s school.

The next phase in Allegiant’s growth will come from an SBA loan. The couple hopes to buy a building to accommodate staff growth and help them respond to opportunities in solar, EV-charging stations, battery storage, lighting retrofits, and more.

Rogge, who’s been in the electrical industry in Las Vegas for 30-plus years, says, “There’s not much that we turn down. Andrea, God bless her, is aggressive as heck. And it’s a good thing, because that keeps everybody on their toes. The work is there. And she has got a knack for finding it.” ✦

It’s October 2020, and temperatures have taken the usual nosedive from “At least it’s a dry heat” to “It gets cold in the desert?” I’m driving to The Writer’s Block, where crates of books are lined up by the door waiting for their new owners. Three of those books are waiting for me. The sign on the door asks me to put on a mask before walking in, and I do. The independent bookstore, one of famously few here in Vegas, is the one place I can’t seem to give up in the early pandemic days. I’ve given up restaurants, art galleries, coffee shops, all types of shops really. A bookstore is my line in the sand.

I’ve visited The Writer’s Block many more times since October 2020. It’s a safe place, somewhere I fit in. Although now, I don’t blend in. I’m one of maybe two people still wearing a mask. For most, the pandemic appears to be over. I wonder sometimes what that would feel like. Leaving the house as I did before. Do you remember before? I think I do. I lived in a city that I enjoyed exploring. I knew that D E Thai Kitchen was the best bang for your buck downtown. I wrote about the rise of New Orleans Square and the opening of The Mayfair Supper Club. I loved Las Vegas, and it felt like the city loved me too.

These days, leaving the house involves running a series of mathematical equations in my head, factoring probabilities, calculating risk versus reward. I hate math, but I have no choice. I’m 38 years old, and the number of times I’ve visited a doctor’s office this year is higher than most folks my age do in five years. For decades my body has been home to multiple chronic illnesses. They seem to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Vegas.

These conditions have made my life progressively harder. I start my morning with five different pills meant to dissuade my body from acting on various natural but harmful impulses. It doesn’t always work. I may experience sudden sharp aches that derail productivity. The stress of that often triggers other painful symptoms in a biological domino effect. I scrape my efforts together, sapping every ounce of energy to make it to the end of the day — when I can drag myself to bed, sob into my pillow, and pray for relief. I feel like I’m on a dinghy, doing my best to stay afloat. Using my arms, legs, fingers, and toes to stop water from pouring in through the cracks. Doing everything I can to keep from drowning. There are no limbs left to seal any more leaks.

Meanwhile, COVID hospitalized my father. It killed a friend’s spouse. It settled