Burnaby entrepreneur and former refugee Ramiz Charagh is washing his way to success

Ramiz Charagh’s family came to Canada as refugees of the Kurdish genocide led by Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. Charagh’s dad, a well-respected civil engineer at home, found work at a KFC and the family of six settled into a BC Housing-provided apartment in what Charagh calls one of the more dangerous neighbourhoods in Burnaby.

Though the family didn’t know English, Charagh and his siblings eventually adapted. Charagh became a multi-sport athlete and eventually pursued a career in law. His sister recently graduated from medical school.

But while he first started taking jobs in powerwashing to pay for law school, Charagh eventually fell in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur. “Working with all these clients, working outdoors, in different cities every day, I knew I wanted to dedicate my full time to growing my own business,” says Charagh over a Zoom call.

Burnaby-based Prime Power Washing only started last year, but it has four employees (including Charagh’s two brothers) and just nabbed its first injection of outside funding in the form of US$5,000 from the Jobber Grants program. Edmonton-based operations management software provider Jobber launched the program to accelerate the growth of home service businesses and shine a light on their community impact.

Overall, the company gave US$150,000 to 25 North American recipients, including three Canadian companies (Alberta’s For Trees Company Limited and Ontario’s Mehta Brothers Limited are the others.

“The plan is to use the funds to purchase a company van, which will help increase revenue and allow us to bring on an administrator full time,” says Charagh. “It will also give me more time to continue building the back end and growing the business.”

In three-to-five years, Charagh hopes to double Prime Power Washing’s employee count as well as continue to give back to the community. “We’ve done giveaways and gift cards and stuff and done jobs for Indigenous communities and elderly packages,” he says. “Recently we did a free home service package for a woman in the community I grew up in who had a tragedy happen to her. We’re constantly in contact with the community and want to give back and see it grow.”