It started with a pickup truck and nine kids.
In 1949, the Gemma family launched a plumbing company out of their home in Providence. Jeff Gemma's grandfather ran the calls. His grandmother answered the phone from the kitchen table. Four of their nine children eventually went into the business full-time — Larry, Eddy, Lenny and Anthony — and by the late 1980s, they'd branched into HVAC, electrical, drain cleaning, commercial, and construction.
Today, GEM operates across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with more than 600 employees. Jeff Gemma, third-generation licensed plumber and pipefitter, became President in September 2024.
"It's been a great opportunity and honor to carry on the legacy," he shares.
In the DNA
Jeff didn't plan on any of this. He worked summers in the field with his uncle, got his licenses, and then left for college to study finance and accounting.
"After college, my father asked me if I would come and help out with purchasing and inventory," he recalls. "I ended up never leaving after that."
Gemma spent years in procurement and operational roles, before becoming GEM President.
"You could say it's in my DNA," he says. "It's the way that we grew up."
What gets him out of bed? The same thing that got his father and uncles out of bed.
"It's really the people here. Making sure everyone has a fulfilling career, that we're providing for all those folks and their families — that's what is most exciting. Making sure they're taken care of and have as much opportunity as possible. That’s the most important thing to me."
The Heart Behind The Brand
GEM's trucks are hard to miss in Rhode Island — bright, eye-catching, and ubiquitous on the highway since the company’s rebrand eight years ago. But the company's presence in the community runs deeper than branding.
In 2004, the Gemma family established the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation in memory of Gemma's grandmother, who lost her fight with breast cancer in 2002. GEM is the founding sponsor.
"We had a culture of giving back even before that," Gemma says. "But we never had such a personal connection to a cause before. Setting up the foundation really connected the employees. They started learning the personal stories of the folks being helped."
What began as a small organization dedicated to helping women battling breast cancer has grown into an organization with more than twenty programs. The annual Flames of Hope event draws GEM employees every October. Nobody has to be asked twice.
"We don't even need to ask anymore. They're already expecting to volunteer. People are lining up to say, 'We did this last year, we had a great time — we're ready to go again.'"
The Foundation has since expanded beyond breast cancer to serve anyone in Rhode Island living with any type of cancer: delivering meals, providing rides to treatment, offering support for patients and their families.
Meals, Backpacks, and Hot Water
Since 2014, GEM has partnered with McAuley Ministries, a Providence-based nonprofit serving the state's most vulnerable residents — people experiencing homelessness, domestic violence survivors, and families struggling to afford basic needs.
GEM employees volunteer at McAuley House, serving meals, donating supplies, and using their trade skills to help clients access heat, air conditioning, and hot water. GEM leadership has also served on the organization's board. Every holiday season, the GEM Cares: 12 Days of Christmas Campaign matches donations to McAuley House. At the annual Easter Hop-a-long, GEM has provided children with shoes and toys. At the Back-to-School Cookout, staff hand out backpacks and serve food themselves.
"It's making sure we're being a positive force in the community," Gemma says. "As we branch out into Massachusetts and Connecticut, we want to make sure we're doing the same things in those communities, too."
Hire for Character, Train for Skill
Ask anyone in the trades what keeps them up at night, and the answer is the same: finding qualified people. GEM's response, built roughly 20 years ago, is the GEM Institute — one of the only state-accredited in-house licensing programs in Rhode Island.
Apprentices attend school two nights a week while logging on-the-job hours, all as GEM employees from day one. The philosophy is simple: hire for character, train for skill.
"We can hire them for their ability to delight customers and carry GEM values, then train them on the technical aspects," Gemma says. "We've had folks start in our warehouse, end up in trade programs, and end up with a great career."
One story that sticks: a technician named Ricky, who came out of the military looking for a new direction and wasn't sure the trades were for him. He went through the school, became one of GEM's top performers, and is now a team lead.
"He's provided a really nice life for himself from something he wasn't sure he even wanted to do," Gemma says. "We've also had father-son duos go through the Institute, both still working here. It spans multiple generations."
About 70% of GEM's technician workforce has gone through the Institute in some form, and 75% of the current apprentice class is actively enrolled. GEM covers tuition upfront and offers reimbursement for outside programs. The idea is to keep people growing — one license leads to another, plumbing to pipefitting to electrical to HVAC — all in-house.
"The ones we put through training are the ones we retain," Gemma says simply.
The Ratio Opportunity
There's a catch. State law in Rhode Island — and similarly in Massachusetts and Connecticut — caps how many apprentices a company can employ relative to its licensed journeymen. GEM has the capacity and the demand. The law limits what they can do with it.
"There are a lot of people who want to get into the trades, and we're limited by the ratios,” Jeff says. “Expanding pathways and increasing flexibility around workforce development could help create more opportunities for people interested in pursuing careers in the skilled trades.”
On the broader perception of trades as a career, he sees real momentum. For a long time, a four-year degree was the default. That's changing, driven partly by media coverage of the labor shortage and the wages that come with it.
"We're seeing a lot more younger people come to us wanting to get in the door." But there's a generational gap in the middle — experienced tradespeople nearing retirement, a wave of newcomers, and a thinner cohort in between. "We're dealing with the mix. But we're definitely seeing the rebound."
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Bigger Company, Same Focus
Since joining the Service Titan platform in 2021, Gem has nearly tripled in size, expanding from Cape Cod to western Connecticut. Despite that rapid growth, one thing has remained constant: their values.
"We've tried not to lose our roots. We want to be a positive force here and make sure we're still the local business that folks have come to grow up with and love."
More than a quarter of GEM's 600-plus employees have been there over five years. Around 5% have been there more than 20 years — in a company that's added 400 people in the last decade.
"Taking care of our people has always been the focus, while making sure we're also taking care of our community — through charities, events, and helping families daily. That's never going to change."
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