One Van, One Guy, One Island

In 1996, Don Benoit launched Cross Controls Electric on Grand Island with the kind of startup capital most businesses can't claim: a family van and a willingness to work. There was no office, no crew, no corporate structure, no fleet of vehicles with the logo on the side. Just Don, making the rounds on an island he knew, doing electrical work for neighbors who needed it done right.

Grand Island in 1996 was the kind of place where a one-person business could build a reputation street by street. The island sits in the middle of the Niagara River, roughly halfway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, connected to the mainland by the Grand Island Bridges on Route 190. It's big enough to have its own school district, its own businesses, its own sense of community. It's small enough that word gets around. If you do good work, people notice. If you don't, they notice that too.

Don noticed. And he kept showing up.

What a Family Business Actually Looks Like

This year, Cross Controls Electric celebrates 30 years in business. In the three decades since Don Benoit started that one-man operation, Cross Controls Electric has grown into something that the original family-van version of the business probably couldn't have fully imagined. They're incorporated. They run residential, commercial, and industrial work across Western New York. Their client list stretches from Grand Island to Buffalo to Niagara Falls to Rochester to Tonawanda and Cheektowaga.

But the family part is still right there in the middle of it. Don's son Jourdain Benoit serves as General Manager, which means the guy answering for how the business runs is a Benoit, same as the guy who started it in a van in 1996. Another son, Nathanial, is part of the team too. The business is still rooted on Grand Island, the same island where Don built his reputation one house at a time.

Cross Controls describes itself as a family-owned and operated business that has the capabilities of a large company. That's not just promotional language. When you look at the client list, there are names on there that don't hire small-time contractors: Coca-Cola's Tonawanda operation has been a client since 2000. Alro Steel in Tonawanda since 1998. Buffalo State College since 2014. The Town of Grand Island itself has had Cross Controls doing work since 2001.

The Clients That Tell the Story

One of the more telling things about a contractor's reputation is the list of clients they've kept for a long time. One-time jobs happen for all kinds of reasons. But a client that keeps calling you back, year after year, for twenty-plus years, is saying something the contractor themselves can't say about their own work.

Bob Weaver Motorsports in North Tonawanda has been a Cross Controls client since 1996, the same year the company was founded. That's not a coincidence or an accident. That's a business relationship that started almost simultaneously with the company's launch and never stopped. GP50 on Grand Island, the precision pressure sensor manufacturer out on Long Road, has been a client since 1998. The Town of Grand Island, which has to be careful about who it hires for public work, has been on the client list since 2001. Alro Steel and the Coca-Cola facility in Tonawanda both go back to the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The mix is worth noticing too. Anderson's Frozen Custard is on the list. So is Dick's Sporting Goods in Cheektowaga, FedEx Office in Cheektowaga, and Grand Island Small Animal Hospital. A company that handles precision industrial electrical work at a steel plant and also shows up to wire a veterinary clinic is a company that's built a real range of capability over time. That doesn't happen overnight.

The Owner on the Job Site

There's one detail in the Cross Controls story that keeps coming up. Don Benoit, the founder, is still on job sites. Not just managing from a distance, not just signing off on contracts. Actually there, working alongside the crew, making sure the job comes out the way it should.

For a company hitting thirty years, that's not a given. A lot of founders at that stage have handed off the work entirely, moved into a purely administrative role, maybe sold the business altogether. Don didn't do that. The company's own website makes it a point to say it: you'll see the owner on most job sites. That's a choice, and it says something about what he thinks his presence on a job is worth.

It's also, probably, a big part of why clients keep coming back. When the person whose name is attached to the business is the one standing in your basement tracing a dead circuit at 8 in the morning, you know the standard of care is personal.

What the Neighbors Say

One Grand Island resident shared a review that captures the Cross Controls experience pretty clearly. They had a circuit go dead on their breaker panel: not tripped, just dead. Nothing on that circuit was working and they didn't know why. They'd seen the Cross Controls vans around the island and decided to call. They got an appointment for the next morning. The crew came out, tracked down the issue, and had the circuit back up in under two hours.

The part that stuck with them: the honesty and reliability. An electrical problem you can't diagnose yourself is exactly the kind of situation where a less scrupulous contractor could stretch a job out, add confusion, and inflate a bill. The reviewer noted that didn't happen. They saved the number for next time.

On Nextdoor, a Grand Island neighbor recommended Cross Controls after having the team wire a kitchen and bath renovation. "Did an excellent job," the neighbor wrote, which is the kind of short, direct review that tends to be more trustworthy than a long paragraph of superlatives.

Thirty Years on the Island

Cross Controls Electric didn't grow because it relocated to a fancier address or put up a billboard on the 190. It grew because Don Benoit started doing honest work on Grand Island in 1996, passed some of that work on to his sons, and kept showing up on job sites long past the point where most founders would have stepped back.

The island takes care of businesses that take care of the island. Thirty years of Cross Controls vans driving the roads between the bridges is proof enough of that.

Where to Find Them

Cross Controls Electric is based on Grand Island and reachable at 716.773.7720. Their full story and client list are at crosscontrols-electric.com. They've been doing residential, commercial, and industrial electrical work across Western New York since 1996, and from the looks of the client relationships they've kept since the beginning, they're not in any hurry to change how they operate.