Meet the team
Laura Hessler — Vice President | Ownership & Operations
Helping people, improving the process, and building what comes next.
About Laura
Find a better way to help people move forward
Laura Hessler's role at Hessler Paint & Ace Hardware is a little difficult to fit into one box — and that's exactly what she enjoys about it.
As part of the ownership and leadership team, Laura works across nearly every side of the business, connecting people, ideas, systems, and opportunities to help Hessler continue to grow while staying true to what matters most: knowledgeable people, genuine relationships, and making life a little easier for the people we serve.
Her days may involve operations, employee development, marketing, technology, vendor relationships, buying, HR, process improvement, or planning the next opportunity for the business. But underneath all of those responsibilities is one consistent goal: find a better way to help people move forward.
From the sales world to the family business
A career built around communication, people & problem-solving
Laura's path to Hessler wasn't a straight line.
Her interest in homes, decorating, and figuring out how things work started when she was young. After college, where she studied communications, she built a career in sales and media, working with online advertising, newspapers, magazines, and digital marketing.
Eventually, Laura returned to the Delray Beach area to be closer to family and joined the business. And she didn't start in the office — she started in the paint department.
From there, she moved into the interior decorating side of the business, spending years working with customers on window treatments, wallcoverings, and their homes. When Hessler opened its Ace Hardware operation, Laura moved again — this time into managing Ace.
Each role gave her a different view of the business: the customer at the counter, the homeowner trying to pull a room together, the employee trying to solve a problem, the manager trying to keep everything moving, and eventually the leadership team looking at how all of those pieces fit together. Today, Laura brings those perspectives into her role overseeing and improving operations across the Hessler businesses.
What Laura does at Hessler
A little bit of everything — with a focus on making everything work better
There really isn't a typical day.
Laura works behind the scenes across many parts of the business, including operations, HR, employee training, buying, bookkeeping and administrative functions, vendor relations, sales, marketing, technology, and business development.
A large part of her focus is asking questions like:
- Can we make this easier?
- Can we make this more organized?
- Can technology help us do this better?
- Can we give our employees better tools?
- Can we make the experience simpler for our customers?
- Is there an opportunity here that we're missing?
That mindset has led Laura to spend significant time developing better internal systems and workflows, improving how the company communicates and organizes information, exploring practical uses of AI, strengthening Hessler's digital and marketing presence, and creating new ways to support customers, contractors, and employees.
For Laura, innovation isn't about technology for technology's sake. It's useful when it makes someone's job easier, helps someone make a better decision, or gives the team more time to take care of people.
Laura's favorite kind of problem
The one that feels overwhelming at first
Laura especially enjoys helping when someone says: "I don't even know where to start."
Whether it's a customer trying to tackle a project, a contractor looking for a better way to manage part of their business, or an employee trying to work through a challenge, Laura naturally looks for ways to break the problem into smaller pieces.
- What information is missing?
- Who can help?
- What tool or resource would make this easier?
- What's the next step?
Her goal isn't always to personally have every answer. It's to help connect the dots and find a path forward.
Ask Laura about
- Finding the right person or resource for a project
- Window treatments
- Wallcoverings
- Interior decorating questions
- Business and contractor resources
- Hessler products and services
- Customer experience
- New ideas or opportunities
- Technology and AI solutions
- Training and employee resources
- Vendor or business partnerships
- Anything that doesn't seem to fit neatly into one department
If Laura doesn't know the answer, chances are she'll know who to bring into the conversation.
More than selling products
Helping people succeed is the part Laura cares about most
For Laura, Hessler's role in the community goes beyond what sits on the shelves. When a homeowner comes in, the team has an opportunity to help them create a space that works better, looks better, or simply makes them feel good when they walk through the door.
When a contractor or other professional comes in, Hessler has an opportunity to support something even bigger: their business and their livelihood. And when an employee joins the company, there's another opportunity — to help that person learn, grow, develop new skills, take on responsibility, and discover what they're capable of.
Those three groups — customers, professionals, and employees — are at the center of how Laura thinks about the business.
Laura has a particular interest in finding better ways for people to work: building and improving systems for communication, tasks, projects, customer follow-up, training, operations, pricing, and internal workflows, as well as exploring how AI can help Hessler employees and customers access information and solve problems more effectively.
She also spends significant time thinking about how Hessler can provide more value to professional customers — not simply by selling paint and supplies, but by helping contractors and other businesses with education, organization, marketing, sales resources, project support, and tools that can help them grow. The idea is simple: if Hessler can help the people around us become more successful, everybody gets stronger.
Building the next chapter of Hessler
Part of Laura's role is looking beyond what the company does today. She works on business development, marketing, brand strategy, digital tools, customer experience, new services, internal systems, and opportunities to bring the different parts of the Hessler business together more effectively.
That includes serving a wide range of customers — from homeowners and DIYers to painters, contractors, property managers, maintenance teams, designers, cabinet professionals, and commercial customers.
But growth, to Laura, doesn't mean becoming less personal. Quite the opposite. The challenge is finding ways to grow while protecting the knowledge, relationships, responsiveness, and human connection that make a local business valuable in the first place.
Supporting the team
Leadership should make other people stronger
One of the parts of the job Laura values most is supporting the people who work at Hessler. She wants employees to know they have someone they can come to — not only for training or a work question, but when they need advice, resources, encouragement, or help figuring out what comes next.
Her goal is to continue building a culture where people share what they know, help each other, learn new skills, take ownership, and have opportunities to grow. Because ultimately, the customer experience is only as strong as the people creating it.
A decorating background that never really went away
Although Laura spends more of her time in the office today, she still brings years of hands-on experience from Hessler's decorating department, with an extensive background in window treatments, wallcoverings, interior decorating, and helping customers coordinate spaces and finishes.
That experience remains an important part of how she thinks about projects. A product isn't just a product — it's part of someone's home, workspace, business, or bigger vision.
Beyond Hessler
The ocean is Laura's reset button
Laura has spent much of her life around the ocean and on boats.
She's a certified scuba diver and loves snorkeling, swimming, boating, and spending time near the water. No matter how busy life gets, a trip to the beach still has a way of recharging her.
"If you ever need help finding a solution that makes your project easier, come see me. I'd be happy to help."
Something feel more complicated than it should?
Let's find a solution
Maybe you have a project that feels complicated. Maybe you're a contractor looking for better support. Maybe you're trying to figure out which Hessler resource can help, or you have an idea, partnership, or problem that needs someone to connect the pieces. Start the conversation — Laura is happiest when she can help turn something complicated into a clearer path forward.