How Awake Window & Door Has Championed Second-Chance Hiring

For manufacturing leader Scott Gates, success means more than growing profits; it’s about rebuilding lives along the way.

Gates is president of Awake Window & Door Co. based in Gilbert, Arizona, a fast-growing U.S. manufacturer of luxury glass windows and doors, built to massive sizes. Besides their niche product offering, the company is also set apart by their hiring model: More than half the workforce is formerly incarcerated. “We wanted to be a company that saw this group of people for their potential and their future, rather than the mistakes of their past,” says Gates. “As a result, at a time when most companies like ours are struggling to find access to employable labor, we have found an immense pool of untapped talent.”

It certainly has paid off: The company began with just under $200,000 in total sales in 2021; under Gates’ leadership, they are slated to exceed $30 million in sales in 2025.

In an interview, Gates shares how this people-first approach has become a competitive advantage, what it takes to scale a mission-driven business and what other companies get wrong about second chances and skilled trades.

Tell us about Awake Window & Door Co., your manufacturing operations and how the company has grown?

Awake Window & Door Co. was founded in 2020 by a core group of leaders with extensive experience in the window and door market. While the fenestration industry is not really known for start-ups, Awake’s founding team believed there was a niche desire in the luxury housing market for large windows and glass doors built to massive sizes, but interrupted with very narrow, minimal frames. Architect’s and homeowners’ desire to maximize views was a critical solution being missed by most domestic manufacturers. Awake’s founders hired a talented group of engineers and worked tirelessly with focus groups in 2020 to bring an entirely new family of innovative products to the market.

Awake manufactured its first products in late 2021, ending the year just under $200,000 in total sales, but has since skyrocketed in growth, with expected annual sales of $31 million in 2025. The product has exploded in popularity amongst contemporary architects in luxury residential markets throughout the West Coast, with rapid sales growth in California, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Montana and Hawaii. Awake currently employs just over 100 people and manufactures all of our windows and doors in our plant in Gilbert, Arizona.

You have a bold hiring model: More than half the workforce is formerly incarcerated. Tell us about your mission-driven business and how your model has become a competitive advantage.

When we decided to step out of corporate careers and begin our entrepreneurial journey, our founding team had a defined goal that was centered on creating a company that was fueled by a mission that was bigger than growth our profits.

Prior to launching Awake, the issue of mass incarceration and the residual problems it causes with very high recidivism rates had come to our attention via a series of heartbreaking books and podcasts. We decided we wanted our company to be part of the solution. The number one cause of recidivism is the difficult time citizens that are re-entering society have in finding a good job. Despite their sometimes stellar qualifications, attitude and loyalty, the stigma surrounding their past is a barrier most employers are unwilling to cross. We wanted to be a company that saw this group of people for their potential and their future, rather than the mistakes of their past.

As a result, at a time when most companies like ours are struggling to find access to employable labor, we have found an immense pool of untapped talent. As we spread the message amongst the various government agencies, parole officers and prison systems about our unique mission, the result has been a flood of requests coming from so many great individuals who simply needed a company to give them a chance. We now have a waiting list of potential hires who are waiting to have their lives changed like so many of their friends and family who work at Awake.

Currently more than 56 percent of our staff have a justice involved background, but 100 percent of our staff are completely bought in and passionate about our mission. Our entire staff now sees growth of our company not as a way to sell more windows and doors, but instead as a way to employ more amazing people like our fellow coworkers whom we have seen turn their lives around. It is truly an incredible thing to be a part of and the work I am most proud of in my career.

What lessons have you learned throughout your career?

Prior to starting Awake, I was the CEO of a window company called Western Window Systems. In my time at Western, that company grew from $6 million in sales when I started, to over $150 million in sales when I resigned in 2020. Now I have gotten to be a part of growing Awake from $0 in sales, to more than $31 million in just five years.

One of my biggest lessons in growing two successful businesses is learning that the playbook does not have to be the same. At Western, so much of our growth was tied to savvy sales and marketing decisions, including some creative advertising partnerships, a successful rebrand and a smart diversification strategy that saw us diversify from being luxury residential market exclusive to a strategy entry into the production builder segment.

At Awake, the playbook has been less focused on sales and marketing, and way more focused on design, innovation and operational excellence. Pushing the boundaries on customization and design solutions has fueled our growth at Awake, while at Western we out-marketed the competition and found new customers with a product line that had been designed years before.

By running very different playbooks, I’ve learned that business success is about knowing what your current customers need and are looking for. Awake’s clientele are very different than Western’s, and as such, pleasing and exciting them means you have to provide solutions in a much different manner. Listening to your customers and providing them the solutions they are looking for is always key.

If I were to say what is one consistency lesson of success that I felt at both companies, it’s the importance of having a strongly defined company culture. While both of my companies had different visions, different core values and different company cultures, both were incredibly strong and attractive to employees that wanted to be a part of a winning team. As a CEO I’ve learned you must shape that culture, define what it is, explain why you do it that way and clearly show your team how they can succeed within it.

What’s next for Awake?

On the side of our core business, we continue to be motivated and fueled by the desire to push the envelope with excellence in innovation. As we have boomed in popularity in the mountain states, the desire to expand our product offering to include triple-pane solutions that can handle rigorous winter weather has led our team back into the R&D lab. We are thrilled to begin taking orders in late 2025 with triple pane capability, while still offering some of the narrowest sight lines and largest sizes in the market.

From a mission perspective, Awake’s success has led to curiosity about our hiring model as businesses consider second-chance employment themselves. As such, our marketing team has launched a series of new mission focused communication channels under the brand “Awake Gadflies” which highlights best practices, recidivism education, podcasts, employee hiring tips and general education to spread the message on how to succeed wildly when embracing this model. It is our deepest desire that other companies would consider boldly embracing a second-chance model like Awake’s. We are trying to spread the word on why we believe that not only is second- or fair-chance hiring like ours the right thing to do morally, it also is a strategic win that will help you find incredible talent, motivate your entire staff and make your team feel connected to a bigger purpose that will fuel company success.