By several measures, the deck was a bit stacked against Chancy Thomas when she took ownership of Quality Pumping, the company her parents, Joe and Shelly Brown, established more than two decades ago in Payson, AZ, a small town about 70 miles northeast of Phoenix.
For starters, Thomas had no experience running a business by herself, though she did work for her parents while in high school and attending college. Second, Thomas was a woman in a male-dominated field — no small obstacle 20-some years ago. And third, the business wasn’t fully modernized.
Yet despite these challenges, Thomas, 38, has grown
