Small Business Today Magazine OCT 2015 TEXAS SECURITY SHREDDING | Page 9

Pat Vice and breast cancer survivors celebrate a local “Shred Day” event.
Photo courtesy of Pat Vice

changing her major to business, which also allowed her to
utilize her exceptional detail oriented skills, Patricia graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business. During her time in
college, Patricia met Parks and Recreation major, Roger Vice.
Patricia reflected, “It was fun to be around him because he
knew how to teach other people how to have fun. We loved
riding our horses in the Sawtooth Wilderness.” After they both
graduated, Patricia and Roger were married. Roger got a job
managing a ski area and Patricia began working at the Boise
Cascade Corporation.
While working at Boise Cascade, Patricia took the exam to
become a CRM, Certified Records Manager. Years later, Patricia got a job with a consulting company which required her to
travel around the country. She loved what she did but didn’t
like the traveling aspect because she had two young children
by then and wanted to be with them as often as possible.
When the owner of the company invited Patricia to move to
Houston and work in business and records management, Patricia jumped at the chance. She really loved her new areas of
responsibility and the longer she did it, the more skillful she
became at it. After awhile, she was so confident in her abilities
that she felt like it was time to venture off on her own.
Patricia reminisced, “Shredding is the end product of good
records management. Companies create, manage, store, and
then destroy records. I felt it was a logical process and that
there was also an opportunity to start a shredding company.”
In 2009, one year after coming to Houston, Patricia started Texas Security Shredding. “I never knew what was around the
corner,” stated Patricia. “That was part of the fun. I’ve joked
that people shouldn’t get into the shredding business. It’s a half
truth because, quite honestly, it’s a very competitive field. Big
businesses will drop their prices to drive small businesses out.
Customers will stick with you anyway if you build relationships

with them. As a small organization, I have much more flexibility in running my business. A large shredding operation will
promise to do a job in four to five weeks. Well, lo and behold,
clients want it quicker than that. Our customers found out that
we are able to turn around their requests a lot quicker we are
able to turn around emergency requests within 24 to 48 hours.”
Since beginning Texas Security Shredding, Patricia’s business
success has a lot to do with her natural talent in building sincere, harmonious relationships. As a result, some of her best
friends have been former customers. Another reason Texas
Security Shredding is so successful is that it sets itself apart by
also being a consulting company. They have developed very
long term contracts including one with one of the largest legal
companies in the Houston market. They’ve been managing file
rooms for that company for about 15 years.
According to Patricia, “Most of the leaders in the records and
management industry are women. So for me, it was easy to
go out and find more business. In 2003, I received my Fellow
from ARMA (the Association of Records Managers and Administrators) International. There are only 52 Fellows worldwide in
Records and Information Management.”
Organizations that Patricia is a member of include WBEA
(Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance) of Houston where she
is certified as a WBE and NAID (National Association of Information Destruction). “NAID is absolutely a man