CHARLIE CAMPBELL OWES HIS DEDICATION TO TRAINING AND LEADERSHIP TO THOSE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO TEACH HIM
For Charlie Campbell, mentors have shaped nearly every stage of his career. He says he looked for guidance early on, and he sees himself providing the same for others now.
“I’ve always been a ‘find-a-mentor’ type guy,” he said. “I looked for mentors when I was super young and I am becoming one now, as I’m not young anymore.”
Campbell didn’t plan on a career in the trades. At 17, he was working in radio and hoping it would turn into something long term.
“I caught the fever of radio and loved it,” he said. But it didn’t take long to realize the pay wouldn’t support him. “It doesn’t pay worth a darn, so you can’t survive doing it.”
IAPMO member Charlie Campbell, owner of the Topeka, Kansas, Winsupply, is vice chair of the city’s plumbing board.
He took a job at a lumberyard — which, he noted, was not like lumberyards today — to earn a steady paycheck.
“I had to work a J-O-B on top of radio in order to earn decent income,” he said. He moved around the store, but the plumbing and lumber areas fit him best. That’s where he met a retired plumber in his seventies.
“He shared a lot with me, and I just always looked up to him,” Campbell said. The older tradesman also encouraged him to join industry associations, including IAPMO — advice Campbell followed. “No matter the trade or industry that I’m in, I try to involve myself in the industry association,” he said, which explains being past chair of the Topeka Area Building Association, and of the Topeka Chamber of Commerce Ambassador program.
Learning From Jerry and Bruce
The late Bruce Pfeiffer, whom Campbell considers a mentor, teaches a class. PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLIE CAMPBELL
By the early-1990s, Campbell had moved fully into plumbing and mechanical work. That’s when he met two people who would become central mentors. One of them was his company owner, Jerry McElroy. The other was IAPMO legend Bruce Pfeiffer, then senior plumbing inspector for the city of Topeka.
“Bruce was one of my big mentors,” Campbell said. “I would ask Bruce a simple question and he would try to make it really hard on me, and I used to think he was picking on me.”
One memorable example came when Campbell asked him about putting a urinal in a strip mall and expected a quick answer. Instead, Pfeiffer told him, “I’m happy to let you add that urinal, but I need to see the sizing. I want you to size that strip mall.” Campbell objected.
“Dude, that’s bigger than any of Chapter Six (of IAPMO’s Uniform Plumbing Code),” he said. Pfeiffer told him he would be using Appendix A. When Campbell said he had never used Appendix A, Pfeiffer replied, “Well, you’re going to have to figure it out because if you want to add that urinal, I need to see your sizing.”
It took time for Campbell to understand the point.
“He was teaching me how to use Appendix A, by making me do it so I could put that urinal in,” he said. “Bruce knew when he had people who would apply themselves. Bruce saw something in me, and I took full advantage of any training from him I could get.”
Campbell eventually began helping Pfeiffer teach test-prep classes, proctor ASSE exams, and assist with local training. Pfeiffer also opened the door for Campbell’s involvement in standards development. Campbell later served on the Water Efficiency and Sanitation Standard (WE•Stand) Technical Committee and on the 2027 Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC®) Technical Committee. Stepping Into Leadership
After Pfeiffer passed away in April 2021, IAPMO Field Representative Brian Rogers contacted Campbell and asked him to consider taking over the Kansas/Missouri (KSMO) chapter. The group had a small but loyal membership, with only a handful of “plumbing” people attending meetings. Campbell agreed, but only if the chapter became a home for both plumbing and mechanical professionals.
“IAPMO is both plumbing and mechanical, and we need to embrace the mechanical guys in this town, also,” Campbell said. Attendance jumped almost immediately. His first meeting drew around 15 people. Soon the group outgrew its longtime meeting space and moved to a larger room that could hold 60 — which also filled up.
“We just hosted 53 at the mechanical meeting and I think 55 or 56 at the plumbing meeting,” he said. “We’ve now gone to 100 people between two nights, every other month.”
Campbell keeps the focus squarely on training.
“If you feed people decent information, they will come back to eat,” he said. He avoids any class that feels like a sales pitch. “I’m not about the sales games.”
He tries to connect code language to field experience. “The code is the design minimum,” he said. “But if you don’t explain the real world application to how the code applies, it’s just words in a book.”
CHARLIE CAMPBELL
Right: From left, Campbell; Fred Heinecke with Big Rivers Marketing, his second-longest tenured representative; and Chuck Falkenberg Sr., the first plumbing product representative he ever met — when Campbell was in his 20s — at Topeka Winsupply’s vendor fair and barbecue. Falkenberg’s son, Chuck Jr., can be seen directly behind him speaking with a customer.PHOTO COURTESY OF CHARLIE CAMPBELL
Buying Winsupply
In late 2015, Campbell purchased ownership in Winsupply’s Topeka location, shifting into a role that kept him close to the trade but away from the long hours of field operations. The local store became available, and the ownership model made sense for him. He bought in as the largest individual shareholder, with Winsupply corporate as an equity partner providing distribution, purchasing support, payroll, and software. His explanation is simple: “We are locally owned with national buying power.”
Training Facility
Campbell also expanded the existing training space at his Winsupply location and renamed it the Bruce Pfeiffer Memorial Training Facility, dedicated in August 2021. The space hosts code-prep courses and technical classes for both plumbing and mechanical professionals. “We do code prep classes so that new people can come in and start understanding the nuance between Chapter 12 in the UPC and Chapter 13 in the UMC,” he said. “Guys may not always come out ready to pass their exam, but they learned something.”
He believes that hands-on, technical instruction is becoming more important as equipment evolves. Tankless systems, combustion analysis, and more complex electronic controls require skills that many technicians simply haven’t been taught. That gap, he worries, will grow unless more experienced people step up to train.
“And if somebody isn’t teaching,” he said, “how are we learning?”
Local Code Work
Campbell plays a significant role in Topeka’s adoption of the UPC and Uniform Mechanical Code (UMC®). He serves as vice chair of the city’s plumbing board and helps compare each new edition of the UPC or UMC with Topeka’s existing amendments. The goal is to create a consolidated, contractor-friendly version so people don’t need multiple documents just to know what applies locally.
“It’s an odd balance,” he said. “You have to work through the new book, the city’s amendments, and any legal changes, and then reconcile all of it.” He works with IAPMO staff to assemble a combined local edition for both the UPC and UMC for the city of Topeka and Shawnee County, which adopts the same code and amendments.
Motorcycle and Radio Work
Outside of the job, Campbell’s main outlet is riding his Harley-Davidson. He approaches that with the same mindset he brings to training in the trades.
“I don’t do anything partway,” he said. “I am a qualified civilian expert in police motorcycle rodeos.” The training mirrors what motor officers learn for tight-space control and precision handling. He and a friend have also taught true control classes to help riders develop the same slow-speed, high-precision skills. “My entire life is just consumed with educating,” he said.
Campbell has also maintained a long presence in broadcasting. In the ’90s he was co-host of “Home Revision,” a locally produced home remodeling television program, then moved to another FM station with the name “KWIK Home Improvements.”
Since 2007, he has hosted “Around Your Kansas Home,” rebranded from “Your Home Discovery,” a weekly home-improvement program aired on AM and FM stations nationwide and available on major podcast platforms. The show covers construction, remodeling, repairs, and listener questions submitted through email and social media.
Motivation and Outlook
Campbell often describes his career in terms of what others once gave him.
“Those guys were willing to feed, so I ate,” he said. He sees mentoring and teaching as the next phase of that cycle. “I’m at a point where I want to give back some of the food that I was given. The concept of teaching has been around a very long time — the Bible has been providing great teaching for centuries!”
He continues to lead the KSMO chapter, teach code classes, run the training facility, support technicians, and serve on national committees. Campbell was recently recognized for outstanding contributions to the plumbing/mechanical industry and awarded the IAPMO Fellow Award.
The way he sees it, the industry will only move forward if enough people step up to guide the next generation. For those in the mentee role, his takeaway is simple: be humble and apply yourself.
Mike Flenniken is a staff writer, Marketing and Communications, for IAPMO. Prior to joining IAPMO in 2010, Flenniken worked in public relations for a group of Southern California hospitals and as a journalist in writing and editing capacities for various Southern California daily newspapers.
Last modified: February 19, 2026