Biography
Before Rhita Zaroor knew her late husband Phillip, he owned a clothing store. When they met, he owned a deli on the same street that they later lived, and founded Advantage PressurePro, on together. After they were married, Phillip retired from a local machine tooling company. Zaroor was a stay-at-home mother with six kids, four of whom are twins.
Zaroor said, “He said to me, ‘If I go back into business, I want to do something that is my baby. I want to bring something to market that has never been.’” When Phillip was presented with the idea for TireMate, the couple patented it and started Advantage PressurePro.
While Phillip was out doing sales for the, Zaroor handled checks and bookkeeping for the company.
“I was his whatever-needed-to-be-done girl,” Zaroor said about her late husband. “Phil and I always worked together. He was such a force.”
Zaroor started working full-time when they bought a new Advantage PressurePro office building down the street from their home. With an interior design and art degree, Zaroor later remodeled the building before working in accounting and shipping at the company.
Since she founded Advantage PressurePro, Zaroor has come full circle and again does whatever is needed around the office. This time, though, she is Advantage PressurePro’s chairman and owner.
“Now I am back at the fun part,” Zaroor said. “My day is never the same.” Her children, five out of six who work at Advantage PressurePro, call her “Queen Bee” as she serves as an all-around advisor and manager.
“I am most proud of the way we have been able to make a business that has grown and encompassed so many different layers between family and friends,” Zaroor said. “Phil always wanted the company to stay, as far as employees go, small. He did not want to babysit or have an HR department. With a small focus group of people, you can change and pivot.”
