The year was 1948 and Chris Ambrose, having suffered three major heart attacks before the age of 30, left Vineland, New Jersey with his wife, Sally, daughter Lorraine, and infant son, Roger. On the advice of his doctors, Chris moved his family to the warm climate of St. Petersburg, Florida. That same year he opened the doors of Central Vacuum Stores, named for its location on Central Avenue, famous for its“green benches”. Having been an Electrolux manager in New Jersey, Chris had aspirations of owning a successful vacuum cleaner business.

In the years that followed Sally and Chris built a thriving vacuum cleaner business representing companies like Hoover, Eureka, Panasonic, Sharp, Rainbow, Bissell, Simplicity, and Oreck. In addition to building a business, they added another son to their family, Robin.


In 1972 Roger, now a Vietnam Veteran and college graduate, joined the company. In 1974 Roger married Renee Hendry. Renee had worked at Central Vacuum while she was in high school and after they were married she would fill in from time to time. In 1976 they began a family and went on to have six children who, over the years, spent time working in the stores. By the early 80´s Central Vacuum Stores was operating six stores in Pinellas County, Florida.

With the growth of the mega retailer, Roger decided it would be a good idea to diversify and began installing central vacuum systems in Pinellas and Hillsborough County. Soon after, he added intercom installation to Central Vacuum´s product offering. The installation business continued to grow and Central Vacuum Stores was soon installing central vacuum systems and intercoms throughout West Central Florida, traveling as far north as Ocala and as far south as Miami.

By the mid 90´s Roger and Renee noticed a new trend. It seemed the do-it-yourselfer was coming into the stores and buying central vacuum equipment over the counter to install themselves. Renee, who had been busy at home raising the kids, heard this with interest and wondered if it would be possible to sell these products over the Internet. In 2000 Roger and Renee hired a friend, Craig Handelsman, to work as a full time web developer. Renee went back to school to get a degree in e-business and together Roger, Renee, and Craig began the task of building an Internet business.

This year Central Vacuum, still owned by the Ambrose family, will celebrate sixty years of serving customers. With the Internet, our customer base has gone global, but our service is still personal and customized, just like it was 60 years ago. Today we offer our customer more choices, more experience, and more information. Notice, we don´t say the most choices. We aren´t concerned with carrying the most brands, just the best brands. With sixty years in the industry we also offer more experience than any of our competitors. And finally, with all that experience we are able to give our customers more information so they will make well informed decisions and be satisfied with the products they purchase. At Central Vacuum Stores we know that is what keeps our customers coming back and that is what builds a business that lasts for sixty years.

At Central Vacuum Stores our employees really do care about our customers and their satisfaction. But they know we are all a part of something larger than ourselves and they go through their daily lives blessing others in the same way they have been blessed. Over the past few years our employees have participated in a variety of community projects including, supplying goods for a relief effort to Haiti, sponsoring Little League baseball teams, purchasing supplies for a classroom at a local elementary school, giving Christmas presents to an underprivileged family, and sponsoring a yearly event for foster children and their foster parents. This year we collected items that one of our employees distributed to poverty-stricken families in Colombia. In addition to our community projects, our employees are amazing individuals who are stellar on the job and then volunteer in a variety of ways in their free time. Their volunteer efforts include the SPCA, Calvary Chapel Downtown Homeless Outreach, Grace Bible Church Worship Team, Spanish Translation Work, Disaster Recovery Team, Calvary Chapel Worship Team, Sunday School, Foster Parenting, among others.

At Central Vacuum Stores we want to offer our environmentally conscious customers a choice. We now provide our customers with information about products on our website that are more environmentally friendly than some of their competitors. You can find more information about these products on our Green-Up your house webpage. Around the store Roger is a florescent bulb maniac and is replacing our regular light bulbs with florescent in order to conserve energy. Outside the Central Vacuum building we have planted green spaces. Most recently we have contracted with Enviro Light to recycle used electronic parts, which often contain toxic materials. If our customers wish to participate in this effort, all they need to do is send us their used intercom masters and speakers and we will pay Enviro Light to dispose of them. For more information on this project just give us a call at 1-800-221-8227 and ask for Roger. We are also excited to provide you with this link to Recyclingcenters.org. Here you can find local recycling centers that will take your old central vacuum systems and often actually give you money for the motors.

"Building a website was important, and our goal was to offer our customers more choices, more experience, and more information. So we assembled the right people to build an effective team capable of giving our customers the highest level of service. To attract the best of the best, we pay 100% of the health benefits for our full time employees and their families. We also give our full time employees a health reimbursement account that is fully funded by the company. We know that if we service our employees they will service our customers. When you call Central Vacuum Stores for information, you can be sure you are talking to someone who is highly trained and experienced."Roger Ambrose, President and CEO

Our Employees

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