From owners reluctant to hire him in his youth to a complementary business reluctant to sell to him in his prime, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors Chairman and CEO Larry Flick has earned people’s trust throughout his career.

And now, the small two-office firm started two decades before his arrival spans 45 offices in four states thanks to his leadership.

Fox & Roach recently celebrated 130 years of becoming the region’s “trusted advisers, guiding consumers through a complicated transaction and creating a better experience,” Flick said in a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Alan Heavens.

To get where it is today, with offices across suburban Philadelphia, the Fox & Roach story started as Roach Bros. It expanded with the creation of a title company in 1982 and a mortgage company in 1983, now known as the Trident Financial Group, merged with Emlen Wheeler in 1995 to form Roach Wheeler, then with Fox & Lazo in 1997.

The resulting Fox & Roach firm joined the Prudential brokerage network, which was bought out by BHHS in 2013.

The Trident diversification came at a pivotal point. “In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when interest rates had climbed to 20 percent, we concluded that we needed more than one profit source to withstand such a difficult market, and to create capital to grow the business,” Flick said.

Read more about the latest Fox & Roach milestone in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.