Barb McIlvaine (future State Representative for district 156) was the daughter of “Bill” and Louise. In 1972 she married Robert Whitney Smith, an entrepreneur with a small but successful fiberglass business in Paoli. Several years and two kids later, Smith’s shop was ravaged by a fire and he lost everything. Bob (as he went by) began working for his father-in-law, who had by this point expanded into water testing and filtration. For several years Bob learned everything he could about the water filtration industry and in 1980 he incorporated his own business as Brandywine Water Systems.

Bob worked hard as a father and business owner. During the first ten years he expanded his business to have three trucks out on the road and a larger client base that included parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties. During the early ‘90s the recession hit hard and he was forced to scale back, but through his honest business practice and solid reputation with the community he managed to stay afloat and emerge as one of the leaders in the field.

Matt worked very hard over the next few years to build the business and establish the trust his father had earned with his customer base. A decade later Matt married the love of his life Carin Beam, a Malvern native, and the two of them settled down in West Chester. In 2015 the couple had their daughter Eloise Whitney (Whitney after Bob’s middle name) and are expecting a son due in August 2017 who will be named Robert. Matt continues to serve the greater Chester County area as a one-man business. He personally installs the equipment he sells and performs the year-to-year service himself. Like his father and grandfather, Matt sees the importance of building a personal relationship with his customers and learning each home’s unique water quality issues by being hands-on. Sometimes the simplest approaches are the best approaches.