Some companies just give off a good vibe. Barlop Business Systems is one of them. It could be because it’s a business built on a solid sense of family and community presence, or maybe it’s because three sisters run the place, sharing leadership responsibility with the charming, bickery dynamic of siblings who truly enjoy being around each other. You just know they can hash it out to make tough business decisions, then happily get together socially for some laughs.
Top photo, from left: Monica Lopez, Mallory Lopez Marino (front/center), and Michele Lopez.
Monica Lopez, COO, is the oldest. She is the sales manager and also runs the managed IT side of Barlop. Michele, CMO, is the middle sister who looks after operations, got into sales about two years ago, and is in charge of marketing. Mallory, CFO and the youngest, handles the financial and administrative side of the business.
So, what’s it like when decisions need to be made? “Everybody has that same question,” said Mallory, laughing. “We don’t have a hard time making a decision. We’re typically on the same page.”
Monica added, “I know a lot of times people think like, oh, working with family is so hard. We don’t know any better. This has been our whole entire life. If you sit at a meeting with us, if you don’t know our dynamic, you would probably freak out. But it’s really not as bad as it looks. If we have a manager or leadership meeting, we will have multiple disagreements, and as soon as the meeting is over, we’re like, okay, what are you going to have for lunch?”
They learned how to separate—or smoothly blend—business and family from their parents Jose and Madelyn Lopez, who founded Barlop with a partner in 1983. They also learned how to run a business from an early age, taught by their father who stepped back from day-to-day operations around 2020 but retained a consultative role until 2023.
“We were raised listening to those conversations at home, and, it was a constant day-to-day for us, and [our parents] did a really good job of whatever happened at work, happened at work. When they got home, it was home time. Even if they were talking about work, they never brought home whatever disagreements happened at work,” said Mallory.
What Barlop Business Systems looked like 10 years ago, with the wife-and-husband team of Madelyn and Jose Lopez (surrounded by their three daughers and other employees) front and center.
The dynamic has served them well. Barlop Business Systems operates with 35 employees out of Miami, Florida. They offer a broad swath of services including copiers hardware, document solutions, managed IT, VoIP, managed print services, rentals, repairs and consulting, workflow, security and compliance, and integrated communications. They are also gearing up for a new revenue stream but it’s too early to share details.
Their clients span from the public sector, to education, legal, medical, construction, banking, restaurants, and hospitality. Barlop services business in Florida, but if a client has satellite offices, then a series of partners across the country can step up to help.
Barlop Business Systems’ beginnings and growth
Jose Lopez was working for copier manufacturer Saxon (which Xerox later acquired) in Florida when the parts department moved to New Jersey. For a period, as parts manager, he traveled north on Monday and returned south on Friday night. It might have been easier to move, but his wife Madelyn refused.
He tried launching his own company, but it didn’t take. Instead, he partnered with
Juan Barroso in 1983 and formed Barlop, a portmanteau of their two last names. Barroso remanufactured the machines, and Lopez sold them. The company slowly grew, added services, and expanded its reach in the Florida market. At the turn of the century, the company expanded into the public sector, which proved a boost to growth, and then into managed services around 2010.
By 2015, Jose bought Barlop from Juan and brought his daughters into leadership roles. They each worked at the dealership as teenagers during summers while in high school and college, then came on full-time in 1998 (Monica), 2004 (Michele), and 2006 (Mallory). Monica has worked in business development and outside sales roles since 2009; she was the top sales rep until she took over as sales manager in 2025. Michele began in accounts receivables. They were never technicians, but they all did stints in accounts receivables, service, sales, operations, and other areas until they learned the ins and outs of running a business.
Barlop’s scenic setting includes palm trees and the Miami skyline.
Sometimes the transitions happened by circumstances. Michele, the middle sister, was headed for a master’s degree in psychology but changed her mind on an industry cruise. Monica was transitioning into her current role and they were about to hire someone else. A colleague on the cruise suggested to Michele that she try sales. She was reluctant at first but persuaded her dad to let her try it. “I tried it and I loved it and that’s how it started,” she remembered. “And then I switched my master’s. I stopped doing psychology and did my master’s of business, and took over Monica’s position.”
One obstacle that never arose was three women running a company. “My dad holds himself really well, and he has never let us feel anything but confidence whenever we sat in a room with him to do anything. He’s kind of guided us in every aspect of what we do,” said Mallory.
“I sat with him with our manufacturers for meetings and our leasing companies, and he’s always taught us to just be confident
and to hold ourselves to the highest regard,” added Monica.
When it was clear that he could securely hand over the reins, Jose stepped back by 2023. Today the sisters have a business coach to help them navigate responsibilities, roles, management issues, strategies, and generally provide an objective third-party perspective. They meet quarterly to review strategic plans for the coming year and identify what the focus will be.
From left: Michele, Jose, and Monica Lopez with Mia Tapasco (Monica’s daughter) accepted an award from the
Latin Builders Association for “Business Solutions Company of the Year.” Mia is working in Barlop’s accounts receivables department before heading off to law school in the fall.
“We got a business coach to help take what my dad built and do it in the same manner because he was obviously very successful, and we put our two cents into it. It kind of holds all three of us accountable because it brings a third party in to have an outside look at what we’re doing and what’s the dynamic and what needs to be done,” said Mallory.
So far, their particular two cents has included approving remote employees—a first for the company—formalizing company culture, and adopting automation. “We approved the first remote employee. Everybody was against it but we let her, and she did extremely well,” said Michele.
Barlop’s culture breeds team loyalty
Another thing they’ve done is to cement recognition of company culture. “Dad always had a great culture. A lot of his success has come from the team that he built. A lot of our employees have been with us for a long time. We still have our first employee who’s been with us for 45 years. Our service manager’s been with us 27 years. We have sales reps that have been with us 20 plus years,” said Mallory.
The sisters have put a structure in place to recognize and celebrate that. They talk about it when they hire new staff, recognize the tenure of employees, and make everyone aware of the importance of a strong team. Jose did it organically; his daughters are intentional.
Service Manager Elicio Moreira (center, in blue shirt) with Barlop service team members.
They have also automated many functions including CRM systems, in preparation for scaling the business across all their business lines. Miami is a huge market with plenty of opportunities, and they plan to be as strong in managed services as they are on the print side. Jose, they said, never stayed still and was always innovative and coming up with new ideas. The three sisters draw inspiration from that. The goal is to be a one-stop shop that provide all solutions within an office space.
While putting their own stamp on Barlop, they are united in preserving one of the company’s defining core values: the strong community relationships it has cultivated over the years. They also remain committed to providing exceptional service in a marketplace crowded with mega dealers, many of whom compete aggressively on price. The sisters have spoken to every single customer they have and say
they prize building relationships not just sales deals.
The same goes for community. “Every time that we make any decision, we go back to our customer base, and every donation that we do, we typically will go first to our customer base and try to stay within the community. When we have to replace our roof, we use our customers; our windows, we use our customers,” said Mallory.
It’s a winning business ecosystem that balances continuity with progress: always a trickly proposition that, in this case, seems to be working for Barlop.
Major Account Executive Giancarlo Navarrete (left) and Installer Jesus Mora.
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