Houston:
713-380-2282
CEO & Co-Founder | Star Building Services | Houston, TX
When Star Building Services signs a new major-account client, whether that is a Michelin-recognized restaurant, a hospital system, or a seven-figure hospitality operation, Angelica Catano is on the first call. She has been for 18 years. Angelica co-founded the company in Houston in September 2008 with Juan Gonzalez and serves as CEO today. Her focus sits at three places: client relationships with major accounts, brand and cultural direction for the company, and the growth planning that has carried Star from a single Houston operation into a two-hub Texas facility service company cleaning 2.5 million square feet every day.
18
Years in Business
2.5M+
Sq Ft Cleaned Daily
Trusted Across Texas Businesses
Certified, recognized, proven cleaning excellence
What Angelica Does at Star Building Services
Angelica runs Star Building Services as CEO. In practical terms, that role owns three responsibilities the organization chart does not delegate.
- Major account relationships. Angelica is the primary contact for Star's largest customers. She sits in the first meeting, she gets the escalation call, and she owns the outcome. Accounts under her personal management include high-end restaurant clients (including Michelin-recognized operations), hospital and medical administrative facilities such as Memorial Hermann and MD Anderson admin, Houston Country Club, Meow Wolf Museum, and select hospitality and government portfolios. Organizations like NASA have previously trusted Star with their facilities under her leadership.
- Brand direction. How Star communicates, what we say about ourselves, and how we stay aligned with what actually gets delivered in the field, all run through Angelica.
- Growth planning. The two-hub Texas expansion, the Dallas and Farmers Branch operations, and the upcoming service extension into San Antonio and Austin are all decisions Angelica has directly shaped and approved.
How Angelica Started Star Building Services
Angelica co-founded Star Building Services in September 2008. She and Juan Gonzalez started with a handful of local Houston accounts and one specific bet: that a Latina-founded facility service company could deliver higher-quality commercial cleaning at competitive pricing if the operation was disciplined enough to earn that reputation contract by contract.
That bet was not obvious at the time. Houston in 2008 was in the early months of the financial crisis. Commercial cleaning was already a race-to-the-bottom market where the lowest bid usually won and quality was inconsistent across providers. Building a minority-owned facility service company against established competitors required operational discipline and a willingness to compete on things that were harder to see on a proposal: inspection frequency, supervisor training, and how quickly the company answered the phone at 9pm on a Sunday.
Eighteen years later, that same operating philosophy runs the company. Star has grown from a single Houston operation into two Texas hubs cleaning 2.5 million square feet every day. Angelica’s role has scaled, but the underlying decision-making principle has not: quality first, and reputation follows.
The MBE/SBE/HUB Certification Story
Within the first several years of founding the company, Angelica pursued certification with the City of Houston as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), Small Business Enterprise (SBE), and Historically Underutilized Business (HUB). Star Building Services carries all three today.
These are not marketing badges. Each one carries specific accountability. To hold the certifications, a company has to demonstrate ownership structure, workforce composition, and operational practices that meet standards set by the City of Houston, not by the company itself. Angelica pursued them for two reasons. First, they open procurement doors with municipal, government, and enterprise clients that require certified suppliers. Second, they hold Star to a third-party accountability standard that internal quality control alone cannot enforce.
Star Building Services is also a member of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, another external network that keeps the company visible and accountable to the local Latina and Latino business community.
How She Runs the Company
Angelica’s operating principle is straightforward: run every contract as if the customer will be watching every shift.
In practice, that shows up in a three-layer inspection structure that runs across every account, every month. The account supervisor does the first pass, on-site, using a checklist calibrated to the facility type. The quality control lead does the second pass with a stricter eye. The operations manager does the third pass, sometimes announced, sometimes not. Every inspection lives in Star’s Salesforce-based operations platform, where the client account team, the supervisor, and the QC lead can all see findings and corrective actions.
Angelica championed this structure from the earliest years of the company. Most commercial cleaning companies inspect their own work once a month and call it quality control. Star runs three inspections by three different people because that is the only way she has found to keep standards from drifting as the company scales.
For a deeper look at the mechanism, see our commercial janitorial cleaning services page.
Community and Cultural Roots
Angelica leads Star’s community work as part of the company’s mission, not as a separate philanthropy budget.
The signature program is a water and community project for the Wayuu people in La Guajira, Colombia, run in partnership with Life Connection Mission. The Wayuu are an indigenous community facing chronic water scarcity, and the project has brought clean water access, community infrastructure, and long-term support to a region that most commercial partnerships never reach. Angelica has direct ties to the community the project serves, and the initiative reflects a value that shows up throughout Star: a business that grows should give some of what it earns back to communities that need it most.
Full details of the project and how the Star team stays involved are on our social responsibility page.
Recognitions Under Her Leadership
Star Building Services has been recognized locally and nationally throughout Angelica’s tenure as CEO:
- BSCAI Member (Building Service Contractors Association International)
- BBB Accredited Business
- MBE, SBE, and HUB certified by the City of Houston
- Inner City 100, recognized twice
- Houston Business Journal Top 5 Janitorial Company, twice
- Best of 2026 Business Rate by Google (second consecutive year)
- DBEST Top 5 Janitorial Services in Dallas 2026 (recognized since 2023)
- Nextdoor Choice Award
- Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce member
Star Building Services was also named to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies in 2019, an early external validation of the scale-up trajectory Angelica had led since founding.
Connect With Angelica
For major-account inquiries, existing client escalations, or partnership conversations, Angelica is the direct point of contact. Reach her team via the phone number below or the estimate form.
Meet the Rest of the Leadership Team
Angelica leads Star alongside her co-founder and her operations lead. Read more about the rest of the team:
Juan Gonzalez
Owner and Co-Founder
Juan co-founded Star in 2008 and continues to shape the operational side of the business. His work centers on scaling delivery quality across a growing account base without breaking what made the original operation work: attention to detail, direct communication, and accountability that reaches every shift.
Viviana Campo
Operations Leadership
Viviana is a central part of Star’s leadership team. Her role bridges operations, quality control, and account management, the three functions that determine whether a client’s building actually gets cleaned to standard every night.