About a year ago, the David Jeffries family left the safe, secure cocoon of a franchise set out upon one of the scariest adventures imaginable — they set up an independent family business.

Last week, the principals in that business — David and Leah Jeffries and daughters Mary Jeffries and Sarah Jeffries Sandmann — were named the Small Business Persons of the Year by the Denton Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber’s award is always a happy event. It is more than a cliche to say that small business is the backbone of the American economy; it is the gospel truth. Recognizing a competent and principled small business is always gratifying. This year’s choice is especially so because the award goes to a deserving family that took a big risk and made their dream work.

David Jeffries’ father was an electrician; so was his grandfather. David began to learn his trade as a kid, crawling through holes and pulling wire into spaces his elders couldn’t fit. He began his own electrical business in 1983 in Gainesville, and in 1997, he bought a Mr. Electric franchise, a young and growing electrical services chain with more than 100 franchises in four countries.

Franchises offer a lot of advantages, both for franchisees and customers. The franchisees get buying power for supplies, equipment and raw material and customers get lower prices (sometimes) and the familiarity of dealing with a firm that offers uniform quality (sometimes) wherever they go.

But there are drawbacks, too. As David Jeffries put it to the <ITLA> Record-Chronicle’s Randena Hulstrand, franchises, with their eyes on growth and the bottom line, don’t always meet the needs of small-business owners. As for a franchise’s customers, they may gain a little in the pocketbook, but they sometimes lose the satisfaction of dealing with an independent businessperson whose first priority is local customer satisfaction. That Sooper-Dooper Burger you can buy anywhere in the world will taste the same no matter where you buy it, and that is both its strongest point and its weakest. It won’t ever taste bad, but it will never rise to the heights achieved by the rare, dedicated independent restaurant owner who learned his or her trade standing over a hot griddle.

So last year, David Jeffries, his wife and two daughters formed Jeffries Electric — from scratch. In severing its ties to the franchise, the new business had to surrender all the advantages of a franchise — customer lists, home-office support, mass buying power and the recognition that comes with a familiar, nation-wide trademark.

Jeffries Electric has not only survived its first year, it has thrived, increasing business by 30 percent and adding a new truck to its existing fleet of four.

It has succeeded, Jeffries said, partly be treating its employees “like our family” (and, of course, a lot of them are) and partly on the canny observation that most of their customers are women.

Because of that, neatness counts. Service vans are neat and clean, and technicians wear paper shoe covers in customers’ homes.

It is the equivalent of that homegrown burger maven who knows and appreciates his customers enough to shop around for the best beef he can get and stay away from frozen french fries.