 Many years ago, my father was building our family cottage on weekends and he would let me work with him. I was there for every step of the process. From his development of the functional, but artistic layout to digging footings by hand, and sweating copper plumbing I was right by his side. We hand-drove a well, put up walls and set the trusses. We hung drywall, did finish trim and all of the painting. That home took years to complete, but we enjoyed it more than any home we lived in as I was growing up. I learned how to view construction as a process from beginning to end and I learned first-hand how much you could enjoy the results.
I never had much interest in education during high school – sports were my focus. I enjoyed the people and the energy as much as the athletics themselves. It was a surprise then, when I suddenly felt driven to teach and returned to college to finish a Masters in Education. I taught math and science in the Portage School System for nine. It is funny how that brought me full circle back to something I loved: Construction and home building. During my summer breaks from teaching I began remodeling my new family’s home. My family put up with torn out rooms and cabinet-less kitchens for many years as I worked on that house. When that project was finished something always came up – a friend would need a bathroom, a co-worker would need a deck, a family member would need skylights or a roof torn off and re-shingled. I found I began to look forward less and less to going back to the classroom, and more and more I was looking forward to BUILDING something.
In 1991 I took the leap and stepped into construction full time. I took the state test for my builder’s license and hired on to manage home construction for a firm here in the Kalamazoo area. I learned a lot and met a great group of people – fellow employees, clients, and sub-contractors. That job reinforced my desire to build quality homes and not just houses. I realized that what I had learned working weekends with my father translated directly to the business of home building. A good design, a well thought out process and a few handpicked sub-contractors would build a home you could be proud to put your name on as a General Contractor.
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