Biography

As a young boy I remember holding my first hammer at around age five. I starting building tree houses and forts out of scrap wood from old barns I gathered up that were lying around our large Midwestern farm. Little did I know that being creative and building the things I did as a child would make such an impact on my life and create the foundation for my future.

At around age fourteen I was old enough to start working—I taped and textured drywall with my neighbor as a summer job. Although this type of construction was hot, humid and hard, it was something I could do to generate some spending money. It was also a chance to show my parents that I could do hard work and finish something I started. Throughout m childhood my father always nurtured my five brothers and me on discipline, hard work, and doing a good job correctly. I believe this nurturing has played a role in the successes I have achieved so far. Throughout the rest of my teenage years into my twenties, I worked at various construction jobs including various forms of landscaping installation, cabinetmaking, rough carpentry, electrical and plumbing work, etc.

After serving in the armed forces during Operation Dessert Storm, I decided to take advantage of the GI Bill and Army College Fund. I went to Modesto Junior College for three years while working full time in the construction field. I received my AA and transferred to CSUS Sacramento in 1998. I began my college career as pre-Electrical Engineer. I considered that major for about one semester and then later decided to switch to Civil Engineering because I realized that I could not work indoors in an office for thirty years. My love of the outdoors caused me to switch to Construction Engineering where I found my true calling. I currently reside as a senior finishing up my remaining class.

As I began attending CSUS, I started working part time at a local Home Depot in the outside gardening dept. I worked approximately thirty hours a week while attending college full time. As difficult as it was to work and attend college full time, I needed the additional income to survive. I then went to downtown Sacramento and applied for a small business license under the name “Sacramento Landscaping.” While working at Home Depot I would occasionally mention to customers that I have my small business license for landscaping and that I also could do miscellaneous handyman work as well. Some of the things I did with my small business license included installing fully automated sprinkler systems, Laying concrete walkways and patios, installing sod, planting plants, decks, low voltage lighting, plumbing and various other jobs associated with home improvement and general contracting needs such as bathroom remodeling or anything else associated with general construction. I began to get additional work to s upplement my income. About a year went by and I started to make more money with my small business activities than working at Home Depot. AT this point I decided to take a gamble and run a small one inch ad in the then Pacific Bell Yellow Pages. Once the ad went into the new phone book I started receiving calls and doing larger jobs. The first big job I received actually paid for the ad. At this tome I decided to resign from Home Depot and put more efforts into my new small company.

Over the next four years I continually increased the size, color, and style of my ad, and the work continued to increase. In 2002 I decided to advance my business even further and get my General Contractor’s license. In May 2002 I officially received my Certified B class General Contractor’s license. At this point I could begin to improve all aspects of my company. I was officially licensed to perform all types of general contracting work and this is where all my schooling, nurturing, discipline, and earlier construction experience has paid off. At this point I had to decide on the priorities involved with running a growing company and fulfilling the other responsibilities associated with my busy life. I decided that the important part of running a company as well as the other elements of my life was time management. I had to decide how much time I would devote to the building of my company, how much time I would devote to school and completing my Construction Engineering degree, and how much time I could find to spend with my wife and two baby girls; they are three and four years old.

Once I thought this trough I could set my plan in motion and move on to the finer parts of running my company such as ethics, values, quality, leadership, management, cash flow, etc… Business, in general, seemed to come naturally for me. I applied these items to my company to improve it since 2002. Along with customer feedback and just asking clients about things that can improve my company I have applied these inputs to my company. Having applied some of the inputs over the past for years my business has continued to prosper with a continued overall gross sales increase of 80-100% annually for the past 5 years and still maintaining a 30-33% net profit margin. I maintain just a handful of full time employees who are treated and paid fairly well. My clients constantly tell me great things about my workers such as how well they work without being told all the time what to do. I plan in the near future to have three three man crews while I handle all the logistics and paperwork of my company. In the near future I will be moving over to the residential construction side of building custom houses using the latest in energy efficient construction products. Regardless of what I do the idea is to run as efficient company as possible while still maintaining the highest business and industry standards and take care of each individual customer and having fun along the way.