How I became a:
Construction Management Consultant

I began working with my father and Grandfather to build anything we ever needed at a very young age. Early on, I don’t think I really contributed much being about three and half feet tall at the time, mostly carrying 2 x 4's, cleaning up the construction sites, and staying out of the way ( that was actually a very difficult job for me). We poured our own patios and walkways, built decks, and added on rooms. I got to do the painting and finishing work that no one else wanted to do - which very likely contributed to my decision years later to move to SF and became a painting contractor.

I was a painting contractor between the years of 1979 and 1989. As a business owner with anywhere between 5 and 15 employees, I noticed some employees seemed aligned with me and were really great to work with, and some just showed up to do the minimum of what was expected.

One day, right when things were going really well on one of the largest jobs we had done in a few years, my lead guy - let’s call him Sam, asked me for a significant raise. He seemed pretty upset, and said he was going to quite if he didn’t get it. This was a huge problem for me as it would set a precedent for the whole crew. I was worried about how I could remain profitable if I gave raises every time someone got upset - which in Sam’s case was about once every two months. I pulled Sam aside and had a conversation about what was going on. I dug into where it started for him since most of the time he was my most productive guy. I found out that something I had said two weeks earlier had rubbed him the wrong way - and he had been stewing about it ever since. I apologized, and then acknowledged Sam for all the great work he was doing. I explained what would have to happen for him to get a raise, and I let him know how important he was to running the crew, and the success of the business. Sam seemed genuinely excited to be a part of the vision I had for growing the business, decided he didn’t really want a raise, that he was actually satisfied with what he was earning, and we all went back to work. I breathed a big sigh of relief, but I had leaned something I would think about for years.

I had learned there were some things as important, possibly more important to Sam than money. I learned that in the absence of those things, it becomes all about the money. At that time I was taking classes in the evenings and weekends in construction industry business management, communication, and linguistics. I began to experiment with what I was learning in class and applying it to how I ran my contracting business. My business grew and my employees became very good at getting the job done. We were able to move toward the preferred very high end custom residential projects of SF. I was awarded work when I was almost always the most expensive bid. When asked why I was higher than others, I simply said it was because I would do whatever it took for the construction project to be successful. That was my commitment and that’s what I did. Sometimes that meant I had to cleanup someone else’s work to get my job done. If that’s what it took, that’s what we did. Most of my customers were General Contractors, and they preferred doing business with me because I made their projects look good, and that made them look good.