From Sweeping Floors to National Accounts

Before the broom

My education in solving problems under pressure didn’t start in construction. At 20, I was working inside large telecommunications and defense companies through an engineering co-op program — including work that required government security clearance. I sat in rooms with senior engineers, defense executives, and government officials, on hardened communication systems designed to operate during nuclear conflict.

That’s where I learned how large systems hold together under pressure — not just technically, but operationally: the communication, the coordination, the decisions that can’t wait.

I grew up sweeping floors in my family’s construction business. I didn’t start in an office with a title — I started with a broom, learning the trade from the ground up, the way a lot of owners I work with did.

When family conflict fractured the original company, we started over from nothing — no office, no investors, no infrastructure. The business began in the basement of my parents’ home. My father refused to over-explain anything. He made me learn through mistakes and pressure, and at the time it was frustrating. It turned out to be the best business education I could have gotten.

Over the years I built that foundation into a company that served national accounts — names like:

My specialty became one of the hardest things in retail construction: open-store remodels — rebuilding stores overnight while they stayed open for business all day. Every hour mattered. Every vendor mattered. Every delay mattered. That’s where I learned what operational pressure really looks like.

The ceiling I hit myself

Here’s the part nobody puts on a banner: growing the company nearly consumed me. The bigger it got, the more every decision ran through me. I was the estimator, the firefighter, the bank, and the bottleneck — all at once.

What changed everything wasn’t working harder. It was replacing myself — systematically — with processes, clear numbers, and people empowered to make decisions. Operational chaos got replaced with systems. And systems created clarity, control, and growth that didn’t depend on my personal capacity.

Why I coach now

I work with owners of general contracting firms doing $2M–$10M, small business owners, and franchise owners — all living the same story I did: revenue coming in, profit leaking out, and a business that stalls the moment they step back.

I’ve sat in your chair. I know what the ceiling feels like from the inside — and I know the way through it, because I had to build that way through myself.