"From a young age, I was always interested and fascinated with anything that had to do with construction.  My dad worked his whole life in construction and I always looked up to him and wanted to follow in his footsteps.  We have a family friend that owned a sign company and when I was about 6 years old, he would pay me to come to the shop and clean up and at that same time, I got to witness people doing custom woodwork firsthand. The smell of sawdust and tools stuck with me from that point on!  When I reached a point in my life when I realized that school really wasn't for me, my father got me into the laborers union that he was a member of.  Even though it was good pay with good benefits I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to learn the carpentry trade and work on residential homes and not big commercial buildings.  I left the comfort of the union with its good pay and good benefits to working as a laborer for a residential contractor making peanuts compared to what I was making in the union, it was a really big and uncomfortable change for me at the time but I had bigger goals for myself and I knew I had to start at the bottom and work my way up.  I was lucky enough to work for a couple of contractors that took the time to teach me the trade and were patient with me while I tried to learn the many different aspects of carpentry.  I started taking on small side jobs that I could handle while I worked full-time for someone else and each side job I did I would buy a new tool and put money away towards getting my contractor's license and insurances needed to one day work for myself. 

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I eventually got to the point where I was able to get licensed and insured, buy my own truck and start working on my own.  I started to realize that not only did I enjoy doing carpentry and being able to sit back and look at the finished product, but I also enjoyed and got a lot of satisfaction out of taking a clients ideas or vision and making it a reality for them!  The thing I love about what I do is that every job is different and has its own challenges, I am always learning new things regardless of my experience and always have to remain teachable if I want to continue to succeed in this business.  Being a contractor with my own business is very challenging at times, to say the least,  but if it was easy I don't think I would get nearly as much satisfaction out of what I do."