This is my first construction website:
Thought I'd take a moment and tell anyone that reads this blog post a little about myself and how I got started. Ever since I was a kid I liked building and fixing things (tree houses, barns, projects around the house and ranch). In 1999 my first real big project had been in my mind for a few years and was now coming to a reality. I was building a three story steel building, complete with car bays, lube-pits, office, waiting room, 2 bathrooms, 6 bay doors. Super nice place. This time though I was hiring lots of Sub-Contractors to do the heavy work (cement forms, steel beams, concrete, asphalt -- the hard stuff). It was new territory back then for me, I was use to doing everything myself, but a project of this size requires hiring Subs and in managing them. The first thing I did was hire a General Contractor and then delegated to them to hire the appropriate sub-contractors. However, due to the General not following my orders and in many unnecessary delays I ended up firing them and taking over myself as the General. Fortunately for me at the time another General was building a new Burger King right next door to my project and could see the problem I'd gotten myself into and offered to help guide me through the process. For six months this General would meet me at this trailer at 6 a.m. every morning and we'd go over my blue-prints and he'd outline to me what needed to be done, then he'd give me a list of names of the best subs for the particular job that needed to be done. A few lessons I learned during this process, one of them was to choose your General carefully -- it's not all about the paper and licenses they carry, it's really about how honest they are and if they do what they say they are going to do at the price they say they are going to do it for. Here's a picture of a similar building: