Growing up in the mid-west in the middle of farm country, coupled with my agricultural engineer father, seems to have been a big influence on my analytic personality today.
My father designed and drew plans for a house to be built 8 feet behind the 100+ year old farm house we (mom, dad, bother and two sisters) were living in.
When I was 14, construction began on our new home. It was summer, so I was out of school for summer vacation and watched the whole thing go up. I was fascinated.
A year or two later I went to work for that builder. He was a small time builder, building about six homes a year. Larger production builders were not as common back then. He and his sons (and proud to say I helped) would literally build a house from ground up. They built the foundation, laid the block for the basements, framed the structure, siding, roofing, windows and doors, did all electrical and plumbing, sheetrock and trim. The hands on experience I received from building all the systems that go into a home is invaluable to me today.
I tried the working for a big company (John Deere). It wasn’t for me. So, I started a small handy man service (window replacement, siding, repairs, etc.) At the age of about 23, on a whim, I moved to Houston Texas where I started framing houses. I soon realized I was in the big leagues of home building. In 1980, I moved to Austin. Went to work for a builder for a while, and then started doing subcontracting work for various home improvement companies in Austin.
In 1984, Home Reflections Construction was started. Partially because of the entrepreneurial bug but mostly because of the belief that if I had more control I could deliver higher quality construction with superior service to the customer. My multi-disciplined background along with my professional studies in business, design, and engineering have served me well in providing superior customer service.
When not working on improving the business systems or a client’s home I like to tinker with older motorcycles out in the garage.