Guildmaster Award winners have demonstrated their ability to
consistently deliver an exceptional customer experience.

I have always worked with wood, from my first shop in my parent\s basement at the age of 12 years old through the 12th grade. A one man construction company was working across the street from my parent's home on an addition I asked the owner if he needed help, he hired me on the spot. That was in 12th grade. The owner of this construction company had built me a wooden toolbox with a rope for a handle, I tossed it in the trunk of my car and I was off and running! I learned so much working with this company. I was only working this job for enough money so that I could go to college and pursue a career in Biology. After leaving home it ended up that I only had enough money to complete 2 quarters of state college so I decided to quit college and just keep working in the construction field to pay the bills. When that employer went out of business I found another job with another single owner run construction company. He also went out of business after about a year and gave me the few remaining jobs he had to complete. It just snowballed from there and today, 25 years later, we are a leading design/build firm in Cleveland, Ohio.

Our primary projects are more specialty based projects, higher end kitchens, baths, whole house remodels and wine rooms. These projects require a higher degree of management because of all the details that are involved. We are also proud to have developed a system that starts from the initial call through the warranty sign off that leaves our clients with an experience that they will remember as positive rather than negative. We believe that the experience the client has throughout the project is as important, if not more, than the final product. We have been involved in a couple of outdoor living spaces that were fun to design and build.

We usually have 3-4 projects running at a time. This seems to be a comfortable workload for our infrastructure to handle. In house our company is made up of 4 people, myself (sales/marketing/production manager), project manager, project managers assistant and our bookkeeper. We use mostly trade contractors for the construction. We have outside assistance with architectural design/drafting/product selection and any other assistance we may need. We run a lean company that controls the entire process so that the project turns out as envisioned from the beginning. By concentrating on higher end specialty projects, that typically will have a higher markup, we can focus on quality, details, processes and client experiences. Since we are not focused on volume turnover. We have a bit more breathing room to focus on our existing clients.

I have always enjoyed working in the field seeing a project finished. I have transitioned from field to office over a period of about 5 years. It was a hard transition but now that I look bak it was the best decision I could have made. I now enjoy putting together our systems so that when the initial call comes in from a client I know that there is no guessing as what is to be done next, just follow the process, kind of like a Starbucks or McDonalds.

We explain to our clients that as a design/build firm we have our process that we have developed, such as Starbucks or McDonalds that must be adhered to. By following our processes we can guarantee that their project will come out as intended and they will also come away with a positive experience in the end. This positive experience is what we want the clients to share with family and friends. Of course we also want their family and friends to see what a wonderful job we have done. There are many companies that can deliver a quality project but it is that experience the client comes away with that is the most valuable piece of marketing we could ever want.

Most all of our business comes from word of mouth. We do full page color ads in the city of Shaker Heights "Shaker Life" magazine, where a majority of our work is centralized. We feature new projects every ad. The magazine goes to all residences in the city. It has created a buzz within the city. People can't wait to see their project featured in the magazine. We also do post card mailings. Most of our marketing dollars are put back into existing clients, in house chefs, restaurant gift certificates, and various other gifts. I learned once at a "Remodeler's Show" course, years ago, to put most of your marketing dollars back into your clients. It works, I have seen the payoff!