Case Studies Trade Associations

As Jon Wesley “Wes” Treder scrolls through the many applications for the San Luis Obispo International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ (IBEW LU639) five-year apprenticeship program, he can’t help but notice a serious lack of hands-on experience. “There are kids coming through who don’t know how to use a tape measure, or understand what a sixteenth […]

Robotics has revolutionized manufacturing, and companies say the trend will continue. For contractors serving those manufacturers, it’s a case of get on board or be left behind. Jeremy Abbott’s electrical contracting business has chosen the former approach. DECO has a long history of partnering with Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the companies that supply Boeing’s Washington-based […]

When Kessler Construction LLC broke ground in March 2016 for an exclusive subdivision just a couple of miles from the traffic beltway that encircles the hustle and bustle of Tallahassee, Florida, the foundation was laid for much more than just another neighborhood of upscale, custom houses. The Southern Oaks project marked the start of Leon […]

Bill Swarbrick Jr. used to light the lamp as a productive forward on Northern Arizona University’s Division 1 hockey team, scoring 42 goals over three seasons during the 1980s. Since then, he’s done even more lamp lighting at Superior Lighting Inc., which has offices in Omaha, Nebraska, and Des Moines, Iowa. Co-founded in 1968 by […]

Far removed from the beaches and theme parks that define other locales, north Florida has its own amenities that attract some of the 1,000 folks who move to the Sunshine State daily. “It’s a beautiful place to live and raise your family,” says Lynne Edwards, executive officer of the Tallahassee Builders Association (TBA) and owner […]

In 2015, when R. Vaughn Poppell and Tim Tucker founded Praesidium Homes LLC, a construction company specializing in insulated concrete forms (ICFs), their goal was to bring a superior method of building to the “average Joe” of Tallahassee, Florida, which meant overcoming how ICFs are viewed. ICF wall systems have been around since World War […]

“The first good part about my story is that my father taught me how to work from a young age,” says Brandon Jett, owner of Jett Builders, a custom-home building and remodeling company in Tallahassee, Florida. When Jett was a kid, his father bought a piece of property outside of Tallahassee with two large tobacco […]

The developer of Spaulding Green, a 400-acre housing community in Clarence, New York, realized target buyers preferred homes built into hillsides with walk-out basements. The land being developed was essentially flat, though. To make the walk-out basements possible, Greenman-Pedersen Inc. (GPI) got creative and turned flat land into varied terrain with ponds, hills and elevated […]

If you look on a map for Mineral Springs, Ohio, you might have trouble finding it. So while people living in the area long knew they could use a place for gathering and socializing, it seemed unlikely this need would be met. Who would organize and build it? Who’d pay for it? In came the […]

In 1872 a Scottish sea captain immigrated to Meriden, Connecticut, from Scotland and started his own plumbing company. Nearly 145 years later, that plumbing company, The James T. Kay Company, is one of the three oldest continuously running companies in Connecticut. In the beginning, James T. Kay and his son Frank would travel by horse […]