“If you look at your work and you say, ‘I wonder if that’s good enough,’ it’s not.”
My first job was at Dick’s when I was still in high school. No kidding. Dick’s Hamburgers. I was a prep cook. Only worked there for about six months, but then I couldn’t get out of the restaurant field for, like, two years. I didn’t have any training; I just picked it up. (I’m a hands-on kind of guy.) I was at Shenanigans, Casa Blanca…I mean, I worked in some of the fanciest places in Spokane, but I wasn’t making any money.
Back in high school, I loved shop. Loved building things. And I wanted a career—something I could actually raise a family on. I tried to get into construction but I couldn’t get a job. Nobody would hire me ’cause I had no skills. So I built boats at Sun Runner for a couple of years. Worked my way up to lead lineman on a cabin cruiser. And then I finally got on at Eric Brown Construction, first as a laborer, then as a carpenter and operator: backhoe, front loader, bobcat, stuff like that. When I didn’t have something to do, I’d jump off, put my bags on and do carpentry.
I was making more and more money, but it still wasn’t a career. So I joined the union as a journeyman. My first job was building the Costco up north, working seven twelve-hour shifts through the summer. Oh my God, I was making killer money, but it was tough. Every once in a while, we’d work, like, eight hours on a Sunday. That was good. It was like, “Okay, you guys have done enough. Let’s give you a little break.” Three months straight without a day off.
Ferguson was the company. They built all the Costcos—they’d come into town, hire locals, then move on to the next location. They wanted me to go with them, but I had a family. So instead I bounced around from one little GC to the next because nobody knew me. Okay, maybe I wasn’t the best carpenter, but I was a qualified carpenter.
I wound up at Goebel and was there off and on for four years. That’s where I met Scott Wical, who had just been laid off from Bouten. We worked together a bit before he got back on at Bouten—and tried to get me to come with him. But I’d been fighting and fighting to get a job for so long that I was afraid to take that leap. And I was tired of having to sell myself. But then Goebel laid me off for the winter. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to do it.” That was the best thing I ever did.
I learned right away that Bouten wanted quality more than anything. That’s your number-one priority. I mean, you’ve got to be efficient, but if it’s not right, you’re going to have to redo it. Didn’t matter how long it took me: If Bill didn’t like it, it wasn’t about the money or the time. I was redoing it. It could be frustrating, but I knew he was right. After a while I learned that Bill would alwaysfind something.
The guys who taught me were the best of the best. They were maybe a bit on the anal side, but there was a reason: By the time I became a full-fledged finish carpenter, I’d look at my work and go, “Would this pass at my house? If I hired someone with my own hard-earned money, would I be okay with this?” And that was my guideline. You—and the people you’re building for—shouldn’t settle for anything less.
