October 30, 2023 • 29 mins
In our debut, we're thrilled to introduce you to our special guest, Gerardo Rivera (Jerry), COO of Level 5 Drywall, Inc.
Jerry shares his inspiring journey through the construction industry, reflecting on the highs, lows, and the evolution of his career. Join us as he unveils how he and his team are growing Level 5 Drywall today.
Jerry shares his inspiring journey through the construction industry, reflecting on the highs, lows, and the evolution of his career. Join us as he unveils how he and his team are growing Level 5 Drywall today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey there everyone, I'm Lou Perez. I'm thrilled to be the host of
The Builder Upper Show, a podcastwhere we talk about everything in construction.
Now let's get into it. I'mexcited to bring in our first guest,
Gerardo Rivera. He goes by Jerryand he's from Level five dry Wall the
(00:24):
COO. Hey, Jerry, howyou doing today? Good morning, Lou.
I'm doing all right, awesome.So congratulations on your Cowboys win.
Hear. I saw some of thegame last night. They looked pretty good.
Yeah, they did. Man,they you know, they scared me
a little bit for a while.You know, I didn't think they were
(00:44):
gonna pull it off. But youknow, after that big Sunday loss,
you know, all your hopes godown the drain because you say, if
this is the way the season's gonnago, man, we got a long
wait till next year. Yeah.Yeah, And excited to talk about about
the construction industry with you. You'reyou're an expert in the field, a
thought leader to amongst many. Sojust getting started. You know, when
(01:08):
did you get into construction and howearly was it. I got into construction
when I was around probably seventeen oreighteen you know, like most of the
guys in my age, if youhear the stories, they all started right
around you know, high school,right around the end of high school.
You know, I started in woodconstruction. I was working for a framing
(01:30):
contractor at the time. Most ofwhat I was doing was you know,
picking up scrap wood, picking upnails, helping install backing here and there,
you know, and then just startedprogressing from there. That's awesome.
You know. I did some carpentryback in the day. I was a
grunt on the field and had tocarry all the plywood and do all the
(01:55):
roofing, and they made me standon the on the on the roof and
bringing the trusses, so when allthe other guys didn't want to do it,
I was up high on the twostory buildings bringing them down. So
I have a special place in myheart for carpentry and definitely a job that
I've never forgotten about. Yeah,those those formative years are what really stick
(02:20):
with you. Yeah, yeah,absolutely, So. Describe the moment when
you first felt the adrenaline rush whenyou completed a structure. So I've done
a lot of a lot of building, you know, for other companies.
I transitioned from wood carpentry. ThenI left that for a while, and
then I came back and I starteddoing drywall. You know. I moved
(02:45):
to Mexico, where I met mywife, I had a couple of kids,
came back and then got into alittle bit of trouble in Chicago,
and then moved to San Francisco withmy sister and my brother in law was
a taping foreman for a company calledPimental Drywall. You know, he's already
retired. He sold his company,and that's how I got into drywall and
(03:09):
framing. You know, on theground, I started scrapping, starting cleaning
out jobs, and then slowly startedbringing me up to taping. And then
one day one of the drywall installersdidn't show up and he had a you
know, like a kitchen and abathroom that I needed to finish up right
(03:29):
away. So he kind of threwme in with one of his hangers.
And I liked it. You know, I liked hanging better than I did
taping, because I you know,taping, you got mud all over you
and there's dust all the time.And not that there's no dust in uh
in hanging, but you know,taping is a lot worse. So that's
kind of how I got started,you know, I I picked it up
(03:52):
right away, you know, threeweeks into drywall installation. I was already
you know, hanging bowl and makingcuts and everything like the guys that had
already five six years experience. Andso the way I started and I knew
I wanted my own business was,you know, we were finishing up a
(04:13):
small project and then the neighbor wasdoing an attic and he's he comes over
and he says, hey, youknow, I've got this addict. Do
you want to come and look atit? And then because I don't want
to get a company, it's goingto be too expensive, so I started,
you know, like most of theguys out there, doing you know,
little side jobs here and there.And then the first structure that I
(04:35):
completed that I was like really proudwas a house that we did in Saratoga
Hills. I mean that place isright on the you know, on the
main road, and every time yougo by there you can see it.
It's a it's a it's a housethat very unique. It's got arches,
it has groin volts, it haseverything in there. So once it was
(04:57):
completed you know that that was thatwas one of the big challenges for me,
is to how to get all thatstuff together and then once it's finished,
you know in tape, we hadto go back to do some patches.
And then that's where I was like, you know, I couldn't get
the smile off my face to seehow good the place looked. And when
we did the patches, the ownerswere there, the architect was there,
(05:19):
the designer was there. They werekind of having a meeting, you know,
because the lady wanted to make somechanges and stuff like that, and
you know, they the owner says, hey, you know this is Cherry,
He's the one that did all thework here for us. So you
know, I started getting praise forall the work that we did, and
that's when I, you know,it just clicked. You know, I've
(05:39):
got a knack for this, soI'm a natural at it. And that's
kind of where where you know,the dream started for me. But it
was a long time from then untilwe actually started our own company. Wow,
man, what an incredible story.I feel the same way, you
know when we when when I wasdoing carpentry, we build these big apartment
(06:00):
complexes that you couldn't miss. Itwas in cut A Hay, Wisconsin,
and every time I drive by therewith my kids, I'm like, yeah,
hey, dad built that. Soyou know, you you definitely have
have to be proud of what youbuilt, and you know, you put
your blood sweat into it, anduh, it's definitely something to be proud
of. And you know it reallygenerates that passion and wants you to keep
(06:23):
going and how can you do more? I guess that would segue into our
The next question is when did youdecide that you wanted to be a construction
owner. Uh, you know,a couple of years into it. Uh,
you know, I brought my wifefrom Mexico. Uh. You know,
(06:45):
four of my kids were born inMexico, so I brought them.
And then, you know, wewere struggling. We were struggling to pay
the rent. We were struggling toyou know, have extra food on the
table. We were struggling to takethem out to Great America, you know,
struggling to buy clothes for them,you know, at the beginning of
the school year, and you know, I, you know, I was
(07:06):
saying, you know, there's gotto be more than this. So working
for somebody all the time. Itpays the bills, you know, but
you really don't have extra because you'relimited to a certain you know, pay
bracket. So and you know,back in what was it when we had
(07:27):
the big downfall in two thousand andeight or something like that. Yeah,
so I actually got laid off fromthe company that I was working for.
I've only worked for two companies mywhole life, you know, back since
twenty almost thirty years and doing drywalland framing. Oh wow, I got
so I got laid off because workwas really slow back then, and I
(07:48):
had only been with the company forabout seven years. So the only guys
that they kept were guys that hadlike, you know, fifteen twenty years
with the company. You know,right there is when you start thinking of
now what am I going to do? You know. We started hitting the
streets with my brother. My brother'sa taper and trying to find work.
(08:11):
You know, everywhere we'd see aporta potty, wou'd stop and we'd knock
on the door and if a GCwould come out, you know, we'd
give them a I made a bunchof little cards, you know, with
my name and my phone number,no no company name on it. Or
anything. No license number. Imean, we didn't have a license or
anything, you know, and wewere just every day we would do the
(08:31):
same thing. So we would pickup little bathrooms, little kitchens here and
there, and it was, youknow, barely scraping. By then the
company that I was working for,the one that laid me off, actually
called me back around a month laterand offered me piecework because that was one
of their top producers. So theysaid, look, here's the list of
(08:52):
all the guys that have worked forus in the past. Here's a list
of all the guys that have workedunder you. You know, you can
pick whoever you want, and we'llgive you guys peace work, you know,
because we're starting to do apartments,we're starting to do big homes,
and we want to keep you guys, but we can't keep you hourly because
you know, the work is justnot there. So that's how I kind
(09:16):
of started, you know, myown business, because I was doing piece
work. Yeah, and I hadat one point I started with like three
guys, and I think at theend when when I left the company,
I had fifteen guys working under meand we were doing whole buildings, you
know, here in Stanford on ElCamino, El Camino Real and Stanford Avenue.
(09:37):
There's a script of houses there,ninety seven houses. That's one of
the you know, like tracks thatI did. So every time I go
by El Camino Real, I alwayslook to my right. If I'm going,
you know, south, I alwayslooked to my right, and I
always tell my daughters and anybody that'swriting it, look all those houses right
(09:58):
here I built, you know,So it feels good to see those structures.
Like you were saying, you know, you have that sense of pride
that you know you were part ofsomething and it's always standing there. Man.
It sounds like the hustle you youwere grinding it out, and it
sounds like you kept your head up. You know. It sounds like you
(10:20):
you definitely had some power behind youto keep it going. And you know,
the motivation your family is definitely abig motivation. I feel like that's
for sure. Yeah, you seethe little ones, you got to put
food on the table. It doesn'tmatter how hard it is or how tough
your day is. It definitely makesit worth it. And yeah, I
feel you on that. That's reallygreat. I know that's there's different challenges
(10:41):
kind of behind the scenes. Wasthere any other challenges that you came just
in getting a construction company going thatyou could see or that you could think
of initially right off the bat,Like, what was maybe a challenge is
stot out. I want to saythat one of the biggest challenges is,
you know, passing the exam,because I I tried like three or four
(11:05):
times, and I was really goodat the application. I was really good
at everything, but then when itcomes to the law portion of it,
you know, I just kept struggling. So that's actually how Alan, you
know Mertimore, my partner and I. That's actually how we hooked up is
I was still working at the companythat that I was working for, and
a friend of his and a friendof mine, you know, hooked us
(11:28):
up together. He said, Hey, you know what, I got a
friend that's a GC. He's doinga house in n Atherton and he's looking
for a good drywall guy because allthe other guys that he's tried, you
know, they've always burned them ordon't come back and stuff like that.
So I said, yeah, youknow, I'll go. I'll go and
help him out. So I getto the job site and I'm looking for
(11:48):
the GC right and then I askeda guy, Hey, where's is Alan
around? He says, yeah,man, I'll call him for you.
You know, I thought he wasgoing to come back from a back office
or something like that. Now,all of a sudden, I see a
guy pop his head up from thefloor. Know he's in one of those
white suits, all full of muddy. Was actually underneath the house soldering pipes
himself because the flumber had does sucha bad job, you know. So
(12:11):
that's how how we met. Okay, and we did like two projects together.
And then after that, you know, we invited them to dinner and
I just put it on the table. I told him, look, you
know what, I'm struggling to getmy license, and you know, you
and I have really hit it off, because we right away. Man,
it was we hit it off allall the same ideas. We wanted to
(12:33):
do the same things. And hesays, yeah, you know, I've
got my GC license. All Ineed to do is take another portion for
the you know, drywall in theframing part. Let's do it. So
it was a we'd had till thisday. We have no paperwork saying that,
hey, you know what, we'refifty to fifty in the company.
(12:54):
All it was was a handshake.We have we have all the bank accounts,
we have everything together, But there'sno document that says, hey,
you know this is if something happensto me, it's fifty percent. All
we have is that handshake and thatyou know, that friendship that we developed
through that. In the process ofthat, I was I got injured on
(13:18):
the job that I was for thecompany I was working for were I was
working on a scaffolding and I wasputting up some sheet rock on the ceiling
and a twelve letter got tangled inone of the wires at the electricians leave
hanging down. And actually it wascement board that we were putting on the
ceiling because they were going to dotile on the ceilings and everything in a
(13:41):
restaurant. Okay, my son andtwo more guys were working right below us.
So when the rock kind of tiltedover when I tried to shake it
and so it wouldn't fall on theirheads, I kind of held it back
my arm. I don't know howmy arm twisted back, so it ripped
my rotator cuff, all thems andtendons in my shoulder. Oh and man,
(14:03):
it just tore them up. Andthen, uh, the way I
twisted the L one L two vertebratesdown at the end of your spine,
I've got two herniated discs. Anduh I kept working. You know,
I didn't feel that bad. Andjust like the third day, when I
started really cooling down, Uh,things would just slip out of my right
hand. Oh man, rap,there's you know, there's definitely something wrong
(14:26):
there when things start falling out ofit. Like I could hold a glass
of water and it would just slipout, drop right out. So I
went to go to the hospital andthe doctor says, no, you can't
go back to work man. You'reyou're you know, you're the inside of
your shoulders all tore up. Sothat process took about a year between Workmen's
Camp and uh trying to align asurgeon. So I have three surgeries on
my shoulder. Then. Uh,you know, by that time, we
(14:50):
were already working with L and Iwas I was kind of like managing without
a license, and uh, youknow, so when this happens, I
said, the doctor said, hey, you know, you're not going to
be able to go back to installingunless you're the company that you're working for
has a position for you in theoffice. Uh, you know, you're
gonna have to look for something else. But this is what I know how
(15:13):
to do. You know, thisis this is what I love to do.
Yeah. So after that is whenwe really started pursuing our license,
and then uh, as soon aswe got it, I started going after
you know, anybody and everybody.That's that's so wild, Like you can
almost compare that to a professional athlete. I know it's a it's in the
(15:33):
trades, but still that's your that'syour profession, and it's like, what
are you gonna do after it's done? But what happens when you can't pick
up that ball anymore? You havesomething lined up and it sounds like you
definitely adapted and made the change andhit it head on. That's wild.
It's crazy. So that took ayear or two. I mean, I'm
guessing you can hold stuff. Now? Do you do you ever get any
(15:56):
does anything like you notice it stillor is it long gone? Is it
in the past? No? Inoticed it still because for example, I
can't I can't. I can reachthings you know that are up high,
but I don't have that that rangeof motion, like I used to,
you know, or to the backof I with my left hand, I
(16:17):
can scratch my back, but withmy right hand I can't. So that's
why I want a big shower sothat my wife can go in and you
know, shower with me so shecan scrub my back. Oh that's great.
Uh So when you when you whenyou got everything going and you know,
you guys, you guys are prettypretty successful as far as level five
(16:38):
goes. There's a lot of peoplethat know you, even all the way
out here in Wisconsin. I knowyou guys are in California, but your
nick name still pops up around ourarea. So it's pretty impressive of how
you guys were able to scale.And could you give me like a little
little background of maybe some some thingsthat you did to help you scale to
that level, no pun intended.Yeah, So, you know when we
(17:03):
started, when we established our company, you know, it was I think
two thousand January second or January fourth, two thousand and fifteen is when we
got our license and when we establishedcorporation and everything and started going you know,
full force. We started out withI believe it was two rockers and
(17:27):
three tapers, you know, fiveguys and Alan and myself and then another
partner that we had. We hadanother partner, but you know, he
kind of went his own way andwe we we took this thing to where
we are now. You know,I have to say that the biggest,
the biggest thing that we did wasbe honest with the guys, treat them
(17:52):
well, pay him well, andstart looking into technology. You know,
because we were doing time cards onpaper coming from the field. I know
what that is, because you know, I would put down and and I.
Actually it's funny because I actually toldmy old boss this. You know,
he called me one day because theywere looking into a system that we
(18:14):
were using called the exact Time.And he says, hey, Gary,
you know we're thinking about getting exacttime. What do you think about it?
I go, I think it's somethinggreat because you guys are going to
see how many hours you're going tobe saving. He goes, well,
how do you know you save alot of hours? I go, because
I used to do it, youknow the same as everybody else does that.
(18:36):
We would work six and a halfhours or seven hours, and we
would always write down eight hours onour on our time cards. Right,
you always have that anybody that doespaper time cards. You know, they
trust their guys, but you knowwhat, at the end of the day,
the guys, you know, wetake it upon ourselves as as employees.
(18:56):
Sometimes I say, hey, youknow what, I'm busting my ass.
I'm gonna work harder these seven hourhours so i can go home an
hour early. Well yeah, butI'm getting paid for eight hours. I'm
not getting paid for seven hours,right, So after those seven hours,
you just write down eight hours andthere goes the paper. So technology has
really helped us. You know,I'm I'm I'm old school. I learned
(19:18):
how to do takeoffs with a littleyou know, take measure that was about
this big. So I used toget all the linear footage and then converted
to square footage. And then mypartner Alan, He's always worked in technology,
so he kept saying, Jerry,this is not the way to go.
You know, we need we needto implement more technology into our business.
(19:41):
So we started getting into digital takeoff, we started getting into digital time
cards. We moved from uh,you know, quick books to the system
that we have now, which isour own system. And from there we
started scaling because we started being moreproductive. We started being really conscious about
(20:06):
where we were spending our money.And you know, like I said,
we started with five guys and rightnow on our peak seasons we help up
to one hundred and fifty guys.Oh wow, that's a lot to manage.
Yeah. So as far as likeand it's great that you implement technology
to help you scale, it soundslike it's a logical choice to do.
(20:29):
Do you even use technology in thefield, like, not just for time
tracking, but like even technology forthe actual jobs itself. Yeah. So
most of the framers that have youknow, like white beards like me,
they still want to use the paperplans to write their notes on. But
all the newer guy as you knowthat are in their mid thirties or close
(20:52):
to their forties and stuff like that, once we've taught them how to use
the iPads, it's so much easierand so much faster m does it Do
you feel like that that could helpeven with like recruitment, showing that your
company is tech driven, for theyounger generation to come in and get excited
about doing construction and having that capability. I think so. Yeah, because
(21:18):
most of the kids right now thatare in high school and stuff, you
know, not all of them seehigh school or sea education is something that
they want to do, or they'rejust struggling, you know, they're just
they're kids that come from broken familiesand stuff like that. That those are
all the kids that you're getting intothe trades right now. You know,
everybody that comes from a really reallyrocky background. So once you start showing
(21:41):
them and implementing technology into whatever itis that you're doing, they start seeing
that, Hey, you know what, I had a really crappy dad,
but he was a hard worker,and I always used to see how he'd
come home, you know, alltired and he just want to sit on
the on the you know, onthe lazy boy with a beer in his
hand and not even want to getup and throw a ball at me or
(22:02):
something like that. And they startwanting to change that pattern that they went
through into something new. With technology, they can do it because they're not
going to be home that tired andthey're already putting their hours in so they
know the basics of construction, Theyknow the basics of you know, hanging
drywall, taping, plumbing, painting, whatever it is. But now they
(22:26):
see that with the technology, theycan get a better position they can get
like a management position where they're notgoing to work as hard and they're going
to be making more money, whichis definitely something that they want. And
well they mean California. It's notthat they just wanted, it is that
they need it. Yeah, theyneed that bigger paycheck to sustain life.
(22:47):
And what do you do to youknow, kind of lighten the load as
far as having fun with the crew, do you guys do anything fun and
creative with them to keep them excitedand happy at the company. Yeah,
So once a year we take allour foreman, you know, we I'll
make a reservation at a Brazilian steakhouseand we always take them out to dinner
(23:07):
at least once a year. Ohyeah, at the end of the year.
You know, whatever days they don'tuse up for sake pay or whatever.
You know, we could ignore itand then those days just wash off
at the end of the year.But what we do is we will cut
them a separate check for whatever daysthey didn't use. We always take off
(23:30):
from Christmas to New Year, youknow, we take that week off and
we always tell the guys, hey, if you guys are working overtime,
if you want to save your daysor if you want to save your sick
days and whatever. You know,we we pay them for that full week.
Oh that's wonderful. Yeah. Anotherthing that we do is once a
year we'll have a Christmas party forall the guys and their families. So
(23:52):
this year, man, you're invitedDecember sixteenth. Oh there here. We
usually do it at a nice restaurant, but this year we have so many
guys that, you know, tomake a reservation for two hundred people is
you know, it's it's a littlebit challenging. So what we're gonna do
is we're gonna have a really goodMexican food caterer. It's all coming cater
(24:12):
to the right here at the backof our shop. There's a big parking
lot, so we're gonna get canopies, a couple of heaters, tables,
and then lots of food. Man, you're speaking my language. Yeah.
Another thing that we do for ourguys is you know Chris my Son,
he manages most of the installation workforce. Oh he does. Ok. Yeah,
(24:34):
So typically on Fridays, whatever jobsthat he's on, he'll go and
buy Carnitz or Chinese food or somethingfor the guys and then when we have
a big crew on one job site, say we have twenty thirty guys,
typically the guys will pitch in andthen we will buy meat and then we'll
make a barbecue. I usually cookfor all the guys. So it's the
(24:56):
grill master. Yeah, man,Yeah, that's the way to be.
Yeah. I was thinking about whenyou said the Brazilian steakhouse. They give
you so much meat. You canget the meats, but within a short
amount of time. Oh yeah,that's great man. It sounds like it
sounds like Level five is definitely agreat place to work. Sounds like,
(25:19):
you know, you guys figured itout and you have the secret sauce to
make sure that the company can keepgrowing and everybody stays happy. So congrats
on that. That's amazing. Forthe last question, you know, before
we wrap up, I would reallylike to ask if do you have any
advice for new construction owners that youwould like to share with them? Yeah?
(25:42):
Is you know, the best advicethat I think I can give them
from experience is that you got tobe in the trenches with your guys.
You can't lead from the office.You can't manage from the office. The
office is good for you know,you got to come to the office once
in a while, but I'm rarelyin the office. I have I set
(26:03):
up an office in the field andthat's where I work from, usually from
our bigger job sites. But Ijust like to be there, you know.
And then the the last advice thatI could give somebody like that is
that, like I said, yougot to be in the trenches and you
gotta treat your people right. Yeah, you know, you you have to
be you have to be that guythat pays a little bit more than everybody
(26:26):
else. So how do we getsuch a big workforce? Well, number
one, we need them to,you know, to man the jobs that
we have. But then if Ineed an extra fifty guys, I can
always go to my guys and tellthem, hey, you know, next
week, i'm gonna need twenty hangars, or you know, in three weeks,
i'm gonna need maybe ten tapers.So they'll go. Everybody has family
(26:48):
that's in the trades, so they'llgo and recruit for me. And then
I'll tell them, look, i'mgonna I'm gonna need them for maybe three
or four weeks. And guys thatare already coming in, they already know
it's not gonna be something permanent.But I always tell the guys, hey,
you know, don't take this justas an eight eight hour job.
Take it as a competition, becauseif work slows down, the guys that
(27:12):
are gonna keep busy are the guysthat are producing a little bit more.
And the guys that don't, youknow, complain and the guys that if
I send them to do a patch, they're gonna go do the patch and
then come back to their job.So I like to be honest and upfront
with everybody. You know. That'sThat's about the all the advice that I
could give somebody starting out. Thankyou for the great advice. It's amazing.
(27:36):
Just so everybody knows, this isa lumber cast production brought to you
by Lumber, and you know Jerryis working with Lumber today. Jerry,
what what do you have to sayabout out about lumber and a Lumberfi dot
com and how the how you guysare working together. Well, you know,
one thing that I really like aboutLumber is that they actually listen to
(27:57):
us, you know, being inthe trenches, being in the office,
being struggling with payroll, struggling withtime, applications. Struggling with compliance here
in California is one of the biggestchallenges for contractors starting out, and I
feel that, you know, thedirection that Lumber's going right now is exactly
(28:19):
to solve all those problems so thatyou don't go through the hassle that we've
gone through, you know for sevenyears. You know, now you can
just go out and you know,purchase a product, but sometimes that product
is incomplete, and I feel thatLumber wants to encompass the whole struggle that
contractors go through and simplify it.Wonderful. Well, Jerry, thank you
(28:45):
so much again for being a gueston our show. We really appreciate it.
Everyone that's listening today, go aheadand smash that like button, subscribe,
comment on the video, share itwith all your friends. Thank you
for joining us, and we willsee you next time. The day and
(29:10):
time trying to d
Hey there everyone, I'm Lou Perez. I'm thrilled to be the host of
The Builder Upper Show, a podcastwhere we talk about everything in construction.
Now let's get into it. I'mexcited to bring in our first guest,
Gerardo Rivera. He goes by Jerryand he's from Level five dry Wall the
(00:24):
COO. Hey, Jerry, howyou doing today? Good morning, Lou.
I'm doing all right, awesome.So congratulations on your Cowboys win.
Hear. I saw some of thegame last night. They looked pretty good.
Yeah, they did. Man,they you know, they scared me
a little bit for a while.You know, I didn't think they were
(00:44):
gonna pull it off. But youknow, after that big Sunday loss,
you know, all your hopes godown the drain because you say, if
this is the way the season's gonnago, man, we got a long
wait till next year. Yeah.Yeah, And excited to talk about about
the construction industry with you. You'reyou're an expert in the field, a
thought leader to amongst many. Sojust getting started. You know, when
(01:08):
did you get into construction and howearly was it. I got into construction
when I was around probably seventeen oreighteen you know, like most of the
guys in my age, if youhear the stories, they all started right
around you know, high school,right around the end of high school.
You know, I started in woodconstruction. I was working for a framing
(01:30):
contractor at the time. Most ofwhat I was doing was you know,
picking up scrap wood, picking upnails, helping install backing here and there,
you know, and then just startedprogressing from there. That's awesome.
You know. I did some carpentryback in the day. I was a
grunt on the field and had tocarry all the plywood and do all the
(01:55):
roofing, and they made me standon the on the on the roof and
bringing the trusses, so when allthe other guys didn't want to do it,
I was up high on the twostory buildings bringing them down. So
I have a special place in myheart for carpentry and definitely a job that
I've never forgotten about. Yeah,those those formative years are what really stick
(02:20):
with you. Yeah, yeah,absolutely, So. Describe the moment when
you first felt the adrenaline rush whenyou completed a structure. So I've done
a lot of a lot of building, you know, for other companies.
I transitioned from wood carpentry. ThenI left that for a while, and
then I came back and I starteddoing drywall. You know. I moved
(02:45):
to Mexico, where I met mywife, I had a couple of kids,
came back and then got into alittle bit of trouble in Chicago,
and then moved to San Francisco withmy sister and my brother in law was
a taping foreman for a company calledPimental Drywall. You know, he's already
retired. He sold his company,and that's how I got into drywall and
(03:09):
framing. You know, on theground, I started scrapping, starting cleaning
out jobs, and then slowly startedbringing me up to taping. And then
one day one of the drywall installersdidn't show up and he had a you
know, like a kitchen and abathroom that I needed to finish up right
(03:29):
away. So he kind of threwme in with one of his hangers.
And I liked it. You know, I liked hanging better than I did
taping, because I you know,taping, you got mud all over you
and there's dust all the time.And not that there's no dust in uh
in hanging, but you know,taping is a lot worse. So that's
kind of how I got started,you know, I I picked it up
(03:52):
right away, you know, threeweeks into drywall installation. I was already
you know, hanging bowl and makingcuts and everything like the guys that had
already five six years experience. Andso the way I started and I knew
I wanted my own business was,you know, we were finishing up a
(04:13):
small project and then the neighbor wasdoing an attic and he's he comes over
and he says, hey, youknow, I've got this addict. Do
you want to come and look atit? And then because I don't want
to get a company, it's goingto be too expensive, so I started,
you know, like most of theguys out there, doing you know,
little side jobs here and there.And then the first structure that I
(04:35):
completed that I was like really proudwas a house that we did in Saratoga
Hills. I mean that place isright on the you know, on the
main road, and every time yougo by there you can see it.
It's a it's a it's a housethat very unique. It's got arches,
it has groin volts, it haseverything in there. So once it was
(04:57):
completed you know that that was thatwas one of the big challenges for me,
is to how to get all thatstuff together and then once it's finished,
you know in tape, we hadto go back to do some patches.
And then that's where I was like, you know, I couldn't get
the smile off my face to seehow good the place looked. And when
we did the patches, the ownerswere there, the architect was there,
(05:19):
the designer was there. They werekind of having a meeting, you know,
because the lady wanted to make somechanges and stuff like that, and
you know, they the owner says, hey, you know this is Cherry,
He's the one that did all thework here for us. So you
know, I started getting praise forall the work that we did, and
that's when I, you know,it just clicked. You know, I've
(05:39):
got a knack for this, soI'm a natural at it. And that's
kind of where where you know,the dream started for me. But it
was a long time from then untilwe actually started our own company. Wow,
man, what an incredible story.I feel the same way, you
know when we when when I wasdoing carpentry, we build these big apartment
(06:00):
complexes that you couldn't miss. Itwas in cut A Hay, Wisconsin,
and every time I drive by therewith my kids, I'm like, yeah,
hey, dad built that. Soyou know, you you definitely have
have to be proud of what youbuilt, and you know, you put
your blood sweat into it, anduh, it's definitely something to be proud
of. And you know it reallygenerates that passion and wants you to keep
(06:23):
going and how can you do more? I guess that would segue into our
The next question is when did youdecide that you wanted to be a construction
owner. Uh, you know,a couple of years into it. Uh,
you know, I brought my wifefrom Mexico. Uh. You know,
(06:45):
four of my kids were born inMexico, so I brought them.
And then, you know, wewere struggling. We were struggling to pay
the rent. We were struggling toyou know, have extra food on the
table. We were struggling to takethem out to Great America, you know,
struggling to buy clothes for them,you know, at the beginning of
the school year, and you know, I, you know, I was
(07:06):
saying, you know, there's gotto be more than this. So working
for somebody all the time. Itpays the bills, you know, but
you really don't have extra because you'relimited to a certain you know, pay
bracket. So and you know,back in what was it when we had
(07:27):
the big downfall in two thousand andeight or something like that. Yeah,
so I actually got laid off fromthe company that I was working for.
I've only worked for two companies mywhole life, you know, back since
twenty almost thirty years and doing drywalland framing. Oh wow, I got
so I got laid off because workwas really slow back then, and I
(07:48):
had only been with the company forabout seven years. So the only guys
that they kept were guys that hadlike, you know, fifteen twenty years
with the company. You know,right there is when you start thinking of
now what am I going to do? You know. We started hitting the
streets with my brother. My brother'sa taper and trying to find work.
(08:11):
You know, everywhere we'd see aporta potty, wou'd stop and we'd knock
on the door and if a GCwould come out, you know, we'd
give them a I made a bunchof little cards, you know, with
my name and my phone number,no no company name on it. Or
anything. No license number. Imean, we didn't have a license or
anything, you know, and wewere just every day we would do the
(08:31):
same thing. So we would pickup little bathrooms, little kitchens here and
there, and it was, youknow, barely scraping. By then the
company that I was working for,the one that laid me off, actually
called me back around a month laterand offered me piecework because that was one
of their top producers. So theysaid, look, here's the list of
(08:52):
all the guys that have worked forus in the past. Here's a list
of all the guys that have workedunder you. You know, you can
pick whoever you want, and we'llgive you guys peace work, you know,
because we're starting to do apartments,we're starting to do big homes,
and we want to keep you guys, but we can't keep you hourly because
you know, the work is justnot there. So that's how I kind
(09:16):
of started, you know, myown business, because I was doing piece
work. Yeah, and I hadat one point I started with like three
guys, and I think at theend when when I left the company,
I had fifteen guys working under meand we were doing whole buildings, you
know, here in Stanford on ElCamino, El Camino Real and Stanford Avenue.
(09:37):
There's a script of houses there,ninety seven houses. That's one of
the you know, like tracks thatI did. So every time I go
by El Camino Real, I alwayslook to my right. If I'm going,
you know, south, I alwayslooked to my right, and I
always tell my daughters and anybody that'swriting it, look all those houses right
(09:58):
here I built, you know,So it feels good to see those structures.
Like you were saying, you know, you have that sense of pride
that you know you were part ofsomething and it's always standing there. Man.
It sounds like the hustle you youwere grinding it out, and it
sounds like you kept your head up. You know. It sounds like you
(10:20):
you definitely had some power behind youto keep it going. And you know,
the motivation your family is definitely abig motivation. I feel like that's
for sure. Yeah, you seethe little ones, you got to put
food on the table. It doesn'tmatter how hard it is or how tough
your day is. It definitely makesit worth it. And yeah, I
feel you on that. That's reallygreat. I know that's there's different challenges
(10:41):
kind of behind the scenes. Wasthere any other challenges that you came just
in getting a construction company going thatyou could see or that you could think
of initially right off the bat,Like, what was maybe a challenge is
stot out. I want to saythat one of the biggest challenges is,
you know, passing the exam,because I I tried like three or four
(11:05):
times, and I was really goodat the application. I was really good
at everything, but then when itcomes to the law portion of it,
you know, I just kept struggling. So that's actually how Alan, you
know Mertimore, my partner and I. That's actually how we hooked up is
I was still working at the companythat that I was working for, and
a friend of his and a friendof mine, you know, hooked us
(11:28):
up together. He said, Hey, you know what, I got a
friend that's a GC. He's doinga house in n Atherton and he's looking
for a good drywall guy because allthe other guys that he's tried, you
know, they've always burned them ordon't come back and stuff like that.
So I said, yeah, youknow, I'll go. I'll go and
help him out. So I getto the job site and I'm looking for
(11:48):
the GC right and then I askeda guy, Hey, where's is Alan
around? He says, yeah,man, I'll call him for you.
You know, I thought he wasgoing to come back from a back office
or something like that. Now,all of a sudden, I see a
guy pop his head up from thefloor. Know he's in one of those
white suits, all full of muddy. Was actually underneath the house soldering pipes
himself because the flumber had does sucha bad job, you know. So
(12:11):
that's how how we met. Okay, and we did like two projects together.
And then after that, you know, we invited them to dinner and
I just put it on the table. I told him, look, you
know what, I'm struggling to getmy license, and you know, you
and I have really hit it off, because we right away. Man,
it was we hit it off allall the same ideas. We wanted to
(12:33):
do the same things. And hesays, yeah, you know, I've
got my GC license. All Ineed to do is take another portion for
the you know, drywall in theframing part. Let's do it. So
it was a we'd had till thisday. We have no paperwork saying that,
hey, you know what, we'refifty to fifty in the company.
(12:54):
All it was was a handshake.We have we have all the bank accounts,
we have everything together, But there'sno document that says, hey,
you know this is if something happensto me, it's fifty percent. All
we have is that handshake and thatyou know, that friendship that we developed
through that. In the process ofthat, I was I got injured on
(13:18):
the job that I was for thecompany I was working for were I was
working on a scaffolding and I wasputting up some sheet rock on the ceiling
and a twelve letter got tangled inone of the wires at the electricians leave
hanging down. And actually it wascement board that we were putting on the
ceiling because they were going to dotile on the ceilings and everything in a
(13:41):
restaurant. Okay, my son andtwo more guys were working right below us.
So when the rock kind of tiltedover when I tried to shake it
and so it wouldn't fall on theirheads, I kind of held it back
my arm. I don't know howmy arm twisted back, so it ripped
my rotator cuff, all thems andtendons in my shoulder. Oh and man,
(14:03):
it just tore them up. Andthen, uh, the way I
twisted the L one L two vertebratesdown at the end of your spine,
I've got two herniated discs. Anduh I kept working. You know,
I didn't feel that bad. Andjust like the third day, when I
started really cooling down, Uh,things would just slip out of my right
hand. Oh man, rap,there's you know, there's definitely something wrong
(14:26):
there when things start falling out ofit. Like I could hold a glass
of water and it would just slipout, drop right out. So I
went to go to the hospital andthe doctor says, no, you can't
go back to work man. You'reyou're you know, you're the inside of
your shoulders all tore up. Sothat process took about a year between Workmen's
Camp and uh trying to align asurgeon. So I have three surgeries on
my shoulder. Then. Uh,you know, by that time, we
(14:50):
were already working with L and Iwas I was kind of like managing without
a license, and uh, youknow, so when this happens, I
said, the doctor said, hey, you know, you're not going to
be able to go back to installingunless you're the company that you're working for
has a position for you in theoffice. Uh, you know, you're
gonna have to look for something else. But this is what I know how
(15:13):
to do. You know, thisis this is what I love to do.
Yeah. So after that is whenwe really started pursuing our license,
and then uh, as soon aswe got it, I started going after
you know, anybody and everybody.That's that's so wild, Like you can
almost compare that to a professional athlete. I know it's a it's in the
(15:33):
trades, but still that's your that'syour profession, and it's like, what
are you gonna do after it's done? But what happens when you can't pick
up that ball anymore? You havesomething lined up and it sounds like you
definitely adapted and made the change andhit it head on. That's wild.
It's crazy. So that took ayear or two. I mean, I'm
guessing you can hold stuff. Now? Do you do you ever get any
(15:56):
does anything like you notice it stillor is it long gone? Is it
in the past? No? Inoticed it still because for example, I
can't I can't. I can reachthings you know that are up high,
but I don't have that that rangeof motion, like I used to,
you know, or to the backof I with my left hand, I
(16:17):
can scratch my back, but withmy right hand I can't. So that's
why I want a big shower sothat my wife can go in and you
know, shower with me so shecan scrub my back. Oh that's great.
Uh So when you when you whenyou got everything going and you know,
you guys, you guys are prettypretty successful as far as level five
(16:38):
goes. There's a lot of peoplethat know you, even all the way
out here in Wisconsin. I knowyou guys are in California, but your
nick name still pops up around ourarea. So it's pretty impressive of how
you guys were able to scale.And could you give me like a little
little background of maybe some some thingsthat you did to help you scale to
that level, no pun intended.Yeah, So, you know when we
(17:03):
started, when we established our company, you know, it was I think
two thousand January second or January fourth, two thousand and fifteen is when we
got our license and when we establishedcorporation and everything and started going you know,
full force. We started out withI believe it was two rockers and
(17:27):
three tapers, you know, fiveguys and Alan and myself and then another
partner that we had. We hadanother partner, but you know, he
kind of went his own way andwe we we took this thing to where
we are now. You know,I have to say that the biggest,
the biggest thing that we did wasbe honest with the guys, treat them
(17:52):
well, pay him well, andstart looking into technology. You know,
because we were doing time cards onpaper coming from the field. I know
what that is, because you know, I would put down and and I.
Actually it's funny because I actually toldmy old boss this. You know,
he called me one day because theywere looking into a system that we
(18:14):
were using called the exact Time.And he says, hey, Gary,
you know we're thinking about getting exacttime. What do you think about it?
I go, I think it's somethinggreat because you guys are going to
see how many hours you're going tobe saving. He goes, well,
how do you know you save alot of hours? I go, because
I used to do it, youknow the same as everybody else does that.
(18:36):
We would work six and a halfhours or seven hours, and we
would always write down eight hours onour on our time cards. Right,
you always have that anybody that doespaper time cards. You know, they
trust their guys, but you knowwhat, at the end of the day,
the guys, you know, wetake it upon ourselves as as employees.
(18:56):
Sometimes I say, hey, youknow what, I'm busting my ass.
I'm gonna work harder these seven hourhours so i can go home an
hour early. Well yeah, butI'm getting paid for eight hours. I'm
not getting paid for seven hours,right, So after those seven hours,
you just write down eight hours andthere goes the paper. So technology has
really helped us. You know,I'm I'm I'm old school. I learned
(19:18):
how to do takeoffs with a littleyou know, take measure that was about
this big. So I used toget all the linear footage and then converted
to square footage. And then mypartner Alan, He's always worked in technology,
so he kept saying, Jerry,this is not the way to go.
You know, we need we needto implement more technology into our business.
(19:41):
So we started getting into digital takeoff, we started getting into digital time
cards. We moved from uh,you know, quick books to the system
that we have now, which isour own system. And from there we
started scaling because we started being moreproductive. We started being really conscious about
(20:06):
where we were spending our money.And you know, like I said,
we started with five guys and rightnow on our peak seasons we help up
to one hundred and fifty guys.Oh wow, that's a lot to manage.
Yeah. So as far as likeand it's great that you implement technology
to help you scale, it soundslike it's a logical choice to do.
(20:29):
Do you even use technology in thefield, like, not just for time
tracking, but like even technology forthe actual jobs itself. Yeah. So
most of the framers that have youknow, like white beards like me,
they still want to use the paperplans to write their notes on. But
all the newer guy as you knowthat are in their mid thirties or close
(20:52):
to their forties and stuff like that, once we've taught them how to use
the iPads, it's so much easierand so much faster m does it Do
you feel like that that could helpeven with like recruitment, showing that your
company is tech driven, for theyounger generation to come in and get excited
about doing construction and having that capability. I think so. Yeah, because
(21:18):
most of the kids right now thatare in high school and stuff, you
know, not all of them seehigh school or sea education is something that
they want to do, or they'rejust struggling, you know, they're just
they're kids that come from broken familiesand stuff like that. That those are
all the kids that you're getting intothe trades right now. You know,
everybody that comes from a really reallyrocky background. So once you start showing
(21:41):
them and implementing technology into whatever itis that you're doing, they start seeing
that, Hey, you know what, I had a really crappy dad,
but he was a hard worker,and I always used to see how he'd
come home, you know, alltired and he just want to sit on
the on the you know, onthe lazy boy with a beer in his
hand and not even want to getup and throw a ball at me or
(22:02):
something like that. And they startwanting to change that pattern that they went
through into something new. With technology, they can do it because they're not
going to be home that tired andthey're already putting their hours in so they
know the basics of construction, Theyknow the basics of you know, hanging
drywall, taping, plumbing, painting, whatever it is. But now they
(22:26):
see that with the technology, theycan get a better position they can get
like a management position where they're notgoing to work as hard and they're going
to be making more money, whichis definitely something that they want. And
well they mean California. It's notthat they just wanted, it is that
they need it. Yeah, theyneed that bigger paycheck to sustain life.
(22:47):
And what do you do to youknow, kind of lighten the load as
far as having fun with the crew, do you guys do anything fun and
creative with them to keep them excitedand happy at the company. Yeah,
So once a year we take allour foreman, you know, we I'll
make a reservation at a Brazilian steakhouseand we always take them out to dinner
(23:07):
at least once a year. Ohyeah, at the end of the year.
You know, whatever days they don'tuse up for sake pay or whatever.
You know, we could ignore itand then those days just wash off
at the end of the year.But what we do is we will cut
them a separate check for whatever daysthey didn't use. We always take off
(23:30):
from Christmas to New Year, youknow, we take that week off and
we always tell the guys, hey, if you guys are working overtime,
if you want to save your daysor if you want to save your sick
days and whatever. You know,we we pay them for that full week.
Oh that's wonderful. Yeah. Anotherthing that we do is once a
year we'll have a Christmas party forall the guys and their families. So
(23:52):
this year, man, you're invitedDecember sixteenth. Oh there here. We
usually do it at a nice restaurant, but this year we have so many
guys that, you know, tomake a reservation for two hundred people is
you know, it's it's a littlebit challenging. So what we're gonna do
is we're gonna have a really goodMexican food caterer. It's all coming cater
(24:12):
to the right here at the backof our shop. There's a big parking
lot, so we're gonna get canopies, a couple of heaters, tables,
and then lots of food. Man, you're speaking my language. Yeah.
Another thing that we do for ourguys is you know Chris my Son,
he manages most of the installation workforce. Oh he does. Ok. Yeah,
(24:34):
So typically on Fridays, whatever jobsthat he's on, he'll go and
buy Carnitz or Chinese food or somethingfor the guys and then when we have
a big crew on one job site, say we have twenty thirty guys,
typically the guys will pitch in andthen we will buy meat and then we'll
make a barbecue. I usually cookfor all the guys. So it's the
(24:56):
grill master. Yeah, man,Yeah, that's the way to be.
Yeah. I was thinking about whenyou said the Brazilian steakhouse. They give
you so much meat. You canget the meats, but within a short
amount of time. Oh yeah,that's great man. It sounds like it
sounds like Level five is definitely agreat place to work. Sounds like,
(25:19):
you know, you guys figured itout and you have the secret sauce to
make sure that the company can keepgrowing and everybody stays happy. So congrats
on that. That's amazing. Forthe last question, you know, before
we wrap up, I would reallylike to ask if do you have any
advice for new construction owners that youwould like to share with them? Yeah?
(25:42):
Is you know, the best advicethat I think I can give them
from experience is that you got tobe in the trenches with your guys.
You can't lead from the office.You can't manage from the office. The
office is good for you know,you got to come to the office once
in a while, but I'm rarelyin the office. I have I set
(26:03):
up an office in the field andthat's where I work from, usually from
our bigger job sites. But Ijust like to be there, you know.
And then the the last advice thatI could give somebody like that is
that, like I said, yougot to be in the trenches and you
gotta treat your people right. Yeah, you know, you you have to
be you have to be that guythat pays a little bit more than everybody
(26:26):
else. So how do we getsuch a big workforce? Well, number
one, we need them to,you know, to man the jobs that
we have. But then if Ineed an extra fifty guys, I can
always go to my guys and tellthem, hey, you know, next
week, i'm gonna need twenty hangars, or you know, in three weeks,
i'm gonna need maybe ten tapers.So they'll go. Everybody has family
(26:48):
that's in the trades, so they'llgo and recruit for me. And then
I'll tell them, look, i'mgonna I'm gonna need them for maybe three
or four weeks. And guys thatare already coming in, they already know
it's not gonna be something permanent.But I always tell the guys, hey,
you know, don't take this justas an eight eight hour job.
Take it as a competition, becauseif work slows down, the guys that
(27:12):
are gonna keep busy are the guysthat are producing a little bit more.
And the guys that don't, youknow, complain and the guys that if
I send them to do a patch, they're gonna go do the patch and
then come back to their job.So I like to be honest and upfront
with everybody. You know. That'sThat's about the all the advice that I
could give somebody starting out. Thankyou for the great advice. It's amazing.
(27:36):
Just so everybody knows, this isa lumber cast production brought to you
by Lumber, and you know Jerryis working with Lumber today. Jerry,
what what do you have to sayabout out about lumber and a Lumberfi dot
com and how the how you guysare working together. Well, you know,
one thing that I really like aboutLumber is that they actually listen to
(27:57):
us, you know, being inthe trenches, being in the office,
being struggling with payroll, struggling withtime, applications. Struggling with compliance here
in California is one of the biggestchallenges for contractors starting out, and I
feel that, you know, thedirection that Lumber's going right now is exactly
(28:19):
to solve all those problems so thatyou don't go through the hassle that we've
gone through, you know for sevenyears. You know, now you can
just go out and you know,purchase a product, but sometimes that product
is incomplete, and I feel thatLumber wants to encompass the whole struggle that
contractors go through and simplify it.Wonderful. Well, Jerry, thank you
(28:45):
so much again for being a gueston our show. We really appreciate it.
Everyone that's listening today, go aheadand smash that like button, subscribe,
comment on the video, share itwith all your friends. Thank you
for joining us, and we willsee you next time. The day and
(29:10):
time trying to d
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