The Unlikely Saga of a Builder: From a $10-an-Hour Kid to the Big-League Contractor World (with a Side of Glitter Grout)

Hey, let’s be real. I wasn’t born with a hammer in one hand and a blueprint in the other. This isn’t one of those “I knew from birth I’d be a builder” stories. Truth is I was just a 16-year-old kid who thought high school was a waste of time and figured I’d be better off doing literally anything else. I guess “anything else” ended up being construction. But that path from dropout to big-league contractor was more wind than my toddler trying to chase the dog.

Escape from High School into Sudden Adulthood

At 16, I decided to dodge the high school drama and get my diploma early. Thanks to the California Proficiency Exam, I could essentially test out. It wasn’t a GED—it was like the “get-out-of-jail-free” card for high schoolers. With all the wisdom of a teenager and the confidence of someone who knew exactly three things about life, I convinced my parents I was ready to move on. Though the truth is I just told them - I bet you can guess how that went over.

While prepping for the test, I was working odd jobs for a neighbor who owned a construction company. My job was simple: clean up after the crew and fetch tools. Basically I learned pretty quick just to make sure the site didn’t look like a war zone. Running from one warzone of nails I was picking up, to plywood scraps like I was on the track team earned modest respect. It wasn’t glamorous, but I was making ten bucks an hour and learning how to earn some dignity particularly when the boss walked by.

After I passed the test and officially ditched high school, I enrolled in night classes at the local college. During the day, I started working for a nonprofit that transformed battered apartment complexes into safe housing for women. It was like “Extreme Makeover: Humanitarian Edition,” and I was part of the crew. My title? Grunt. No no. That was my title. I mean, not that I had business cards but yeah. My specialty? Everything. Framing, plumbing, tile—whatever needed to get done. There was no subbing out; we were a lean team. Think of it as construction boot camp, but replace the yelling drill sergeant with a sh*t ton of gd frustrated motherf-in cursing tradesmen.

By 18, I was working for a guy at KB Homes, chasing down leaks in brand-new houses. Basically it was mission impossible without any gorgeous women, or impossible quests with cutting edge world destroying technology on the line. Ok, actually, it was absolutely none of that but the impossible tight spaces, mold and thankless work was sorta similar. So I just kept crawling into tight spaces, cutting into drywall, and playing detective to figure out where water was sneaking in. You learn pretty quick that it’s always the place you least expect - or the place you go to last. Once, I traced a leak from a first-floor laundry room all the way up to a second-story bedroom window on the other side of the house. Water’s like a ninja—silent, sneaky, and guaranteed to ruin your day. I became obsessed with understanding waterproofing. To this day, flat decks give me nightmares.

At 19, I threw caution (and probably some common sense) to the wind and decided to go solo. I placed ads in the Mercury News and the Penny Saver—remember, this was pre-Google era—and advertised myself as a remodeler. I got calls daily. Some were from tire-kickers, others were legit projects. One lady wanted me to tile every wall in her townhouse with blue tiles and brown glitter grout. It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever done—and she loved it. To this day, I’m convinced she was either a genius or completely nuts. No, she was absolutely insane. I guess, there’s really no debate, I'm just trying to be courteous.

At 21, I decided to go legit and get my general contractor’s license. I’d racked up enough experience—from grunty labor to framing, plumbing, and tile—to convince the state of California I knew what I was doing. Passed the test, got bonded, insured, and armed with a shiny new B license. I was officially a general contractor. And let me tell you, nothing makes you feel more like an adult than dealing with insurance and permit paperwork.

The Big Break (and Big Headaches)

My big break came when I connected with a flipper who was rising from the ashes of the 2008 housing crisis. He had a beat-up house in the Rose Garden area of San Jose and wanted me to rebuild it. I said, Sure, I’ll do it—without fully understanding what I was signing up for. Long story short, the budget blew up, the house sat on the market forever, and I had to slap a lien on the property to get my final payment. The flipper’s old-school investor later told me over breakfast, “I should’ve sued your ass for that lien.” Oh gawd, so many great memories - the golden years. You gotta love old-school charm.