Career Move

During the middle of the 70’s, I decided to take a risk and go into business with a friend, Roger Evans. I had been doing some work for him, estimating some new jobs and finishing small jobs that he had picked up for himself. My own work had been slow and I was ready for a change when he asked me to partner with him. And, he had a general contractor’s license which allowed us to do almost any kind of work.

He already had one good client, Blue Ribbon Builders, a home remodeling contractor and so we jumped right into that market. I became the estimator and the taper, while Roger was the hanger and the collections department. We bought a spray rig so we could do texture and acoustic ceiling work. We leased Ames tools and finally had enough work to hire someone to help us. More work came along and now we bought a second spray rig; a larger one. We were doing 4 or 5 remodels a week and working long hours. But at the end of the month, we were barely making normal wages, and often times not.

Then I got a call from a taper that I had known a long time ago. He was now an “entrepreneur”, working from a small office in Marina Del Rey. He wanted to know if we were interested in doing some work for him. He had an eager client, Mann Theatres, but he didn’t have a license at the time and he said he would make it worth our while to help him out. We would give him a 10% finder’s fee for the work he passed onto us. All I had to do was to bump the estimate by 10% and if that was agreeable to Mann Theatres, we had a good deal! So off we went…we were in ‘show business’!

Mann Theatres was expanding from their traditional Midwest home and buying up old theatres (Fox Theatres) and converting them to multiplex theaters. Our job was to build the walls that divided one large theatre into 3, 4 or even 6 small ones. And we had to do it in a hurry. Most times the walls were at least 40’ high and required 3 layers of board on each side. The walls would extend through the old and existing ceiling so we had to spend a lot of time, high above the floor, crawling carefully above an old and dirty ceiling while we were hanging the board. Scary!