Happy Anniversary To Us
In the fall of 2005, I met the founder of Ferris Painting, Steve Ferris. Steve and his wife, Liz, had been running the company very successfully since they started it in 1975. Steve wore the Production Hat and handled everything associated with doing the work, from bidding the jobs to completing the jobs and everything in between. Liz wore the Financial Hat and handled all the money matters. After 35 years and about 4000 buildings beautifully painted, Steve and Liz were looking to retire and do something else.
My wife was in property management and my background in the industry started in 1991 when I began painting various properties for her company. Jump forward to the Fall of 2005, when my father and I met Steve & Liz. They told us of their desire to retire and move on and several months later, in January 2006, we inked the deal and Ferris Painting was ours. Steve and Liz did a great job for 35 years and I’ve been doing my best for the past 10 years to keep it running the same way.
Ever since then, I try to carve out time to work with our guys and I always enjoy starting one of our 5 crews on a new job that will go on for a month or more. I give them their target of how long I believe the job will take to complete and when they look at me with that “are you kidding me” look, I say to them “OK, I'm going set your example for you”. I put on my painters-whites and work alongside the crew for the day. I challenge the guys to keep up with me, even though I‘m close to twice their age. I tell them, if they beat me, I'll buy them lunch. We have a good time and everyone is smiling at the friendly challenge. Some of the guys can keep up with me and some can't but I always get their best effort...and I always buy the crew lunch anyway. At the end of the day each guy knows what he can accomplish and voila...they now have their daily target and they feel good about what they can accomplish. When they connect all those days together; the job's done right, finishes on time, our crew is happy, I’m happy and most important of all, our customers are happy!
We have a 3-month long interior job for one of our crews that I’m looking forward to starting. We’ll be removing the 1970’s style wallpaper from 26 floors of hallway walls and skim coating the walls smooth. We’ll then be priming and painting those walls and ceilings with up to date colors that the residents will certainly be looking forward to seeing for a long time to come.
Estimates and consultations are free, give us a call today at 818-951-3207 or email me at greg@ferrispainting.com. Sincerely,
Greg Lewis