About

In 2006 I was enrolled in the pre-nursing program at Chemeketa and waiting tables at a chain restaurant. One day my uncle reached out and asked if I wanted to do QC on a project in Portland. I did not even know what QC was, but he said it would be $20/hour, which was a lot at the time, so I said, “Yes! When do I start?”

The I-205 Light Rail Extension Project was a $181M joint venture (Stacey & Witbeck, Granite, and Wildish) design-build project for Tri-Met and in DJC’s 2010 Top Jobs. It was a 6.5 mile double track extension, including; a cut and cover box tunnel, 9 bridges, miles of MSE, CIP, & Ultra Block walls, 8 stations, a multi-use path, 4 park-and-ride lots, an overhead catenary system, signals and communications. 

At this time, I thought concrete and cement were the same thing. And I was the Quality Control Field Lead for the projects’ Quality Assurance Subcontractor, and their only employee. Let’s just say, I had to learn fast. I coordinated/scheduled all inspections and testing, insuring complete contract quality compliance for every division of work on the project.

I ended loving the industry so much that I went back to school and got a Bachelor’s of Science in Construction Engineering and Management with a minor in Entrepreneurship from Oregon State University.

During my time at OSU, I was also doing an internship for a general contractor out of Wilsonville, where I assisted with estimating, produced production reports, subcontractor payments, owner billings, change orders, tracked work, took care of all submittals, RFI’s, and project coordination for a handful of projects at a time. Most were public works projects for Portland and Salem; however, we also specialized in Light Rail and had a major project in Anchorage, Alaska.

Following that ,I worked for a bridge contractor out of Salem for about 5 years. There were 3 of us in the office that took care of all aspects of the projects, from estimating to close-out. We would typically have anywhere from 4-9 projects going at a time, which ranged from $0.25M to $32M. The construction of new bridges as well as rehabs, were common but we also did numerous county utility and ADA projects, as well as a large concrete paving project on I-5.

For over 2 years, I worked for an excavation company out of Silverton. From there, I gained my experience managing residential and commercial work, however we were also the general and subcontractor for multiple ADA, boulder, and other misc. projects for ODOT. I learned to maneuver the private industry and spent a lot of time on AGTEK building models for equipment, as well as estimating purposes. I also became proficient at using a total station to stake and verify grades on various projects.

In 2022, I switched it up and began work for one of Oregon’s largest heavy civil contractors, working on a $110M project in Tigard. Here I tracked all the work, did billing, sub payments, change orders, force account billing/tracking, all RFI’s, submittals, was the project ESCM for a time, coordinated the bridge work (>$26M Subcontract), as well as other subs.

I also dabbled in drilling for a brief time until I made up my mind to start Oregon Contractor Services LLC.  I have been doing this for so long and got to experience so many aspects of this industry, I can do most tasks needed to comply with the contract, in my sleep. Given that and the inevitable overload every contractor experiences intermittently throughout the year, I know I can fulfill a need.

There is always that point a Contractor gets to, where all they are doing is putting out fires. Too much work or just unfamiliar with a particular project or office and its requirement, it is just impossible to catch up and not going to last long enough to hire a new employee (nor is there time to at this point)- and it is miserable!

I can efficiently jump in and perform misc. tasks on an on-call basis (e.g. finding rock sources or getting them approved, creating a project schedule, put together MOH requests,  etc.…), specific ones for a flat rate (e.g. pollution control plan, employee cadmium/chromium/lead training, etc.. or finding out if it’s even required!), or set-up an ongoing agreement where I perform regular duties as needed (ESCM, reviewing subcontracts, etc.…). 

No matter which way you decide to go about it, I guarantee to save you money and headaches, which allows you to spend time focusing on actually building the project.

Give me a call or shoot me an email and we can come up with a plan and estimate that meets your specific needs.