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Featured Contractor: JBM

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
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Thanks for the Nomination Contractor Talk Community. If you don't know already my name is Jeff Mohler, I bang on rocks and build things with bricks mostly. I grew up in a very small town in Mass where everyone used to wave to each other when they passed by, that doesn't happen any more does it?

Me and my brother always seemed to gravitate towards working for ourselves. I remember I was maybe 15 and he would have been 13 and we put together some money and bought a lawnmower that we ended up pushing down the street hustling "fat stacks" of cash on weekends. At some point my brother mowed someones flower bed (there was no flowers yet!) and I think my dad put the kibosh on that.

Fast forward to about 10th grade or so and I would pump gas at a gas station after school in the next town for a guy who helped my dad with his blown transmission. Summer came and I was there full time. It was really my first interaction with the public and some of the knuckle draggers tuned me up quick. There was a guy who worked for a builder driving the 10 wheeler and moving equipment who used to razz me all the time, I ended up building his chimneys when he became a builder 20 years later or so. At this gas station there used to be this big ass crazy man who had a mustache like hulk Hogan but looked like Jake the Snake. One week he was chatting with me about how he was solo due to his sidekick being on his honeymoon. Off the cuff I said I'll go work with ya and his eyes lit up partly hoping I would then I would imagine he was thinking that he would kill this scrawny semi shy mommys boy. I marched in and asked the shop owner If I could go work with Vern and he laughed at me. Said that he does real mans work and that I should just keep pumping gas and hope to go to college. Doesn't that sound like a challenge to you? You bet!

I worked the rest of the summer with the crazy guy who would call me cartoon names all day long and ask for pudding instead of mortar and do the Bill Cosby pudding bit with his eyes rolled. We worked with pretty much the same framers, roofers and plumbers in town on every house and every day at 4 or 430 was time for beer. Unfortunately I was loving my new life. Don't tell you mom you had 2 beers ok Lenny? Yeah I have no idea why I was called Lenny all the time, but it was what it was.

After graduation I was cruising and saw the mason's truck with his scaffolding set up so I pulled in. He was alone again and I was working in 10 seconds. We did quite a few chimneys and I was fortunate that it was just me and him for a couple of years. He did move to Florida where his parents were aging and needed some assistance so I hopped on another guys crew that I ended up knowing from the next town. This guy was serious about working and I was thrown into building a commercial building and at 3 instead of getting beers for the guys we went and did chimneys at night , till about 630.

I got the go ahead to go buy my own trowel at 22 or so, got married at 23, quit drinking at 24 and went on my own at 25.

I have always endeavored to do a very good job at whatever im doing, but since finding Contractor Talk I feel that I have seen some masonry by the members here that is beyond what I could have experienced in the "real" world. It has been instrumental in upping the quality in my masonry as well and improving the business "lack" of understanding that I have had in the past. I am a better mason, a better contractor directly due to this place!

-Jeff
 
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