Company Announcements

The Barnett Family

Congratulations to Holly Barnett who delivered a healthy baby boy on Thursday, June 27. Ethan weighed 7 lbs 14 oz. Mommy and baby are doing great!

Renee Leaman and Ashley Goode
as leprechauns

 

Top 'o the morning! This March, we delivered pots of gold filled with delicious cookies to our clients in each region to express our appreciation. In an effort to maximize the St. Patrick's Day theme, Renee Leaman and Ashley Goode dressed as construction worker leprechauns when they delivered to Austin-area clients. It was huge hit!

Austin Region
The J&S Austin office hosted a blood drive on June 13 in the office parking lot. Donors included J&S employees, as well as employees from other businesses in the complex. We exceeded our goal of 11 donors with 14 people showing up and giving blood. Way to go!

The Austin JOC has added three new team members recently, Amy Bricker our new assistant PM, Alex Canalini our new PM, and the return of Allen Hughling to our fulltime staff as superintendent.

Amy has taken on the monumental task of assisting three project managers with submittal processing, HUB and MWBE solicitation and tracking, procurement, MA tracking and keeping three project managers in line. In her short time here she has been instrumental on cleaning up the Heads Up contact list for the Austin Region.

Alex has taken over managing the UT Department of Housing and Food Services and City of Austin clients.

Coach Hood teaching tee-ball

Allen is overseeing all projects in the Killeen area—including City of Killeen, Central Texas College, Copperas Cove ISD and Killeen ISD

Our traveling superintendent, George Morris, is finally back home after almost 2 years on the road. He is working at Bastrop State Park.

Tim Odermann is assisting us with managing all the projects in the Killeen area—he is doing a great job with keeping Central Texas College pleased—we are about to be awarded another $1.2 million at CTC. 

Newly minted J&S Austin Regional Manager Andy Hood spends his free time in the spring coaching little kids tee-ball. It really doesn’t get much more adorable than this.

Pedro Mata getting his citizenship

Dallas Region

Pedro Mata, a superintendent in our Dallas office, received his US citizenship on Feb. 14, 2013. Pedro came to the United States in January 2000 from Monterey, Mexico, and he’s worked with J&S for nearly three years. The citizenship process took six years to complete – congratulations on such a major accomplishment!

Our Dallas office sponsored the annual golf classic hosted on April 26, 2013 by the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association that serves the DFW area. Funds collected at this tournament contributed to the renovation of the RHCA facility, which will allow the organization to better serve Hispanic contractors.

Jason Gillepsie with the Garcia family in their new home

Every year during spring break, J&S Dallas project manager Jason Gillespie packs his family up and heads down to the Texas Valley for a Mission 2 Mission project to build a home for a family in need. This year was no different. In the company of their church group and two of our subcontractors, Jason and his family razed a new home for the Garcia family in Donna, Texas. Erica Garcia is a widowed mother of five children who lost her husband last year in a traffic accident. She was living with her children in a trailer house where they had to position the furniture to cover holes in the floor, the kitchen that was not suitable for cooking and all five children were sharing two rooms. The trailer did not have a utility room, so the family strapped a washing machine to the outside of the trailer to keep it from falling over. In just 10 days, Jason and crew built a brand new three-bedroom, one-bath, 860-SF home for the family on the lot where they currently lived. The house was complete with new cabinets, ceiling fans in every room, and a utility room with a new washer and dryer. Two of our Dallas subcontractors, Innovation Mechanical and Exodus Construction, donated materials and manpower, and our Dallas office donated a company truck, fuel…and Jason!

Houston/Galveston Regions

Warren Stripling, Gabriella Williams and Lisa Blonshine

J&S donated $1,000 to the New Caney ISD Education Foundation. The money donated to the foundation this year allowed the biology class of Gabriella Williams to develop window gardens for a science project.

Superintendents Wayne Gerondale and George Morriss have been hard at work on Galveston-area projects. In December, they completed renovations for TPWD on two historic houses that were a part of the original Stewart Ranch. At the end of June, Wayne and George completed two new park ranger residences that were 18 feet above ground and 1,600SF each. They will also soon complete the first prototype ICF restroom for TPWD. The prototype was designed through collaboration of Gordon Bohmfalk from TPWD, Debra Dockery Architect and J&S. This sample restroom will be used in all TPWD parks from now on.

George Morriss has also been hard at work on the Sea Rim State Park project. Our team there has completed the new park ranger residence house that is 1,600SF and about 19 feet off the ground, allowing for a view of most of the park. The team recently completed the construction of a 650-foot wooden boardwalk going from the parking lot over the sand dunes down to the beach, as well as a new maintenance building.

J&S sponsored the Turning POINT 16th Annual Drum Fishing Tournament on April 6 this year. This event provides an opportunity for handicapped people to go fishing; there were 186 handicapped participants this year. Volunteers, like J&S, provided fishing rods, bait, drinks, food and their time. Our business development manager, Greg Harrington (pictured), has volunteered at this event since 1998.

Drawing of Twin Pines North

Senior Living/Commercial Divisions

The senior living division is finishing up work on Twin Pines North Nursing Home in Victoria. This is currently the largest project we have in progress at 61,0000SF with a price tag of $9.1MM.

Our commercial division recently was awarded a project to construct a new $2.3MM gymnasium for Pawnee ISD. Congrats on the win! 

The senior living division recently was awarded three Texas General Land Office projects totaling nearly $6MM. These projects involve additional work to the three Veterans Affairs nursing homes we completed earlier this year. Keep up the good work!

Our senior living division is also working with a new skilled nursing operator named Ensign Group. We have one project completed, one starting soon and we’re negotiating a contract on a third. Hopefully there are many more to come!