ON A RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

After landing in New York City on a one-way ticket from Europe when I was 19 years old I decided I wanted to change my life completely.

As I didn’t have any special skills or a college degree other than just my High School Diploma and my English still needed sharpening I knew things wouldn’t be very easy for me but still, that never stopped me from following my dreams, after all, there’s no better place to do that other than New York City.

APPRENTICESHIP

My goal that summer was to get a job anywhere as long as I could make money so I can survive and luckily that same week I started working for a construction company doing demolition (one of the toughest jobs/summers of my life) but my pay was quite laughable, especially for a place like New York City where you can’t afford even renting a closet to live into.

After TONS of hard work, I managed to gain an apprenticeship within the same company and eventually got to work with more skilled and specialized crews so I could learn the trade with the hope, of course, that I’d start making more decent money eventually.

DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF CONSTRUCTION

I slowly started falling in love with the craft as the company that I was working for only focused on high-end remodeling and ground-up residential projects so I got to work with every trade doing steel, concrete structural and foundation work, carpentry, masonry, flooring, painting, trim work, and many others. That’s how I developed a better understanding and appreciation for our work.

After spending 4 years there and eventually becoming the general foreman I learned so much not just from a technical point of view but also how to read and understand complex blueprints and high-end designs, how to manage and understand my crew and workforce, having a very good understanding of time management and being able to predict delays or problems so I can avoid them and also develop efficient communication with managers, superintendents, etc.

HIGH LEVEL CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

My time to move had arrived not just because of financial limitations but also because I was looking for more knowledge. I accepted a very exciting offer as an Assistant Project Manager position in a big real estate development company.

As an APM I had to assist the Superintendent and Project Manager with the overall plan for the construction of the project which included the development of cost estimates of assigned projects, obtaining bids from subcontractors and material suppliers, preparing the job start-up and close-out checklists, preparing the Contract Schedule of Values for approval by the Project Manager, securing properly executed subcontract and purchasing order agreements, insurance certificates, bonds and other documents as required to protect the interest of my company and also preparing, expediting, and monitoring logs for tracking shop drawings, contract documents, submittals, request for information, change orders, material delivery logs, and other logs as determined necessary for successful execution. 

Within that first year, we managed to complete our first project way ahead of schedule (2 months ahead which is a very big deal in Real Estate Development) which resulted in getting an offer to become a Project Manager for my company (of course I accepted). This meant a 6 figure salary at the age of 24 years old without even having a college degree! I thought to myself now would be the perfect time to enroll as a part-time student and finally become what I always wanted to be and dream of, an Architect. 

So I did, I gave all the necessary exams and I got into the City College of New York. Now the only thing I had to take care of was to balance my work life with my new student life. I knew it would be hard but achievable, but little did I know…

RESPONSIBILITY + ACCOUNTABILITY = TRUE LEADERSHIP

Being a Project Manager came with great responsibility, I would be lucky to have just a hard hat, unfortunately,  I had to wear many hats: the manager hat, the accountant hat, the safety inspector hat, the lawyer hat, the problem-solver hat and of course—the hard hat itself.

I was assigned right away on 2 large-scale projects involving 60+ high-end residential apartment buildings. We are talking about $45M + budgets and very demanding shareholders!

I spent endless hours working day and night resulting in dropping out of college too after only 4 credits only due to the extremely high workload that my schedule had.

As a PM I had to organize and facilitate the complete construction process for all managed developments, from planning through to delivery while executing all pre-construction, construction, quality control, and post-construction responsibilities. I had to develop a construction budget and ensure adherence to financial plans, ensure conformity to building plans and design layouts while maintaining safe and productive construction sites and of course maintaining good relationships with the owners, architects, engineers, subcontractors, suppliers, city authorities and company personnel involved with the project 

I completed both projects in about a year and a half (19 months) and achieved a total sum of $1.8M under budget! I felt extremely accomplished and proud of myself for being able to learn, solve and achieve so much but I was also drained and exhausted. I felt like I had sold my dreams just to make more money which by the way it was never enough! Life in NYC is just so expensive and I found myself (sounds cliché but it’s true) stuck in a rat race.

I dreaded the idea of having to redo this especially when it meant I was working so hard to build someone else’s dreams while eliminating mine. That’s when I decided enough is enough I’m getting out of this.

STARTING MY OWN COMPANY = BUILDING MY OWN DREAMS

Coming soon…