Page 31 - BusinessWest August 18, 2025

think of this as an accessory to their house, so there’s a learn-
ing curve on the cost of things.”
Building Momentum
While work is steady and the pipeline is full of projects,
there are challenges, said the partners, starting with some
anxiety concerning the economy in general and prices for
materials in particular.
“There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty about pricing — ques-
tions about what’s happening with tariffs and how that will
affect a project,” Cook said. “The future is unknown.”
Flanders agreed, noting that there have been recent issues
with price and availability of fixtures and other items due to
tariffs on specific metals.
Meanwhile, there’s the economy and uncertainty about the
future, especially in sectors like higher education, they noted,
adding that, while it’s generally good to be based in a college
town — or the Five College area, as the case may be — current
conditions are not the norm.
“People are worried that jobs that were once considered
stable may not be so stable anymore,” she noted. “If you’re
on soft money and your grant got clawed back and your posi-
tion is now in question, you may not want to go ahead with a
project.”
Then are lingering workforce issues affecting the entire
construction sector, said the partners, adding that, as long-
time staff members retire — and several of them have in
recent years — replacing them is becoming increasingly
challenging.
And workforce is an issue at a company that self-performs
much of its work as opposed to construction managing and
subbing the work out to others, as Cook explained.
“We self-perform everything from demo to framing to paint-
ing, and we do that for quality control,” she noted. “We could
sub things out more, and we could then do more projects and
increase our capacity, but we feel like we would lose a handle
on the quality. So the side effect of that is that we have to
schedule things out a little farther.
“We want to staff the project with capable, skilled carpen-
ters and the right helpers with them,” she went on, adding
that staffers often get to work on a project from start to finish,
rather than just take a small segment of the work.
Flanders noted the firm works with two schools — Smith
Vocational and Agricultural High School and South Hadley
High School — that have co-op programs, and they have intro-
duced dozens of students to the field through those initiatives
and gained several employees in the process.
“It’s proven to be a good pipeline ... we currently have four
current carpenters on our staff that have come through those
programs over the years,” she noted, adding that, overall, find-
ing skilled labor has been a stern challenge in recent years.
“We often joke here ... where did the 30- to 50-year-olds go?
We don’t know — they’re disappearing,” she said. “Getting peo-
ple who actually have experience is pretty challenging. We’ve
found a few over the past few years, which is great, but it’s few
and far between.”
And workforce plays a huge role in both long-term plans
for continued growth and shorter-term efforts to slot in a
broad mix of projects large, small, and in between.
“We have a full pipeline of projects,” said Flanders, not-
ing that some of these initiatives have been in the discussion
stage for months or even years, and others just a few days or
weeks, and they’re handled as quickly as workforce, materials,
and other factors will allow. “Some people take their time and
don’t move as fast; other people move fast, and then we have
a backlog.”
Cook concurred. “Because we’re in a college town, we call
it our ‘rolling admissions policy,’” she said. “When you’re ready
to send the contract, you get the next spot on the schedule.”
To continue this use of higher-ed terminology, it’s fair to say
Cook and Flanders have more than made the grade as busi-
ness owners and key players in this challenging industry. BW
“There’s a lot
of fear and
uncertainty
about pricing —
questions about
what’s happening
with tariffs and
how that will
affect a project.
The future is
unknown.”
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