(Story by a Woman-Owned & Operated Sole Proprietor in the Architectural & Construction Service Industry)
When I made the decis
ion to start up my own small business 23 yrs ago I had been working over six yrs at a city building department as a Sr. Permit Technician. I had recently gone through a battle with the city for a reclassification for our three positions in the Building Division from the Building Clerk to the Permit Techs because we were woefully underpaid, overworked and earning less money than secretaries. For the level of technical, legal and building code knowledge we had to learn and be responsible for in communicating to the public and in enforcing for the safety of the community we all agreed this was woefully unfair. We set about taking turns making calls to other cities around the state and comparing job duties and salaries and we successfully got our reclassification! That was a legacy I was proud to have left behind me when I decided to part with the City.
The decision to leave the security of my government position with benefits and a retirement plan didn’t come easily. As I approached my 40th birthday, and envisioned the future I wanted to paint for myself commuting over 3 hrs a day in heavy traffic, spending long hours away from my family, going on another year of salary freezes, all fed the fuel to my fire of reasons to go for it. I wanted more control of my earning potential, my schedule and my priorities with my time at this juncture of my life. I saw a niche that needed to be filled for permit expeditors that was starting to take off, I took a leap of faith that I had what it took to fill it; and against the advice of many, took the leap into Entrepreneurship!
There was a definite nook for Permit Service firms in the CA market at that time. The Construction industry was doing well, and architects, retailers, contractors & developers needed someone with my expertise to perform their plan submittals, be able to sit in front of plans examiners & represent them at verification meetings and someone to project manage their permit programs to ensure they were being expedited through the review process and their permits were streamlined. When I took Marketing in college, I recalled the main message was to “find a need and fill it.” I saw the need, I had the experience and I filled it; and with the support of our very loyal Clients and Associates, here we are 23 years later!
Now I can’t say all my dreamy objectives when I first started out were achieved. Because once word got out that I was reliable, reasonable and knowledgeable I got really busy, which is GREAT! But that also takes away a lot of freedom and as a sole proprietor, there went many years of no vacations, very long hours and taking my school-aged daughter with me to the City when she was on spring break sometimes and promising to take her someplace FUN after my work was accomplished. The benefit to that was that she learned how to expedite through osmosis while she was very young! I did get to take her to the Long Beach Aquarium, the beach, the museum, the malls, lunches at various different cities throughout most every major CA city and when she went off to college in the Bay area, it was great to do jobs up in No CA and go up to visit her!
After my 3rd year of wearing all the hats on my own and with the help of friends when I needed backup, I finally persuaded my life partner, Mark, to be my #1 back up man. His over 25 yrs of Senior Project Management experience combined with my Permit Expediting and City experience and my background in business admin prior to that enabled us to manage thousands of permit expediting projects successfully.
I could not have gone through some of the growing pains, challenges & lessons that came out of the many projects we have permitted without the support and encouragement of my loving and amazing tribe of family, friends and associates. I want to give a shout out to the support team members who have stood with me to help service our customers. There are too many names to mention and not enough characters allowed in this post. That being said I must give an honorable mention to my beloved life partner and teammate Mark Glover, whose efforts have been invaluable.
THANK YOU all for helping to “Build Trust through Experience” over the years.
To our customers loyal and new: Please continue to support your local and small businesses. We need you now more than ever before! We appreciate you!