Sam has been picking up skills and work-based knowledge since his first job on a tree farm. He says that this job is where he got his first marketable job skills. He learned about logging, selling lumber, forestry, mechanics, and small business practices. Since then, he has worked in construction, as a roofer, a plumber, and an electrician’s assistant. He has also worked in schools, designed curricula for outdoor education, and served on the boards of two conservation nonprofits.  

Today, Sam runs his own sub-contracting business and does residential construction. He uses all the technical and people skills that he learned along the way, but Sam says that failure has been the best teacher. When he first got his business off the ground, he lost a lot of time and a lot of money learning tough lessons in fiscal responsibility, and in managing his business, his employees, and his contracts. He also had a hard time getting bids early on. “I just applied and applied and applied and applied and lost almost every bid. But then occasionally I picked a few up.” From there, things only grew.

Sam says that much of his success is due to the fact that he’s a “self-starter in every sense of the word” and he’s not one to back down from a challenge. “I’ve never said ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ I say, ‘Yeah, I can. Give me a week and I’ll figure it out.’” This positive attitude toward learning and this willingness to take on new work challenges, in addition to the sheer amount of experience that he has gained over the years, has helped him make his way in his field, where he often finds himself supervising workers who are decades his senior. These are also qualities that Sam looks for when he puts together a team. “I will hire anybody who will put in a long day of work and has some degree of being able to retain information and learn a skill,” he says.