Your story is a little different. What is your background?
State’s campus.
When I graduated, I came I came from pretty humble back to Chicago and beginnings. I was born in started my professional construction career with Nigeria and came to the United States when I was Gilbane. I was one of six-years-old. My dad was the youngest project a hard-working immigrant. managers there at the He drove a taxi in Chicago time. I’ve always been for nearly 20 years just to passionate about learning and wanting to do more, put food on the table. so I was promoted pretty quickly. But I eventually got My dad couldn’t afford to the point in my career to pay for me to go to where I wanted to create college, but I ran track in high school and got a full more of an impact. scholarship to Ohio State I left corporate America University. I majored in Construction Management in 2012, went out on faith, and took over Bowa and Engineering, and while I was there, I got an Construction. It had been internship with Gilbane, a incorporated since 2009, but it was mostly focused large construction on residential projects. This management company. all happened around the That’s when I fell in time Obama was running, love with commercial and there was that whole construction. My first “Yes, we can,” spirit, which project was a huge $160 million rec facility on Ohio really inspired me.
We were the first African-American contractor to complete a project at O’Hare Airport as a prime. Getting a small firm off the ground isn’t easy. Who are some of the people you credit with helping you get your business off the ground? One of our first clients was the University of Chicago Medical Center. It was a huge anchor client for us. We started with a small lab job, and we grew from there. We’ve done over 50 - 100 projects with them to date, and they’re still one of our premier clients.
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