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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper Dallas Fair Park
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Volume 14
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Number 6
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JUNE 2017
Lighting the way
A concrete plan
1: L-R: Lighting Connection’s Ricardo Mendez, Nancy Cardozo, Ashley Albertson, Maysa Rabadi, Cesar Torres and Jose Gausin
Donald W. Smith (center) with his sons Jordan (left) and Kingsley (right)
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ighting Connection got its bright start as a way to distribute lighting products under parent company Lanehart Electrical Contractors. Partners Randy Garrett and John Lanehart established the company’s headquarters in Irving, with a Buda location following in the early 90s, says vice president of operations Jaclyn Willbrand. Lighting Connection now has roughly 55 employees across both locations, and cultivating them for maximum growth is another company hallmark, according to Willbrand. “One of my favorite things is the employee tenure we enjoy,” she says. “That’s company wide. We recently had
an event where we celebrated everybody with more than 25 years of service – it added up to more than 1,000 years of tenure.” Willbrand attributes that to the company’s culture. “It’s a privately owned, thirdgeneration family business,” she says. “And, it’s that family friendly culture that extends to our employees, where we value a strong work-ethic but not at the expense of our personal and family lives. We encourage employees to be there at the soccer game or make the school play. Our work culture extends beyond the office as well with annual holiday parties, tickets to sporting events and regular continued on Page 7
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f a “Construction Business Owner Candidate” list had ever existed, Donald W. Smith would have checked off a long line of boxes: He has always had the entrepreneurial bug. He had shored up project manager and superintendent experience working for several construction companies. He had been running his own concrete work side business since 2008. Smith even had construction in his blood: His father had dabbled in it throughout his life and several relatives worked in the industry. By October of 2015, it was a natural decision for Smith to make Don Smith Concrete LLC a full-time business. “It was just a realization that everything that it took in order to run a
company, I was already doing it,” Smith explains. “It was a matter of having the courage to step out there, do it and get the right business model started.” Smith drew up a model utilizing mostly subcontractor labor, secured an impressive amount of bonding capability and hired two full-time employees to handle paperwork in his Midlothian office. Then, he got to work. “Once I stepped out there, there was no turning back,” Smith says. “I’ve been successful so far.” His business’ success has been hard earned, but worth it. “It’s a lot of stress,” Smith admits. “I put in a lot of hours. My days usually start continued on Page 7
Dude! It’s perfect!
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hey make it look so easy: Five best friends (and a panda!) complete incredible stunts, make impossible trick shots and film themselves reliving their youth for millions of fans. But where does the high-octane group known as Dude Perfect create and execute these feats? Well, for safety reasons … not just anywhere! That’s why Dude Perfect hired general contractor Taurus Commercial Inc. to construct a perfect environment for the Dudes to collaborate, test ideas and film their antics. Taurus’ project manager Jack Steinberg, superintendent Sean Cole and architect John Taylor of Azimuth Architecture Inc. were tasked with transforming a 138,866sf Frisco warehouse into the ultimate man mecca in only two months. DPHQ2 (or Dude Perfect Headquarters 2) had to house everything the Dudes needed for their exploits. The first
floor would feature a main lobby/kitchen, locker room, a private office for each Dude, a conference room and video editing rooms. It would also contain a large adaptable space with artificial golf turf, a basketball court, a hockey rink and plenty of durable concrete floor that would double as a racetrack and bowling alley. The fun would continue upstairs on the 4,300sf mezzanine featuring a mammoth lounge area populated with theater seating, foosball and pool tables, a golf simulator and large screen televisions. “It was a bare, vacant, brand-new warehouse space and we built out, for lack of a better description, a huge man cave,” Taurus president Daryl Bowen explains. “What they do in this space is a lot of their trick shots, but they’re also video editing, watching the videos, replaying them and strategizing on what Taurus Commercial Inc. gave Dude Perfect the perfect space to plan, execute and film their world-famous shenanigans. Photo by Digital Home Studios
continued on Page 7