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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 17 H Number 2 H FEBRUARY 2019
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Head of the class
Following fate
Jonah Lumpe, owner of JTex Welding
President/Owner Scott Robinson of Scott Drilling Incorporated
pon graduating from college, most graduates are faced with the reality of finding work. It’s not uncommon for what those young people majored in to not apply or translate to what’s out there in the real world. Bummer. But for Jonah Lumpe, who is in his last semester at Sam Houston State, that problem has been solved because he formed JTex Welding while still a freshman. He has his own business already. Further, Lumpe’s major is construction management. He already knew how to weld, but construction management has taught him about the construction industry: how to bid on jobs, how to read blueprints and how a project flows. Lumpe credits the Discovery Channel and watching some of its welding
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shows as a kid as sparking (no pun intended) his interest in welding. While a high school student, he actually started welding in his shop class. He bought his first welding gear and turned the family garage into a shop. “It was nothing but support from my mother,” Lumpe said. During this hobby stage, Lumpe would build barbecue pits and knickknacks for friends. Lumpe then got a job with a waste management company, repairing the trucks. All the while, co-workers would ask him to fabricate stuff for their trucks or Jeeps. “That’s when it clicked,” he said. He thought to himself, “I can make money doing this. I can make a business out of this.” continued on Page 14
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hen Scott Robinson is asked how his career unfolded, the president/ owner of Scott Drilling Incorporated replied with, “Do you believe in fate?” You see, Robinson’s father and uncle had once worked for a water well company after World War II. “It was in the late ’40s that they came to Houston after growing up in Louisiana. They went to work for a water well company in the Aldine area,” explained Robinson. The people who hired Robinson’s father and uncle had kind of just thrown them into the mix of things, which was the old-fashioned way of doing things back then. “I think they worked there for three to six months, decided to go on their own and went separate ways,” said Robinson.
One day, Robinson’s father was driving around the Lindale area and saw a help wanted sign for a ceramic tile setter helper. He applied and got the job. “My dad ended up marrying the boss’s daughter, so that’s where I came from,” joked Robinson. Then in 1968 when Robinson’s mother passed away, Robinson’s father stopped working in tile. “They worked together, so he didn’t want to do that anymore,” explained Robinson. In the early ’70s, Robinson and his brother were drafted into the Army. Meanwhile, Robinson’s father was traveling to his brother’s place in Magnolia to help with an old rig he bought to “start peddling around with water wells.” As continued on Page 14
A gathering place for fellowship
ob Betancourt has been in the construction industry his entire adult life, serving as vice president for a large general contractor in Houston running their special projects division. In 2001, Betancourt started Zenith Construction and has been going strong ever since, specializing, primarily in the private commercial sector. Many of Zenith’s clientele come from established relationships and word of mouth. Ninety percent of their projects are negotiated and repeat business, saying a lot about Zenith. Named after the patron saint of brewing, Saint Arnulf of Metz, St. Arnold Brewing Company was founded by Brock Wagner in 1994. For many years, he had a vision of creating a place for Houstonians to gather. St. Arnold Beer Garden, nestled next door to the brewery is Wagner’s dream come true. The 24,500-sf structure, which
includes a restaurant, beer garden and art car display area, was completed in 10 months at a cost of $3.6 million. St. Arnold Beer Garden is a pre-engineered metal building with an interior restaurant and exterior beer garden. The interior is designed to resemble a church with features like dining nooks nicknamed “chapels”, groin vaulted ceilings, exposed wood trusses, stained concrete, round stained-glass windows and painted murals in each of the dining nooks by individual local artists. The facility’s exterior is comprised of a wood deck, corrugated metal panels, gravel walks, an Art Car display area, a fountain in the shape of a brew kettle ordained with beautiful lighting and landscaping. Adding to the project’s overall uniqueness is the fact that the exterior beer garden was purposely left unfinished to look like a disintegrating buildSt. Arnolds Beer Garden
continued on Page 10