Covering the Industry’s News
Texas Style
PRSRT. STD. U.S. POSTAGE PAID DALLAS, TX PERMIT #1451
P.O. Box 791290 San Antonio, Texas 78279-1290 Change Service Requested
San Antonio H Austin
San Antonio
CONSTRUCTION NEWS The Industry’s Newspaper
ImagesFromTexas.com
www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 24 H Number 3 H MARCH 2021
Creating art
It’s up to you
L-R: Greg Scott, Sherwin Williams; Gabriel Deleon, painter; Victor Puentes, foreman; Luis Garza and Roland Garza, owner
Monica and Jesus Gonzales pose for a photo with their company’s first service van.
T
he painting world, metaphorically speaking, is beautiful according to Roland Garza, owner of Roland Garza Painting. As a third-generation painter, Garza started painting at the youthful age of 10. “My grandfather was a painter. My dad was a painter and all of my uncles were painters. It just kind of stuck with me,” says Garza. “In high school, I started helping my uncles out. I took to it like a fish to water. “I really did not think I would be a painter for life. Like the rest of my family, we all had different ideas and aspirations, but you go with the hand that you are dealt. I always knew it was something I could fall back on and, at the time, the money was good.” About three years into working with
C
elebrating 100 years in business, G. W. Mitchell Construction is, to their knowledge, the oldest general contractor in San Antonio with Guido Construction and F.A. Nunnelly close behind. In 1921, George W. Mitchell started G.W. Mitchell Construction as a home builder for small cottages in south San Antonio off Hot Wells and mid-San Antonio in the Tobin Hill area. Many of these houses are still inhabited today. His first big break was in the late ‘20s with the building of the Atkisson Mansion which is known today as the McNay Art Museum. “I think he started it in ’27 and completed construction in ’29,” says Bill Mitchell, third generation and president of G. W. Mitchell Construction. For the next several years before WWII, G.W. went on to build a number of large houses in Olmos Park and Terrell Hills. He continued to build in the Tobin Hill and Monte Vista areas.
his uncle, Garza felt he was ready and decided it was time to do his own thing. Afterall, he had been painting since he was 10. Garza started Roland Garza Painting in 1997. He started with nothing, slowly painting his way up, one brush stroke at a time. He started out by himself. Within two or three months, he brought on four additional painters. “The work aspect of it was not hard. Finding the work was not hard. I knew a lot of people. Right now, we don’t really have to look for work. It just kind of comes to us. Even to this day, I get bombarded with calls. We turn away at least six to eight jobs a week,” he says. “I was taught to be a worker. I was not taught to be a businessperson. That took trial and error. There were a lot of hard lessons learned over time.” continued on Page 18
S
ince 1987, Jesus Gonzales has been doing electrical work. When he married his second wife in 1999, he told her that someday he was going to start his own company and he was going to name the company J&M Electrical Services for Jesus and Monica, his wife. When his youngest son started high school, he knew that time had finally come and told his wife he was going to get his Master License. “I started J&M Electric Electrical Services in 2014. The first two years were a little rough, but it got easier. I have clients that I have been working for since 1994 when I was a journeyman doing side jobs,” recalls Gonzales. Gonzales did not go to a trade school. He says, “I was one of those kids
that when I was young, I thought I was real badass. Now I tell every other kid that thinks he knows it all, I used to be like that. When I was in high school, I went to Kennedy High School, I got suspended from the district and my mom had to go fight it. I ended up going to another district, a year behind and graduated in ’85. Young and dumb, I got married to my high school girlfriend. In ’87 my oldest son was born. “I started in the electrical trade in ‘87. At the time, I was working for a company that did demolition. A guy named Gilbert Cervine who was an electrician for the complex saw me walking by his truck. When walking by his truck, I looked into the bed and saw all that copper. He told me in Spanish, ‘The truck smells a rat.’ In continued on Page 18
A century-long legacy
The G.W. Mitchell Construction Leadership L-R: Lane Mitchell, Bill Mitchell, Melvin Mitchell, Andy Mitchell, Controller Leah Mitchell and Matt Mitchell
G.W. expanded into primarily commercial work with the onset of WWII. Some of his early commercial projects were Floresville school in 1925 and the building of the H & H Coffee factory in the early ‘30s. “The H & H Coffee factory was the job that pulled him through the depression,” adds Lane Mitchell, third generation and vice president of G. W. Mitchell Construction. Like many of Mitchell’s early homes, the H & H building is still there and in use by new owners. “We get to see some of these old buildings that are now getting rehabbed which is really cool to see,” Bill adds. “Anyway, the commercial business was started during WWII and we really haven’t looked back. We do some single-family high-end residential work and also townhome work, but our business is primarily commercial construction.” In the late ‘40s, G.W.’s two older sons came to work at G.W. Mitchell Construccontinued on Page 18