Masonry Magazine April 2005 Page. 15

Words: Mike Gilleran, John Cotton
Masonry Magazine April 2005 Page. 15

Masonry Magazine April 2005 Page. 15
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April 2005
Masonry 13



While expounding on the excellence of UF's College of Building Construction, Jerry laments, "It appears few (graduates) are currently coming out who are familiar in the trades. We have to teach them to recognize the quality of crafts. We have all these managers who don't know how it comes together.

"Construction sites need a boss. You can't have all these free spirits working out there. They're all going to look out just for themselves, and the building suffers."

There are now 60 full-time employees at Painter Masonry, and the company has a busy crane rental branch. Jerry downplays his firm's success. "We've been in business for 37 years. Have we arrived? We still worry: Is there going to be a paycheck? We haven't skipped a paycheck in all those years. We weren't going to be the typical business running around Friday trying to make payroll. We try to control our destiny."

"We're just the little guy," Jim says. "We were big in the 1970s and '80s, but we got tired of traveling. We've done projects in Sumter County, Tallahassee, Tampa, St. Augustine, Orlando. One year we were doing three schools in three different counties. We decided to focus our attention here. We can make a living here."

Jerry recalls one masonry meeting that called in contractors from all over the country. One of them, who said his "territory" encompassed 90 square miles, asked him how far his work fanned out. "I told him about five miles," he laughs.

Some of his more visible work on campus is the new orthopedics building on SW 34 Street, student housing on Museum Road, the remodel of the University Auditorium, the libraries, the chemistry building, and he is putting windows into the huge brick wall of the dental college. The brothers also built the new P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School auditorium, which includes a brick sculpture resembling a wave.

While the two are nearly five years apart in age, they are almost twins in ideals, religion, beliefs and outlook. "Put a pair of suspenders on me, and you would-
The Voice of the Mason Contractor


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