The View from the Front Desk Vol. 2
Fall has finally come to the Grand Valley, and while I write this I sip on hot tea and enjoy the cooler temperatures. As I said in my last post, I want to use this blog as an opportunity to learn more about the field I have found myself in. And what better way to begin my education than by speaking with my boss about the company he started so long ago. Below you will find a
condensed version of an interview I conducted with Toby Axelsson, President and founder of Covenant Homes. While no longer in question-and-answer format, all of the information here comes directly from Toby’s own history and vision.
When Toby was a child, his father’s hobby was building. As young as six years of age, Toby was helping his father to build anything he could. At the age of eighteen, Toby began to work over the summer for the village carpenter in his hometown in Sweden. That fall Toby came to America as a foreign exchange student, and met his future wife. He had to return to Sweden in
the fall of ’88 so that he could fulfill his mandatory military service. During this time, since he had a shift-work role in the military, he had time between shifts, and was able to go back to work for that same carpenter. During this time, Toby got to work with buildings that were hundreds of years old, and therefore he got to learn about the old ways of doing things. He worked on everything from timber frame buildings, to standing plank framing, and modern stud framing. This gave him an appreciation for the traditional means of construction, and a solid understanding of why we no longer follow those same patterns. Toby continued to work for this man until he moved to America in ’90.
Toby got married in Sweden and moved back to the states, then he began to work for his father- in-law. He worked there off an on, also working for other construction companies and working a three year stint as a youth director with the Salvation Army. But by April of 2002, Toby was at the age where he wanted to start his own business, and his father-in-law was not ready to retire, so Toby started his own company. Covenant Homes was founded in April of 2002, and was able to get some good traction before the economic downturn of 2008.
Toby attributes Covenant Homes’ survival during the late 2000’s to providence. When Toby got his general contractor’s license, he had chosen to get the commercial license which allowed him to do any work in the city, as opposed to being relegated to residential work. During this time, his bank was looking for businesses that they supported that would be able to do work for them. They reached out to Toby about doing work on all of their western slope branches. Because of this, Toby met with their property manager in 2010, and bid his first job for them. While he didn’t get that job, he has continued to work with that bank, and that building manager, ever since. That first set of jobs boosted Toby into commercial construction work, and during this
time he rebranded to Covenant Buildings. This also expanded into janitorial work. Toby had an acquaintance who owned a janitorial business but was looking to step back. This acquaintance helped Toby to get his janitorial up and running around 2014. Today, the janitorial side of the business essentially covers overhead for the whole company. Some businesses look for the cheapest janitors, and others look to make sure their building is clean. We want to serve the latter, because if there is one thing we don’t do, it’s shoddy work.
The recession hit businesses longer than most of us tend to think. 2008 was to date the best year Toby had ever had. He didn’t recover to the same level until 2015. Then between 2015 and 2019 the business doubled and nearly tripled. Then covid hit, and the world shut down. Toby was, again, providentially protected. Construction workers were considered essential workers during covid, so Toby was able to keep everyone employed and working throughout covid. During this time, we received a bank buildout job which was the single biggest job Toby had ever received. During the lockdown, people were stuck in their homes, and they spent a fair bit of time looking at their homes. As often happens when someone stares as one thing too long,
they realized there were parts of their homes they didn’t like, or could like better. So once they could, they started reaching out for remodels. Interestingly, at the beginning, construction workers were essential, but the building department was not considered essential. That is, they were not considered essential until they realized that they were essential to the functioning of the construction workers, and the building department reopened. And with that, we are brought to today, and the modern concerns of the business.
According to Toby, it used to be that when you went to the building department to get a permit for construction, all you really needed was a napkin drawing of the plans, and the department would make sure the construction was up to code, but they would accept that. Now, because of the number and specificity of regulations, you practically need architectural drawings of
everything in order to get any permits. This is because building codes are becoming more and more stringent. This is driving costs up. Not only because of the costs associated with getting the permits, but much more so because of the new regulations on insulation, solar power compatibility, electric vehicle friendly electrical systems, and other necessary but expensive innovations. While the vision for a cleaner and more efficient and eco-friendly construction world makes sense, those innovations combined with the growing bureaucracy make it more and more expensive for construction to happen, and at the same time there is growing pressure for affordable housing. It makes it an interesting time to be in the field.
In addition to this, there are fewer and fewer people coming into the trades. Toby foresees that costs will continue to rise, the demand for construction will continue to grow, and those available to and capable of doing the work will continue to diminish. Which is good news for anyone who is looking for a good honest line of work with relatively high job security. If you go into
construction, or any of the trades, the chances are you will be highly sought after no matter where you chose to go.
It was a delight to be able to speak with Toby. I hope that you all find this as interesting as I did. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to send me an email at parker@covenantbuildings.com, and I will answer it in the next post. Or if I don’t know the answer, I will find the person who does!