Fredericton Brothers Fight Industry Stereotypes With Their Construction Company
FREDERICTON – Two Fredericton brothers saw that the trades have an image problem and decided they’d do something about it with their own construction company.
Mark Small said he and his brother Kent founded Benchmark Building and Renovations about six years ago with the intent to break the stigmas and stereotypes relating to the construction industry.
“I’ve been in the trades right out of high school and I’ve been noticing that it’s the same stuff you deal with on every job site,” said Small.
“It should be just like any other industry where you show up for work, try to be polite, and move away from all that rough-and-tough mentality.”
Small said the public has pigeonholed the trades as a place of loud, aggressive, rude behavior – and that the characterization has stuck with the industry for years.
“We’re trying to put a new spin on that. We have our own company now so we can control some of those things and we’re trying to break that stigma,” he said.
Small, a licensed carpenter, and his brother, a UNB business graduate, are pushing back against industry stereotypes by being more responsive to phone calls and emails, and projecting a clean-cut image on site with matching shirts for their four employees and respectable conduct.
“No swearing, yelling, and that kind of typical stuff I’ve seen in my years in the trades – we’re trying to move away from that,” Small explained.
Another tough-guy stereotype the Small brothers are looking to disavow through Benchmark is the lack of support for the mental health of trades employees.
“We did a Bell Let’s Talk day and got a lot of attention on our business page and that basically opened up some mental health talk within the trades too,” Small said.
“That’s important, too, because we want to make it okay to talk in the trades. In my experience, there has been zero support for mental health (in the trades) and nobody talks about anything on the jobs site; if they’re going through something it’s not manly to talk about it on the job site.”
This breaking of stereotypes comes at a potentially advantageous time with the construction industry facing an unprecedented shortage of labour.
“At least in Fredericton, there are a lot of 50- [and] 60-plus-year-old business owners that have been doing the same thing for years,” he said. “I feel like that might be what is turning a lot of young people away – and why we don’t see a lot of young people entering the trades.”
Small said work has been heavily local for Benchmark – which specializes in residential construction and renovations – over the last four years, with strong local demand.
“There is too much work in the area for us to leave,” said Small.
“We had to turn down a lot of jobs in the last couple of years, which I hate to do, but I’d rather be upfront and commit and not be able to follow through a year later,” he added.
Benchmark specializes in an assortment of renovations from bathrooms and drywall framing to deck work outdoors.
Small noted he plans to hire more employees, noting he is upfront about Benchmark’s culture in the recruiting process.
“All our employees have the same mentality and it works well on the job,” he said.
“I’m hoping to attract that in the younger crowd we bring into our company.”
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas at [email protected].