The Buzz On Better Business
Redefining Accessibility: Transformative Home Renovations with Steve Courville
Steve’s story is not just about bricks and mortar; it's a tale of transformation and specialization. From his days of fixing and selling medical equipment for over 15 years to completing his degree with a newfound discipline from the National Guard, Steve has honed a unique skill set for designing accessible living spaces. He opens up about the innovative solutions and challenges faced, such as reorganizing tiny spaces and relocating plumbing fixtures. Serving the Acadiana area, Steve distinguishes his business from general contractors by focusing on accessibility, delivering over 3,000 projects that enhance the quality of life for those in need.
Our discussion also delves into the business side of home renovations, shedding light on the challenges of marketing, hiring reliable employees, and maintaining ethical business practices. We explore the importance of written contracts, the risks posed by unlicensed contractors, and the delicate balance between work and personal life, highlighted by Steve's memorable vacation to Norway. Tune in to gain invaluable insights from Steve Courville on creating safer, more comfortable living spaces while navigating the complexities of running a specialized business.
Learn more about Accessibility by Design by visiting their website!
To learn more about BBB Serving Acadiana, visit our website:
🔗 https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/better-business-bureau-serving-acadiana
This podcast is an AcadianaCasts production and part of the AcadianaCasts Network. Go to acadianacasts.com for more South Louisiana sourced content.
Steve’s story is not just about bricks and mortar; it's a tale of transformation and specialization. From his days of fixing and selling medical equipment for over 15 years to completing his degree with a newfound discipline from the National Guard, Steve has honed a unique skill set for designing accessible living spaces. He opens up about the innovative solutions and challenges faced, such as reorganizing tiny spaces and relocating plumbing fixtures. Serving the Acadiana area, Steve distinguishes his business from general contractors by focusing on accessibility, delivering over 3,000 projects that enhance the quality of life for those in need.
Our discussion also delves into the business side of home renovations, shedding light on the challenges of marketing, hiring reliable employees, and maintaining ethical business practices. We explore the importance of written contracts, the risks posed by unlicensed contractors, and the delicate balance between work and personal life, highlighted by Steve's memorable vacation to Norway. Tune in to gain invaluable insights from Steve Courville on creating safer, more comfortable living spaces while navigating the complexities of running a specialized business.
Learn more about Accessibility by Design by visiting their website!
To learn more about BBB Serving Acadiana, visit our website:
🔗 https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/better-business-bureau-serving-acadiana
This podcast is an AcadianaCasts production and part of the AcadianaCasts Network. Go to acadianacasts.com for more South Louisiana sourced content.
Working for yourself is great and terrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You have to kind of balance it. I love it. I've always basically worked for myself. I very seldom did I work for anybody else. I wouldn't work for somebody else very well, because I don't know how to I wake up in the morning, go to work, sometimes seven days a week. I don't, I just keep going and this needs to be done.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times, when you own the business, I mean you are the business right. I mean you guys may be open eight to five, but what does Steve work? All the time? The Buzz on Better Business podcast positioning your business as one that is trustworthy, as something that we all know is important. But what does it actually take to accomplish this? Join your BBB each month as we unveil the world of local accredited businesses who have it mastered and have positioned themselves as ethical leaders in our Acadiana marketplace.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Buzz on Better Business podcast. This episode I'm joined by Steve Corville, with Accessibility by Design. Have you ever thought of some of the things in your home that if, when you age or maybe end up in a wheelchair that need to be changed? He's got a unique perspective on that. It's also very unique how you went from architecture to doing what he does today that he's got so much experience in, and he'll share a touching story with us about his upbringing and how he got to where he is today. Thank you for being here, steve.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to have a conversation with you. You know I've known you for I guess I'd say quite a few years now, with your role on the board of directors at BBB, and I've always thought what your business does is very unique. So when you brought up recently, you know hey, I watched a couple of those podcast episodes. I would be interested in being a guest. I thought it was a great opportunity to get to know you a little better. So, thank you, I'm so glad that you're here. So as we get started, you know, accessibility by design, the name is kind of in what you guys do but tell us a little bit about your business.
Speaker 1:We actually remodel houses strictly right now for people that are handicapped, elderly and disabled that need their house remodeled so that they can continue living there.
Speaker 2:Now I am a little bit familiar with that. I've had my father-in-law living with us for almost seven years now and he's in a wheelchair Now. Familiar with a little bit of that, but for those of us maybe not familiar. Why would a home need to be remodeled, or what does that really entail on you guys' side?
Speaker 1:The doors need to be widened a lot of times because wheelchairs can't get through the doors. The carpets need to be removed because in wheelchairs carpets don't work real well. Thresholds are big obstacles for wheelchairs. Bathtubs are huge obstacles, so we transfer that to walk-in bathtubs, walk-in showers, roll-in showers, depending on what their abilities are. Things like door handles when you get older, round door handles are hard to open, so we change the lever style, swing out doors for bathrooms. Somebody falls in front of a door in a bathroom. You can't get in, so we usually change it.
Speaker 2:Man, I'm so glad I asked that quick, because that's something I would never think of and you don't until it happens exactly, but you can't open the door um light switches sometimes need to be lowered more light.
Speaker 1:We always add light when we can, because as you get older, you need more light and I like white light it looks people go walk in the bathroom and go. I can see in here.
Speaker 2:That's the brighter white versus, like the traditional yellowish kind of light.
Speaker 1:Okay, the daylight, daylight, gotcha, and we do those often and it makes it so much brighter and so much easier to see Showers with handheld showers that have pause buttons on them so that you can pause the button while you're turning the water off rather than have it go hot or cold. Grab bars we put grab bars all over the place, but everybody's different. Where I'm going to grab, where you're going to grab, your father-in-law's going to grab is not the same place, so we kind of discuss that with the homeowner when do you need them? Things like that.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's an extensive list, more than widened doorways, and let's flatten out some thresholds, right it?
Speaker 1:gets pretty extensive.
Speaker 2:Now that requires, I guess, some knowledge about that industry. So you know, you come into it. I wouldn't be able to walk into a house and say here's all the things I can recommend, but that's something you guys specialize in, more of a custom aspect to making people's home more accessible correct.
Speaker 1:You hire a contractor, say my mom's getting old and we need you to do some things in the house like the bathroom. The contractor goes in well, what do you want me to do? And you kind of well, what can you do?
Speaker 1:we've done at last count, I think, over 3 000 of these wow, so that's a lot of experience so I can say, okay, this is available, this is available, and I give them a list of stuff that we can do and they have the opportunity to say, yeah, that's a good idea. No, I don't think I want to do that. It's not my house, I don't live there, I'm just giving you recommendations.
Speaker 2:Sure. So the natural follow-up question to that is 3000 houses, that's a lot. That's, it sounds like, most likely many years of this work Before we get too deep in, I guess, the experience how did a business like this come to be for you?
Speaker 1:Well, that would get blamed on my wife. Okay, and we?
Speaker 2:got Rachel in the studio. She's waving off camera over there.
Speaker 1:She's claiming that one we had a durable medical equipment company years ago. Okay, and the government moves money around and they decided that they didn't want to pay for medical equipment. This is when the power chairs were real big.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And they spent too much money on that and they said, oh, we've got to shut this down. And we had a medical equipment company and they started cutting back. And at that point Rachel said do you know how to install a walk-in shower? I said no, she said. And at that point Rachel said do you know how to install a walk-in shower?
Speaker 2:I should know she said well, we sold one, so. So this is what is so great about this podcast.
Speaker 1:I love to hear that, so I did that and a while later she says can you do a walk-in bathtub? I said no, they're too expensive. She said, well, let me look, and she found one. So we started doing walk-in bathtubs and it kind of just evolved from that. We've gone to school for a thing called Aging in Place, which is a Okay.
Speaker 1:Teachers, you've got to do that and we use that to do it. I'm also trained as an architect. Okay, the company I have is we. We are registered building contractor and licensed to do it, so we do all kinds of stuff to deal with that so you got started, so you were already doing contracting before specializing in accessibility.
Speaker 2:Features really came to you to a degree with medical equipment.
Speaker 1:I learned how power chairs work the size of them, how wheelch work the size of them, how wheelchairs work the size of them, what you need to do. We did all types of medical equipment. So from that basis we kind of went into this. And what was amazing is we had one company that the government kind of made forces out of business and we were able to close that one and start another one in a different area and never miss a beat.
Speaker 2:So you do a lot of government contract work.
Speaker 1:We work for the VA doing veterans homes. They have a number of grants we work with and we work with a lot of veterans all the time.
Speaker 2:I mean that's so needed, right? You know the extensive amount of veterans and you know people have their opinions on the VA and how benefits work. But you know, as a veteran myself not necessarily on the benefit side, especially in this realm you know the VA seems to really take care of veterans, especially those that need accessibility. Would you say that that's been your experience?
Speaker 1:They have changed in the last five to 10 years. It's gotten so much better.
Speaker 2:Oh good.
Speaker 1:It's just they used to put things off and it was hard to do and it still is in some cases. But it's gotten a lot lot easier, especially if you know how to work your way through it and we've done it so often that we know how it works and the VA now basically trusts us. They have a problem, somebody does something and say can you all go fix it, which we've had to do a few times.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's good. So you've kind of built your name around the fact that you guys work with the VA and then again, accessibility by Design is really such a neat name. It describes exactly what you guys do. Going back even further before that, let's talk about childhood Steve. Teenage Steve, where are you from?
Speaker 1:I'm from well. I was born in Ville Platt. My mother moved us to Lafayette in 1969. She was a nurse or became a nurse and went to work at Lafayette General and she always wanted to kind of work for herself and she eventually started a company called Dynacare.
Speaker 2:Oh really, I feel like I've heard of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a pretty big company for quite a few years and she eventually sold it or merged it with another company and when she did, there were two parts of that company. There was the medical equipment part and the home health agency. Well, she sold the whole thing and the guy that bought it didn't take all the equipment, he just left what was broken and didn't know what to do with it. And I had just graduated from college in in architecture and I didn't know what to do with it and I don't want to throw it away. So I started fixing it and selling it and fixing it, selling.
Speaker 2:I think I did that for 15 years really and uh that and what was it specifically that you were fixing? What type of equipment?
Speaker 1:Any medical equipment. Just about. I learned like power chairs. I learned how they work and fix them. I still have people calling me and they're fixing power chairs. I do power chairs, ceiling lifts Basically, if you're disabled and need to get somewhere, I can get you. I do vans, ceiling lifts, almost anything to do with medical equipment.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, so you did that. So everything kind of lined itself up for the next thing, right?
Speaker 1:And somebody kind of pushed me in that direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, so architecture. So you went to college right out of high school.
Speaker 1:No, I did not. I went to college dropped out, Then you went to college right out of high school. No, I did not. I went to college dropped out, Then I went to college and dropped out.
Speaker 2:Hey, we've all got a story and I've been there. I have my degree today, but I promise you it wasn't that four years after graduating high school that I obtained it and I kept trying to think okay, I want to go to school.
Speaker 1:What would make me go to school and not quit? I joined the National Guard.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I think, okay, I'm in the National Guard, it's going to pay for my college. Well, right after, literally, I went to basic training, got out in like November, came back to Lafayette and Desert Storm kicked in and I was activated almost within two months. When I joined the National Guard I thought, okay, it's for Louisiana, the hurricanes and stuff, I'll do that. I never helped with a hurricane and we were activated. So once we deactivated, we came back and I never missed a semester and I graduated.
Speaker 2:So it gave you a new perspective on life, maybe.
Speaker 1:A little bit.
Speaker 2:So you went overseas for Desert Storm.
Speaker 1:I didn't get that far. We were in Texas, Fort Hood, Texas. I got you and we were being transferred from Fort Hood to California, and that's when everything stopped.
Speaker 2:Got you Okay. Well, thank you for your service.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, I didn't realize that actually.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, thank you for sharing that, but so that that kind of reshaped some perspective for you, right, and you were a little bit more, I guess, goal focused at least on school when you got out and I finished, I went through Well good. So architecture, I mean, what did you think you were going to be doing? Probably not what you're doing, necessarily right.
Speaker 1:Not really. I didn't know what I was going to do. I love architecture, though I've always. I went to basic training, I'm in basic training. I went to fort hood and, uh, everybody got out for a break and they all go to strip clubs. I'm walking around with a portable camera a little bit taking pictures of the houses, because they were so unique okay, so it's something you were.
Speaker 1:I mean, you've got the creative mind and the artistic, I guess, side of probably so I love buildings and what I do now is design bathrooms, which doesn't seem that difficult, but when you walk in a tiny bathroom and you don't have a whole lot of room, you have to organize it so that you get around you want the drawer in the right spot, where you would naturally go to reach for a drawer.
Speaker 2:There should be a drawer there, right, correct. So that's what you specialize in right and we just move.
Speaker 1:So for over the years we've you know, we go in there and the toilet's in the wrong place because we need to move this, and Cole the plumber, he goes I can't do that. I bought a jackhammer I can do that and we move them. We move whatever we do, we move it.
Speaker 2:Nice. So you guys so 3,000 homes, 3,000 houses, that's kind of strictly in the Acadian area. You guys have gone kind of out far outside of that.
Speaker 1:At one point we were traveling from all of Louisiana. We did jobs in Shreveport, not too many in the eastern, upper eastern port, but all the whole rest of it.
Speaker 2:New.
Speaker 1:Orleans, Lake, Charles, Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2:Since then it's just gotten to be too far to drive I drove too many miles so we kind of pulled it back a little bit and I go from, like Lake Charles, baton Rouge to Alexandria now, when you and I met, you know a couple years ago, and you came onto the board at BBB and, you know, shared a little bit about your business. At the time I had not really heard of a business that specialized in that specifically like what you guys do. As far as accessibility, now, I'm guessing that's something other businesses may do kind of as part of their work, but do you know of any competitors in the area that do exactly what you do?
Speaker 1:There are people that try, but not to the extent we do. Right, they'll go in and say, yeah, we can do this. What do you want me to do? I have specifications that I try and follow. Mine aren't so much government or VA. For instance, we do a lot of showers. If you can't get in the bathtub, you need a shower that can be walked in, if you can walk. Well, the lowest threshold I get on a walk-in shower is 3 1⁄2 inches, so that's the one I use. People say, well, I want one that's like this We've got a 6-inch rise or a 5-inch rise that doesn't do you any good. You still can't get in. Or they want a shower door. When you fall in a shower with a shower door, how are they going to get you out? True, it's too small, so I put curtains.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people. Well, I want a shower door anyway and they'll use somebody else because they insist on having a shower door.
Speaker 2:It's not such a good idea, but you're looking out for their well-being.
Speaker 1:My focus is accessibility. Something happens, how do you take care of them?
Speaker 2:Very true. Now, with that being said and I guess maybe it's not, this is, I guess, going to be the question Handicap regulations, you know, ramp angles and rail heights. Is that applicable in a home or is that just in a commercial setting?
Speaker 1:It's more commercial than private, but I also do ramps for the VA.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So if you see an aluminum ramp somewhere in Louisiana well South Louisiana I probably did it.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. I got a bunch of them.
Speaker 1:So in this case they're federally regulated because it's paid for by the government. If you do it privately, you really don't have to follow that. So a lot of times I'll go to somebody. They have a 24-inch rise and they want to put a ramp that's about 8 feet long. I said I can't do that. You can hire a handyman that'll do it because he doesn't know any better. I know better.
Speaker 2:So that would be too steep.
Speaker 1:It would be a lot too steep. The rule is for every inch you go up, you go out of foot. So they want to. Just you know they don't have that much room. They want to make it really easy to do. Well, it's not, it's dangerous. So you're going down, you fall out of the wheelchair. Going up's easy, unless the person pushing you falls. Yeah sure if I do it, I know better, you fall. It's my fault because I knew better than doing it yeah, yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 2:um, so what's something that that you okay, you like architecture? We kind of established that the the creative side, the design side, but what's something that you enjoy about what you do that, I guess, is rewarding for?
Speaker 1:you. That's easy. An example is we did a job in Opelousas for a gentleman named Mr Ford. When we left, he was able to go to his bathroom for the first time in three years. Wow, he couldn't get in. The door was too small Because he was able to go to his bathroom for the first time in three years.
Speaker 2:Wow, he couldn't get in. The door was too small Because he was in a wheelchair, yeah Wow.
Speaker 1:And the customers. We have most contractors. It's hard to do contracting work at somebody's house. I mean, you're in their house, it's dirty. They get mad, usually in the fighting and leaving, and not under good terms a lot of times. Most of our customers are friends.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Because we help them. They call us back when they need us. They suggest us doing work for other people.
Speaker 2:Well, in a way, I mean you're some. I mean I can imagine, depending on the way the home's set up prior to you guys coming in, I mean you may be the bridge that's allowing them to stay at home.
Speaker 1:And many times it is.
Speaker 2:Versus going to, maybe, a nursing home.
Speaker 1:It is, and we try and explain that to people a lot of times. We used to do shows and we'd show people things and they'd go oh yeah, but I'm not ready for that Well, when you fall and you break your hip and you're in the nursing home, it's too late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you ever do any remodeling in your house, you can have things done that are accessible and you don't notice them. I mean, you take your threshold, you do a new floor, you take your thresholds out. Nobody notices that except the guy in the wheelchair. You widen your door, you put different handles on your doors Things you could do that nobody physically. I mean you look at it and you go, that's for a handicapped person. It isn't necessarily you. I mean you look at it and you go that's for a handicapped person. It isn't necessarily. You don't notice it unless you're handicapped, and you go, wow, that makes it easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, that's very true. And you know I have a unique perspective on the nursing home industry. My wife's a nursing home administrator and I'm at her facility quite a bit and of course there's a time and place you know for for the nursing home realm and world. And I can tell you, though, nobody there probably, even though they're being taken care of and and all their needs are being met, nobody wakes up hoping to end up in a nursing home, right? So I mean you're serving that, that population, that a lot of times it's age, but I guess if it's VA related, there could be some just disabilities other than age, maybe Correct?
Speaker 1:And that's how the grants grants are based on your disability, which you're going to get. The grants that range from roughly $6,800 to $117,000 we work with but that's strictly. The VA administers them and they tell us what the grant's worth, what you can do and kind of direct us in the direction that they want us to go with the money they have.
Speaker 2:I got you. Now you mentioned the business you had before regulations changed. Weren't really able to support that one anymore. Started this one. When did you actually start Accessibility by Design?
Speaker 1:This one's been going on for probably 12, 13, 14 years. Now 12?, wow, that's a long time. So we've been doing it for a while.
Speaker 2:And how many people you got work with you today.
Speaker 1:Right now we have about a total of 10.
Speaker 2:Okay, all great people, you know you go through different people the people that are with me now won't also been with me for quite a while and know how we do things, yeah, and know what to expect, and I guess they're more than it may be some instances. You know there's a rewarding aspect of like you mentioned the gentleman hadn't been in his bathroom for three years, correct, you know. So there there's a there's a rewarding aspect of what you guys do. That you know for the right kind of employee probably helps keep them around with you guys, and that's common.
Speaker 1:People can't do certain things because they're disabled, and we allow them to change that to some degree.
Speaker 2:Right right Now. Steve, you may or may not remember this conversation you and I had about a year ago where you were passing by the office. You came by my office and we were just visiting how's things going? And you mentioned and this is going to start a whole new topic for us you mentioned you know I have a lot more work that I could be doing or work that I have that I can't keep up with because it's hard to find good employees.
Speaker 1:It is especially, especially people, that that the people that work for me, somebody what's called a renaissance corporators they're not just you, they don't. This guy just said do she work, or that one doesn't? Do they divide? Either I'm a frame room she brought, guy or I do foundation, or do that. We do a combination of almost everything. We do subcontract just what we have to do, that we have more control of what's going on.
Speaker 2:Right. What resonated with me so much about that conversation? What I remember about it was the comment that you made that I really just need one or two guys that can read a tape measure, and I'm willing to teach them the rest and we do that.
Speaker 1:We, uh, I have two really good carpenters right now, and they're they as a higher helpers. They train them of what to do if they get really good at what they do too, and then we promote them if they stay up in another position as a carpenter, as they learn, learn.
Speaker 2:Now correct me if I'm wrong. I guess there are some carpenter schools out there, but a lot of this stuff are things you learn on the job.
Speaker 1:Exactly like college. They taught you something in college. You get out and you go to work to do whatever you're going to do and you go. Well, this is not what they taught me, they just kind of gave you a general overview. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was working in Baton Rouge, I was on the Workforce Development Committee with the Baton Rouge Chamber over there and on that Workforce Development Committee the conversation month in and month out was employers being willing to bring in entry-level employees that can learn on the job and that, as times go on, it actually becomes harder to find a business willing to do that, willing to commit to. Let's hire the right person, I'll teach them the skills, but that sounds like something you guys take pride in being able to do.
Speaker 1:We try to do that and it gets expensive, because if you hire somebody, you're going to train them for a while and then they leave.
Speaker 2:Well, you've just spent six, eight months training them how to do something and they decided I don't like this. Yeah, yeah and um I think I don't remember the exact numbers, but you had mentioned something and we've experienced this at the better business bureau as well, when we've had open roles. You know you had um, let's say, 10 people apply five interviews scheduled in one show up. That's about right. That's a. That's a hurdle on interviews scheduled and one show up.
Speaker 1:That's about right.
Speaker 2:That's a hurdle on its own right and then you hire him and he needs to show up for work.
Speaker 1:Another step further right, or I'd hire him. I had a guy come in with the corporate school. He wanted to start at $20 an hour. That means he could read a tape measure, right.
Speaker 2:That's a lot, and we've experienced that, um, friends of mine that own businesses, and you know the the landscapes changed. You know, even in my uh, you know short, almost 40 year life, you know the landscapes change of employment and of businesses and and of things that are, uh, you know, taking place especially out in the workforce. And that's part of what we, what we like to do on this podcast is highlight the businesses that are out there, that are doing the right things, that are acting ethically, as you know, as part of the Better Business Bureau, especially being on our board of directors, and that's something that you guys really take pride in being able to do.
Speaker 1:We try. We make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, but we try to correct them. If I go to your house and something goes wrong, we go back and fix it. You don't just call me. We had a guy yesterday that actually called and there was a leak in his shower and one of the connections were leaking. We called in the morning, we were there in the afternoon and fixed it. It's just especially water. I don't want water leaking everywhere, but if something goes, wrong, it's our fault.
Speaker 2:We need to go fix it, and that's something that I think sometimes is missed.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know another rule, like kind of rule I have, is we always try and do a little bit more than the car. We write contracts for everything we do and we always try to do a little bit more than the contract says. I don't want to do less, I want to do a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, leave them feeling obviously good about having had you guys in to do the work Correct and my guys that work with me understand that, and that's where it comes down to having the right employees out there, kind of executing what your vision is right as, um, you know, the leader of the company and being able to execute that. So what is something I guess that? Uh, what is something that you guys maybe struggle with? What is something that is no matter how great we do, there's this thing that we've always got to um, entertain or look at or talk about or work on. You know, is it materials, is it employment? Is it marketing? I mean, that's its own beast these days, right?
Speaker 1:Probably marketing more than anything else, because our clientele are elderly and veterans and we have a website but nobody really goes to websites they don't anyway. And word of mouth and veterans. We do some back and forth but the people in general don't know what we do. There are a lot of people that need what we do, but it's hard. I don't know how to get to them so we can explain what we do. Every once in a while we have people that find us. We're doing one right now in Scott. The guy his son found us who is an ex-marine on the internet and, um, he's like, wow, y'all do all this and we're doing the job for him now. But those are not. Those are few and far between. We do a few a year. It's mainly the va?
Speaker 2:um that keeps us busy so the va, okay, so the VA basically would contact you with. We've got this veteran's home that needs this Depends on what grant it is.
Speaker 1:There's a smaller grant, which is called a HISA grant. That one is they send them a HISA book and in the HISA book they list some contractors that are available to do this type of work and they can use us or they can use anybody. So we're in the book, so they call us. We're first on the list because of the name. I guess it starts with A.
Speaker 2:Well, you did pick a good name that starts with A. You know back with all the triple A, everythings. Back when the phone book was the primary way to find things.
Speaker 1:My brother once told me years ago the name of the company should say what it does.
Speaker 2:Well, yours does Like. I've complimented the name of yours you know a hundred times from the beginning. It really does to me. But to be honest with you, I haphazardly know you through BBB. So if I didn't know that and I was in a situation where I had a family member or loved one that you know needed doors widened and bathroom modifications made, I would probably look up a contractor. Just in general. I wouldn't necessarily know there's somebody that specializes in that.
Speaker 1:It is, and I have never. We've never been able to figure out how to get our name directly to the people that need us. It's been kind of a struggle over the years but we've been able to operate because of the VA, to a large degree, loves us and uses us whenever they can.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good, I mean, obviously that's always a great situation and I can tell you, steve, if it makes you feel any better. That's a um a a standard issue across almost all businesses, unless they are a marketing company. You know, most businesses, especially most small businesses, are companies that really specialize in what they do. They can be great at what they do. They're horrible at telling the story of how they do it and finding the people that need it. That's the problem, and Carter can probably shake his head in a test behind the camera.
Speaker 2:That's one thing he specializes in, by the way, as we talk about connections and meeting people, but it's something across all businesses and that's a common theme, especially doing this podcast, that we meet with businesses and when we talk about what, what's the hardest thing about running a business? A lot of times it's it's telling our story, sharing our message, because what you guys do is, I mean, the story is there. You know the heartfelt, emotional moment of somebody being able to access their bathroom after three years. The story's there. That's going to resonate with people. It's just how do you tell it and how do you get it to the right people? Right?
Speaker 1:With some grants. My wife goes with me on the larger grants and it usually takes three, four hours to go through the whole house and figure out what we're going to do and they have the opportunity to use whoever they want to use. They can use us or somebody else and they usually at the end of the conversation we'll get ready to use. They can say get ready to leave. They'll say we want to use you. Rachel is great at what she does. Usually what happens is she talks and I walk around looking at writing and Troy.
Speaker 2:So this, this just came to mind. I actually saw a couple like an Instagram short video on this, and my wife will walk around and come up with a lot of great ideas at the house and I'm the one trying to write down, you know, and figure out. Is this even possible? Would you say? It's similar to that sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yes, kind of. Let me tell you a story. Rachel's not going to like this one. Rachel is my wife and she's probably the most intelligent woman I know. I walked in the house one time and she decided that we were going to have an open floor plan, so she was taking the wall down between the living room and the dining room Rachel is this true? She's shaking her head. We have a two-story house.
Speaker 2:Uh-oh, I know where this is going, I think.
Speaker 1:That wall was a load-bearing wall so I figured out how we could do it. It took a while, but we did it. We took the wall down and put columns in and it came out beautiful. If she hadn't done that that, we probably never would have that house we have now and everybody walks the house and goes, oh, wow, and she's done a fabulous job on our house well, and that's the thing right.
Speaker 2:Everybody specializes in something. That's why we can't do it all by ourselves. So she, she comes up with the great ideas, and and you got to figure out how to make sure you do it, how to implement them there you go yeah, my wife comes up with a lot of designs and I'm like you know, boards don't just connect themselves like that, and sometimes it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Projects don't work like that I have a corporate that's like that. I'll draw it, he'll go. Well, he'll look at it. That's not going to work like that. Yeah look, I drew it, but it doesn't work like that. So I I'm not a corporator, I'm a designer or an architect and I can figure out what I want it to look like, but he figures out how it's going to go together how it's going to.
Speaker 1:There you go and we were doing a job in Scott the other day and we're still almost finished it and we got a plumbing issue and the way it was fixed. We couldn't go down. It was impossible. It was on concrete. So he's sitting there. He didn't know what to do. I mean we're going to have to tear up the whole concrete floor. I walked in and looked at it. I said okay, you can either go down or you can go up. He said we go up. We put it two by four. We propped it up a little bit so I fixed the problem. He hadn't thought of that there you go.
Speaker 2:That's why you need more than just the one. Like I said, you need everybody.
Speaker 1:It helps because sometimes somebody's go. How about this? You know, yeah, that'll work.
Speaker 2:So, steve, we talk about, you know, as far as the BBB goes, we talk about trust and integrity and that kind of thing a lot. You know you've been accredited with us for a long time. You chose to be on the board of directors and all of our board members served three-year terms and I think you're on maybe your fourth year on the board, so you're over your actual initial commitment term.
Speaker 1:So tell us you know what about that was important to you to become involved with the BBB Well, it's kind of like my ethics are kind of like what yours are, so we try and keep everything straight and above board. We do contracts, we try and follow the rules the way they're supposed to be and a lot of people really don't even realize that that we deal with, but we try. We write contracts and stuff. We have them sign contracts.
Speaker 1:Something goes wrong we go back to the contract and say you're going to do this. We didn't write that. If you want it, I can do it, but it's not in the contract. A lot of people come in.
Speaker 2:I've watched enough Judge Judy to know signed contracts, written contracts, and they have saved me.
Speaker 1:A couple of times We've had people that said we used to work for the state and the state would have us do contracts also. But they would get three bids for and pick the lowest one. And in a couple one instance in particular we were working in yourlands and, um, the lady said you said you were going to do this, and she got furious and she called the company, not the company, the state board. That came in and we sat at the table in our house and the lady pulls out the contract, says where does it say that he's going to do whatever? And she said well, it's not in there. He said it. Well, she had three people go in to do a bid. She didn't remember.
Speaker 2:She didn't remember who did Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Put it what's on my contract? The state said it's not in here, he didn't charge for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's important, that's definitely important and, like I said, you know, that's one of the things we talk about a lot with when you choose it, because the contractor industry, I mean let's just be transparent it's the industry with the most great businesses, probably, and it's also the industry with the most bad actors out there as well. So let me just ask you.
Speaker 1:Is that something you see? Oh, open the door. Most of the contractors working in Lafayette are probably not licensed or insured. There are a lot of them that are, but a lot of them just go house to house. They don't follow the rules. They walk in your house and they fall down and break their hip. They sue you. I walk in the house, break my hip. I have insurance sort of by employees. They're licensed to do that. They're cheaper.
Speaker 2:They can be because they don't well, and that's something that you know, a lot of people don't necessarily. And you, when you you were kind of mentioning this with talking about the, the state award to the lowest bid, sometimes the lowest bid. You know the old, the old mantra if you get what you pay for, well, it's the lowest, because maybe the cost is the lowest, because there's a lot of things cut out on the front end that should be included, right? So you guys see this out there, which is another reason why it's so important, I guess, all the time To set yourself apart as a business that can be trusted and has the right and also we've been doing this for a while.
Speaker 2:I have a phone you go by phone.
Speaker 1:I've had the same phone in mind.
Speaker 2:God for 20 something years 20, 25, 30 years who was your original carrier? Um, but at&t it was really okay, wasn't like singular wireless or centennial wireless.
Speaker 1:This was in 1990, maybe I don't remember it, we started 34 years, 1990, maybe I don't remember that's 34 years, Steve 34.
Speaker 1:I called the lady and I said I need a phone number and she said something like 407. And I said, okay, I'm from Lafayette. I live on the south side of Lafayette, I deal with elderly people. They're going to see that number and have no idea where it is. I need a 984 number. She said okay, 984. And then she started going down the line and said do you have any easy ones? She said how about 0123? I like that. So my phone number is 0123. 9840123.
Speaker 2:And has been since I started. Very cool, very neat. So, talking about, you know your business, what you guys do, part of the reason we do this podcast is to as, as we worded, I think, in in in the intro segment you know, to kind of unveil what it takes to really run a business. You know a lot of people that have not been in upper management or owned a business don't realize the burden of running a business. It's great, but there's there's a different side of it, right, oh God?
Speaker 1:Rachel worked for the government. Most of it was about 15 years and then she came, we got married. She went to work for me. It's not the same. Working for yourself is great and terrible. Yeah, you have to kind of balance it. I love it. I've always basically worked for myself. I very seldom did I work for anybody else. I wouldn't work for somebody else very well because I don't know how to I wake up in the morning, go to work, sometimes seven days a week. I don't, I just keep going and this needs to be done.
Speaker 2:I go do it so a lot of times. When you own the business, I mean you are the business right. I mean you guys may be open 8 to 5, but what does Steve work?
Speaker 1:All the time when I go on vacation. The last vacation we went to was really nice because I completely didn't do anything for the business and we went to was really nice because I completely didn't do anything for the business and we went to Norway Wow. Which was really a nice trip, and we were there for about a week and a half, I think, and everything didn't fall apart.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you need that, though right, realize it's not going to fall apart. I can take my finger off the button for once, and the architecture there was fabulous, I bet it was.
Speaker 1:We went to Tromsø in Norway and. I had a blast. Yeah, I bet I mean.
Speaker 2:So we were just recently in Europe and you see architecture over there and you see we don't have that here right, there was a comedian that he said he was from Newbridge and Newbridge was built in the 1800s.
Speaker 2:Old Bridge was built in the 1400s Exactly, exactly. So, steve, outside of work, I know you're working all the time. You may be out doing something, not working, and immediately you see something that's applicable to work and just like that you're working. But when you're not working, what do you enjoy doing? What's some things that you're interested in or follow? You know I'm a pretty heavy sports fanatic almost any sport. What's something that Steve likes doing?
Speaker 1:Spending time with my wife All right when I can.
Speaker 2:Rachel, did you prepare him for that question? If he asked what you like to do?
Speaker 1:She used to travel. She's gotten ill over the last couple of years after COVID. She used to travel with me all the time We'd go out. There were times we left on. She used to. She would make all the appointments At that time. We were traveling all over the state. The first appointment in the morning was at 8 o'clock. Right Sometimes it was in Shreveport, so we'd get up early early in the morning and we'd be in treeport for eight and then we just work our way back down the state good memories, huh we had a blast.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was fun doing that over the years. It was really fun so you're from here.
Speaker 2:I mean bill platt, lafayette, all the same thing we've had. We've had people on the podcast that are not from here. Um, does potato salad go in the gumbo or not?
Speaker 1:no, not to me. No, the rice does, though, and okra so you like okra gumbo.
Speaker 2:I guess it's got to be the right okra gumbo. I don't know that. I've had a good one that's not slimy well, okra is actually the original gumbo.
Speaker 1:Okra was made for gumbo that's how they made the base right and over the years they came up with the roux. And then some people would okra in the gumbo. I like okra in the gumbo. Put a regular gumbo with okra in it but not the potato salad.
Speaker 2:I don't like potato salad oh, so you don't, do?
Speaker 1:you like potato salad? Okay, now I like eggs in the gumbo that's how my wife does it you crack the egg.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly right, exactly right. That's how she does it as well and then it absorbs with the flavor well steve.
Speaker 2:Last but not least, before we, before we wrap up, um, you know I want to thank you for being on the podcast, of course, thank you for what you guys do, rachel included, I know, um, your other half's just as important as you sitting here, and what you guys do, rachel included, I know your other half is just as important as you sitting here and what you guys are able to accomplish, of course, your support of BBB, not only as an accredited business, but as a board member. For those that aren't familiar, the Better Business Bureau is governed by our local board of directors, so we appreciate your commitment to that and our community, our Acadiana community. But what's something about you that we maybe didn't know or that I didn't ask, that you want to share?
Speaker 1:Hmm, I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Something unique about you, maybe Something that nobody would ever guess.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you a story about my mom. My mother's sick right now.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:She's in the hospital. My father died when I was six.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:He supposedly got lost in a beautiful triangle but the ship sank. So my mother had three sons at the time I was the oldest and two others she had not finished high school. She went back to high school. She got a nursing degree from TH Harris and worked at Lafayette General Police Department for things. She eventually went to work for a man that did home health agency. He passed away. She started one called Dynacare. Dynacare was huge. At one time she had over 100 employees.
Speaker 2:Like I said earlier, I recall that name, Like I've heard it.
Speaker 1:She had about 100 employees.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Eventually she sold it and she retired, but she had three boys. We're all successful. We had no father. Unfortunately, none of us are in jail. We all work, we all support ourselves.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a great story about her.
Speaker 1:It's due to her.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you definitely um you know prayers for her health. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:And that kind of story, you know is is what people need to hear. Right, steve, sitting here as a business owner that's doing great things for people in Acadiana, and this wasn't necessarily created for you and you just walked into it. You know this was something you had to create and you know, despite I don't want to say a challenged upbringing, but one that of course, had some adversity, with your father passing away when you were six and a single mother, a three boys widow that's, you know, didn't finish high school and went to make a career for herself. Right, it's a touching story that you're sharing.
Speaker 1:She did a fabulous job.
Speaker 2:I'd say, Steve, You're an upstanding guy. We appreciate everything you do and your support of the BBB for sure. Thank you for doing great things, being licensed and treating consumers right we know. Thank you for doing great things, being licensed and treating consumers right we try. Thank you for being here, Steve.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I really hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you so much for joining us To help support the show. Please like, share, follow us on whatever podcast application or even on YouTube, wherever you caught this episode at. If you want to find out more about the Better Business Bureau, you can contact us 337-981-3497. You can find us on social media, BBB Acadiana and, as always, you can go to BBBorg for any information you're looking for. See you next time. Thank you so much for joining us.