Ricky Powderly has worked in the construction industry for 25 years, including eleven years in San Francisco and six years in Boston before returning to Ireland for family reasons nearly ten years ago. He found the construction industry in both countries to be vastly different.
"Twenty-five years ago I studied in Bolton street and completed an engineering diploma. After College I worked in the commerical side of the construction industry in heating and ventilation but after a few years I emigrated to the US."
At the time Mr Powderly's father and brothers ran a construction company in San Franciso. While he was there he changed his focus to building residential homes. Straight away he noticed that the attitude was different in the US, "The main difference between working in the US and Ireland is the quality of life, people there have much more money to spend."
Mr Powderly explained that in the US customers had much more disposable income to pay for exactly what they wanted. "Price was not the main issue, but instead quality. If you did the job right people would phone you back for the next job."
This attitude to construction work laid the foundation to how Mr Powderly would set up his own company when he came back to Ireland. "At the time in Ireland it was difficult to get a builder to come out and price work. Customers would be surprised when you actually turned up!
"Seeing some of the work out there at the time, to be honest, it was very very shoddy. The big thing I tried to do with the company was to do the job so that people would be happy to bring you back, try and always keep the customer happy.
"Some of the stuff especially for the home remodelling, the customer might want the builder to tile a back splash on a counter top; the tiler would do the job and leave it with the electricals hanging out. The type of attitude was 'its not my job'.
"At the time you could definitely see a niche for a company that finishes a job completely and didn't walk away until the customer was completely happy."
In the year 2000 Mr Powderly returned to Ireland and set up a company to fill this niche.
He explained, "Value for money isn't the cheapest job. When there is a problem you want the guy who is going to sit there and sort it out, not just walk away or look for an arm and a leg to fix the problem."
Since his return to Ireland Mr Powderly has again been involved in big projects such as complete home builds but more recently he has also completed smaller projects such as putting up shelves or fitting doors.
"Although things are a bit slower at the moment there is still a lot of people doing little bits and pieces which I am happy to do. We strive to keep the customer happy for all jobs."
If you do decide to employ Mr Powderly's firm Morehome Construction don't expect an American accent, "People say to me, '17 years in America and you don't have an American accent.' I reply when you are on the building sites over there you don't meet too many Americans."
If you want to contact Mr Powderly about a project call him on the Epoch Times 24/7 Goods and Services number 1800 848-414.
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