Episode 47

Building Business with Borton Construction

About BizCast Greater La Crosse

We bring you news from the business community. From startups to experienced problem solvers, you’ll get in-depth insight on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Greater La Crosse. Our show is a collaboration between WIZMNews.com and BizNews Greater La Crosse ( GreaterLaCrosse.media ).

Summary

In this episode of BizCast Greater La Crosse, host Vicki Markussen interviews Paul Borsheim, one of the owners of Borton Construction. They talk about how working for one construction company lead to breaking off into Borton Construction. The key to their growth is relationship building. You’ll learn about the challenges with building industry, having a philosophical mindset, including the rewards of coaching freshman boys basketball.

Full Transcript [ generated by AI]

,[00:00:00] Paul Borsheim: figuring out ways to be more productive. And creative has really been the challenge, over the years on how can we do this quicker, better, more efficient better on the energy side. That’s always been kind of emphasis in my mind.

[00:00:18] Vicki Markussen: Welcome to BizCast Greater La Crosse, a weekly podcast from Biz News. We bring you news from the business community. I am your host and founder, Vicki Markussen. My guest today is Paul Borsheim. You are a co owner of Borton Construction, and Borton actually means something. 

[00:00:41] Paul Borsheim: Sure. So Borton Construction was started in 1999 with my partner, Doug Stanton. Doug and I were working for a local company, TCI, Architects, Engineers, Contractors. And I was a project manager and Doug was a field superintendent. We’re working up to Triple Falls doing a Gordy’s expansion in downtown Triple Falls, and it was our first time working together, and I was really impressed with Doug’s skills to manage the on-site job, and in particular, the fact that he really understood not just our work as far as doing concrete demo, carpentry work, but he understood the excavator’s job, he understood the HVAC contractor’s job, and he was really a student of his profession.

[00:01:29] Paul Borsheim: And he would go after work and talk to these people about explain to me your drawings, explain what you’re doing, and really self-educated himself. He started out as a laborer at Peter Nelson, eventually became a successful business owner. That really impressed me that someone would go to those lengths to teach themselves.

[00:01:53] Paul Borsheim: And I said, I know the office side of things, the estimating, the project management. You know, the safety, the equipment, how to work with subcontractors really well. There’s probably 20 percent of the business that we really don’t understand, meaning like the insurance and the banking and, legal type stuff and But I said, we got a lot of great contacts and people in our community that we can surround ourselves with to figure that out.

[00:02:21] Paul Borsheim: And so we took a leap of faith in 1999 and decided to go into commercial construction, which surprisingly our first project was to build a residential house. You’ll

[00:02:34] Vicki Markussen: take what you can get. You

[00:02:36] Paul Borsheim: can take what you can get. And we started, decided to start our business in it was October. Of 99, which, usually you wouldn’t want to start your construction at that time of year.

[00:02:48] Paul Borsheim: So for the first six months, we were working on the house. We had one employee, Troy Overgaard come with us. Troy was an apprenticeship. Carpenter Apprentice. And Troy’s actually still with us. He’s one of our top employees, superintendents. And so we started that and then through some of the contacts, business contacts I had one of them being Jim Webb that I used to work with.

[00:03:12] Paul Borsheim: Jim got us involved with the addition and remodeling down at Schmidty’s. Oh! So, which has kind of obviously been in the news lately. Yeah! And we’ve done, just a couple of years ago, we did a renovation of the bar area, so they’ve been a long time customer of ours and I actually was out in the field for the first six months.

[00:03:31] Paul Borsheim: So I actually poured some of the footings and slabs and worked on the poured walls. That really got a taste of what it is to be in the field instead of just the office. And then we also got in with Jim doing some work at Cooktrip bakery at the time. And, just those little projects, they weren’t real big projects necessarily.

[00:03:51] Paul Borsheim: But, it just morphed into people seeing our name and building a reputation. I think the biggest thing for us was I had a relationship with PFM, which was a professional food service management, they did the work. They were the food service contractor at UWL, and their headquarters happened to be in La Crosse.

[00:04:15] Paul Borsheim: A gentleman, Steve Muhlenberg, was a designer for them. And Doug and I said we were willing to travel. And they had about 10, 12 campuses around the Midwest. And we were going to Eau Claire, going to River Falls, Whitewater for them. And it really opened up the door for us in that niche.

[00:04:39] Paul Borsheim: And it wasn’t too many years later they got bought out by Chartwell’s Food Service. Which is an international company. This was many years ago. They were multi-billion dollars. Their headquarters is in London. Their U. S. headquarters is in Charlotte. Over the years, we expanded with them to work in, I think the last count was about 15 Midwestern states, so we’ve become their exclusive contractor in the Midwest.

[00:05:09] Paul Borsheim: They had different regions, and they’d have a contractor in each region. When you’re doing those type of projects, you have 10 to 12 weeks in the summer. to get a project done. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a 300, 000 job or a 3 million job. You just gotta man it up and understand the student athletes to get back on August 1st, and they’re gonna be hungry.

[00:05:33] Paul Borsheim: So, it better be done. And I think it was a really, it fit Doug and I, our personality really well. We always prided ourselves on getting projects done on time, on budget, and even though we’re very, I consider ourselves a small to medium-sized company, and you’re dealing with this multi-billion dollar company, they understood the service that we brought to them and they didn’t have headaches on our projects where a lot of other regions they had fairly significant headaches and projects wouldn’t be done on time, they’d be way over budget, and so we’ve been working for them for Probably 23 years now of our 25 years in business.

[00:06:17] Paul Borsheim: And as people move around in that field, now we also work for Fresh Ideas which is a smaller food service company based out of Columbia, Missouri. And we probably do three, four projects a year for them. And, it just continues to evolve, and the food service is one of our niches.

[00:06:39] Paul Borsheim: And because of that experience, a banker friend of mine, Mike Nickel at Ultra, introduced us to Mark and Eric Fortney. That’s what a lot of people know on Brothers Bar and Grill. And about 10, 11 years ago they’ve been managing their own projects, Mark and Eric, and literally on site putting in flooring coordinating the subcontractors.

[00:07:03] Paul Borsheim: Once you get to a certain size, it’s difficult to do that and then run the business. And they realized they needed to look at their projects differently. And Mike introduced us, because of our food service experience, to Mark and Eric, and said, Why don’t you give these guys a try? And from that reference, our first project with them was at Notre Dame.

[00:07:27] Paul Borsheim: It’s like, nothing like starting out at a very renowned institution. And it was literally like, right next to campus, a project, a campus that asked them to come to be by campus. And they’ve been a longtime client now. We’re working for them out at Penn State. Their first time in Pennsylvania.

[00:07:49] Paul Borsheim: We got a crew in Indianapolis right now working doing some renovations. There’s a lot of Big Ten events there in Indianapolis they have a couple stores there, so it, it just evolves over time and you build those relationships. fast forward about 19 years, uh, Just a few.

[00:08:09] Paul Borsheim: My partner Doug who’s a little bit older than me, decided that, he wanted to slow down go farming, which was always a passion of his, and we were fortunate enough, we had a couple project managers, Dan Miller and Jim Fink, that we were very high on, and we’re grooming to become owners.

[00:08:29] Paul Borsheim: They decided that yep, they wanted to move into that role. And Jim and Dan became owners as part of Wharton. And really expanded their roles. Dan’s basically director of operations, even though he’s still a project manager. And, really through COVID, I don’t think I could have gotten through it without their support and them really stepping up and figuring it out together.

[00:08:56] Paul Borsheim: So you didn’t want to

[00:08:58] Vicki Markussen: become, what would it be? Borton Inker? Borton Inker? To add the other partners into the name? No. No. No, that doesn’t come off the tongue

[00:09:08] Paul Borsheim: very well. No. So I don’t know that I said this, but Borton came from, my last name’s Borsheim, the B O R, and then Doug Stanton, the T O N, so we combined those two to create Borton Construction.

[00:09:21] Paul Borsheim: One of the reasons we like that is because B is early in the alphabet. And when you start searching for stuff, that helps. It And it took us a while to get into the social media and doing those type of things. Once we embrace it, my wife, Melissa, does a lot of our work with social media.

[00:09:41] Paul Borsheim: It’s amazing how many comments I get about projects or pictures or notice that one of our superintendents, Charlie, does something at the school every year with his kids, where he brings some of our construction equipment over there. So it shows the elementary kids, there’s different professions you can get into.

[00:09:59] Paul Borsheim: So yeah, we get a lot of feedback from that and my concern at the beginning was is this really gonna get us more work? And I think there’s a lot because even our employees make comments. Oh, I didn’t know we were working here. You know, they follow it. They like it. The public likes it They have definitely had people say, I was checking you guys out online and Facebook and your website, and people are intrigued by what are you doing?

[00:10:29] Paul Borsheim: Not just what you’re building, but. Different things that you’re involved in, so it’s pretty cool.

[00:10:33] Vicki Markussen: People love before and afters, and if they are not patronizing those businesses or whatever, because you also get to go in places that people don’t, so there are businesses that some of us just don’t need to go into, but to see you do a significant office remodel, I mean that, those visuals.

[00:10:51] Vicki Markussen: Spark interest. It’s similar to my pray to home days, right? So I always would say, Oh my gosh, pray to home always makes me want to go home and change a million things. And it’s true of the stories that you can tell through social media of, Oh, look at what happened to this building that someone had a great idea for, and you helped make it.

[00:11:12] Vicki Markussen: come to

[00:11:13] Paul Borsheim: life. Absolutely. It one of the things that really has transformed kind of our business from when I started was the using a program called Bama Rivet and where you can basically, when you design a building, go 3D and start walking through it and show a customer what it’s truly going to look like.

[00:11:35] Paul Borsheim: What I’ve found over the years is 99 percent of the people out there cannot envision when you show them a floor plan, or sometimes even an elevation, what it’s truly going to look like. And back 20 years ago, people were, they’d say, oh yeah, that looks good, let’s do it. And then you get out there, you build it, and they’re like, that’s not what I thought we were building.

[00:11:58] Paul Borsheim: And which was frustrating because obviously, you want to meet their expectations. So probably 12 to 15 years ago, I started working with an architect, Kai Haller. Met him through Mike Kyle. Mike’s wife, Karen. We were doing a project for her. She was doing a women’s clinic and her brother is Kai.

[00:12:22] Paul Borsheim: And Kai started showing us all these new Computer programs and things that he could do in 3D and I’m like, Kai, I need to bring you, and this kind of goes full circle, into these meetings with the universities where we’re doing this work. Because the tools you’re showing me Again, most of these people don’t understand what they’re getting.

[00:12:46] Paul Borsheim: I said, this is going to help sell projects. And so I brought Kai into our team doing those type of projects. And he fully embraced, learning the food service business. Because there’s a lot of code things. There’s a lot of equipment things to learn. And man, when we get to a presentation level now, And show them a walkthrough in 3D.

[00:13:14] Paul Borsheim: Very rarely is a project not sold in that meeting. It’s been a very powerful tool. So then we’ve obviously adapted that to all the work projects that we work on. And part of it because we’re a design build contractor, we’re involved from the kind of the con conception of what are you looking for and working with the designer and the owner to really.

[00:13:39] Paul Borsheim: Customize. Customize. Yeah. And so we’re really able to help guide that process. And facilitate it and give them our wisdom and experience so that we can build them a better mall strap.

[00:13:53] Vicki Markussen: Yeah, so let’s talk about your process, your business. I think people see buildings go up and have no idea. What is happening behind the scenes?

[00:14:02] Vicki Markussen: So obviously they know there’s some subcontractors working there. And so what do you do in house? What do you subcontract for? And how do you decide that?

[00:14:14] Paul Borsheim: That’s a really good question. When Doug and I started the business, we came from a union background. Doug, as I mentioned earlier, Doug was a laborer. After 10, 12 years of being a laborer, he became a union carpenter, again, expanding his knowledge, and we, we felt strongly that we wanted to stay in the union, so we are signatory to laborers and carpenters.

[00:14:37] Paul Borsheim: And part of it for us was we want to make sure that our guys have a living wage, and they can go buy a new truck. They can send their kids to college, but they also work hard. They also have very, they have skills. We found because we’ve kept ourself at a certain size, we do a lot of cross-training.

[00:14:56] Paul Borsheim: So we have about anywhere from 40 to 60 employees in the field, and it still has that family feel to it. And with that, for the process, then. We’ll do anywhere from demolition to concrete work to metal stud framing, installation, and carpentry rough and finish type work. And then we surround ourselves with really good partners as far as subcontractors.

[00:15:24] Paul Borsheim: So we have relationships with, let’s say for example, three or four electricians. And certain types of projects might be the one-man guy. A bigger project might be a Kish & Sons. Maybe more of a design build. Or a certain type of project might be P& T Electric that we work with. We have a lot of relationships in the community and understand the guys that kinda have our same philosophies.

[00:15:52] Paul Borsheim: And understand we’re looking out for everybody. We’re not trying to stick it to anyone. We gotta get this project done on time. When we ask you to be there on Monday because we need it roughed in so we can pour the slab on Wednesday. They understand that, and they make sure it’s done. I think that’s part of what makes us unique, is that when we give a client a date, progress on our jobs, and they get done a lot quicker than most construction projects that you see.

[00:16:19] Vicki Markussen: I think a lot of people forget that And unless they’ve built a home or something of that nature, so a general contractor, there are a lot of businesses depending, if you will, on you getting business the people that have regular relationships with you. And it’s everything from carpet to paint to you know, most of us do think of electricians and plumbers, but it could be the wiring for conference systems, HVACs, like depending on the project, it could be.

[00:16:50] Vicki Markussen: kitchen equipment. There’s a lot of businesses that are dependent on you. And one of your strategies is, I’m guessing because labor is so tight, how do you keep people and families as you talk about, these are families with kids and they, are out in the community. How do you keep them employed?

[00:17:09] Vicki Markussen: Is there a strategy behind that as we head into winter?

[00:17:13] Paul Borsheim: That’s a great question, Vicki. Part of what when I worked at TCI Chris Weiss and Jeff Towner, the owners, they started to get involved in development right about the time I started in the late 80s with Crossing Meadows. And one of the advantages I saw to that is that it allows you to bank some work to say, we have this bubble of work in the summer, and now I want to do this development.

[00:17:41] Paul Borsheim: And they take a long time to percolate. And it’s if we can start this project in September, that’s going to give our workforce work through the winter. And sometimes, when I first started, there was a much more seasonal aspect to construction. January, February were pretty slow.

[00:18:05] Paul Borsheim: Unless you had a little bit of indoor work, you really, A lot of guys got laid off. The last couple winters, probably the last three or four winters, I don’t know that we’ve had anybody laid off. One, there’s been a lot of work available, but over the years, we’ve really figured out how to build through the winter.

[00:18:25] Paul Borsheim: For example, last winter, and it wasn’t necessarily intentional, but couldn’t, because of financing, we couldn’t start an affordable housing project in Eau Claire until August. So on that particular project, we were framing the walls and setting trusses in December, January, February, and built through the winter.

[00:18:48] Paul Borsheim: Now, it was abnormal from the standpoint, we lost 20 days to weather last year. And it was the third-snowiest winter on record in Eau Claire. And we had a lot of snow. But typically, we’re down to maybe missing three to five days a year in the winter because of the weather. When we see a storm coming or something, maybe we work an extra hour so that guys get their hours, get a full paycheck.

[00:19:16] Paul Borsheim: If we can move some work indoors, we move it indoors. The clothing is so much better. Some of the ways we do things, a lot of times now, say it on a lot of multifamily, you don’t see it going up stick framing and you’re seeing it going up panelized. So you have better control of building the panels, and you’re erecting them instead of building them, which is a lot easier to do in the

[00:19:38] Vicki Markussen: winter.

[00:19:39] Vicki Markussen: Right. So you can put up four walls in a fraction of the time of trying to stick build it on site. Correct. Yeah.

[00:19:45] Paul Borsheim: So, for example, like we get walls, and they can be anywhere from 10 to 16 foot long. It comes off a semi, and we hoist it up with a crane. We set that wall in 15 minutes. That wall, to build that wall, and build the headers, and figure out the math, and the openings, and all that, you might have been there for two, three hours, just getting all that laid out, nailed, and ready to set up.

[00:20:12] Paul Borsheim: Figuring out ways to be more productive. And creative has really been the challenge, which I enjoy, and I think our guys enjoy over the years on how can we do this quicker, better, more efficient better on the energy side. That’s always been kind of emphasis in my mind.

[00:20:33] Paul Borsheim: You’re definitely seeing more insulation in the walls. Part of it too is the codes continue to change. Just when you think you know everything, there’s a whole new set of codes.

[00:20:43] Paul Borsheim: I was just talking to Mark and Rick Schneider today, and there’s new refrigeration codes coming out the first of January 2025, which means all the equipment, these factories are retooling. And the costs are going to go up. Yeah,

[00:21:04] Vicki Markussen: it’s always more costly and harder to do.

[00:21:06] Paul Borsheim: Yes. Right, and it makes the lead times longer also.

[00:21:10] Vicki Markussen: Yes. What’s interesting. is, as you talk about becoming more efficient, I think about whoever started creating the panelized walls was ingenious because they can build those indoors. So it’s easier to recruit talent. You don’t have to use as many people on site to do that work.

[00:21:30] Vicki Markussen: How does that help you with labor? Because everyone talks about the need for people to go into the trades. What does that look like for you trying to recruit people?

[00:21:42] Paul Borsheim: In the past, like when I started in. We were really coming off of era in the eighties that was very difficult for construction.

[00:21:53] Paul Borsheim: There was a lot of companies that folded. There was an abundance of workers because we were talking 18, 19 percent interest. So there was not a lot built. And at that time there was plenty of labor. And you call up the union hall. Yeah, we got plenty of guys for you. Fast-forward 20 years and we’ve started to recruit in college.

[00:22:17] Paul Borsheim: wE’ve had one particular individual for three years. He’s going to Iowa State, started with us as a freshman. And we’ll be graduating. But now, just in the last couple of years, not only our company, but a lot of our cohorts are working with the local schools and I’ve always gone and spoke to engineering classes or construction trade classes at Logan Central different schools and now there’s starting apprenticeship and job shadowing.

[00:22:51] Paul Borsheim: I just had a gentleman in from the La Crosse School District this week. And I was really impressed with what they’re trying to do with the local employers and getting the students job shadow opportunities, and it’s kind of a mini interview as you said. Is this a kid that I’d like to hire or get on this career path and they’re trying to help the kids figure out what do they want to do.

[00:23:15] Paul Borsheim: A lot of the employees we hire is this guy knows this guy, or this guy’s son is coming up, or daughter, and that’s been the traditional way. But we’re needing to reach out as employers more and more to find that next generation of talent. At 25 years, that’s one of the things that’s really become apparent the last 4 or 5 years is, we’re having guys that were some of our first employees retire.

[00:23:41] Paul Borsheim: And we’re making an emphasis of training our next generation of leaders. And I’ve been very impressed with them. Our younger generation is embracing it. Not everyone’s cut out to be a supervisor. Figuring that out. Getting the confidence in their feet underneath them. They really don’t need to know all the technical stuff.

[00:24:03] Paul Borsheim: They just need to know what they don’t know and ask questions, and that’s even how I’ve looked at my role change over the years is I look at myself more as a mentor. Not only with my office staff, but my field staff too, trying to keep like during COVID keeping people calm.

[00:24:23] Paul Borsheim: Reassuring them, we sat there on that first Friday when the country started shutting down and I looked at my Office staff and I said, I don’t know if we’re working monday because Are we I forget the term non

[00:24:37] Vicki Markussen: essential or essential?

[00:24:39] Paul Borsheim: Yeah, are we non essential or not? And fortunately we were able to go to work monday, but you just never knew if all of a sudden could that status change?

[00:24:49] Paul Borsheim: and that would have been very difficult. And granted, there was a lot of uncertainty during the whole time period, our guys in the office and field really stepped up and we figured our way through it.

[00:25:03] Vicki Markussen: iT’s interesting, and everybody knows this, everything changed, right?

[00:25:07] Vicki Markussen: You’re looking at supply shortages. You’re looking at customers significantly disrupted. You probably had projects that got backed out of. New projects that you didn’t see coming, come forward. How would you Say the market is right now for commercial construction.

[00:25:24] Paul Borsheim: I’ve been kind of wrong for the last three years and what my predictions are.

[00:25:29] Paul Borsheim: However, I think I have a fairly good pulse on it right now. From the standpoint, it is softening a little bit because of the higher interest rates, seven and a half, 8 percent construction costs through COVID and because of COVID. It went up pretty dramatically. The largest jump I’ve seen in 25 years.

[00:25:49] Paul Borsheim: Construction costs went up 30 to 40 percent. Yeah. That, and I really thought as that was happening that a lot more projects would be shut down. But what it’s really made us do is be more creative. Maybe tighten the projects up a little bit as far as how big they were, or what the plan was for them.

[00:26:10] Paul Borsheim: There’s, but at the end of the day, I find a lot of resiliency with entrepreneurs and figuring it out. Figuring out with them, one market that’s expanded, and I think is going to continue to be strong is the multifamily. We first got in that business back in 2005, 2006, doing some condos at Three Rivers Plaza.

[00:26:37] Paul Borsheim: But it’s really been a backbone for us probably for the last five years. We’re doing one to two multifamily projects a year. Obviously, there’s a huge housing shortage out there, shortage of apartments and there’s definitely challenges trying to make the numbers work, but it’s definitely a market that’s going to continue, during COVID, obviously restaurants, food service.

[00:27:03] Paul Borsheim: They had to change, they had to adapt. Some people did, with carryouts pick up, just different ways. But now that business is starting to come back for us, people, there’s definitely an entrepreneurial spirit in our country. And people continue to want to own businesses, start them up.

[00:27:26] Paul Borsheim: I think they realize there’s a lot of challenges with it, but, it’s very rewarding. Somebody’s able to start a restaurantand get that feedbackand run it successfully. Obviously, we’ve had a couple lately closed down, but, we’re talking to people about new restaurants and remodeling and there’s still a lot of optimism out there.

[00:27:45] Vicki Markussen: And as it’s not cheap to build a restaurant.

[00:27:47] Vicki Markussen: And restaurants

[00:27:48] Paul Borsheim: are very expensive, and the kitchen is that hub, and you can spend 40, 000 to 80, 000 just on a hood system. Wow. And the equipment a combi oven might be 30, 000. It’s nothing, it’s not surprising from my end, that if a total project is two or three million, you might have half of that in your kitchen.

[00:28:08] Paul Borsheim: Yeah. Equipment, and granted over time, equipment wears out, and you have a lot of maintenance, but yeah, to convert the Perkins from a restaurant into a car dealership and, is an unusual conversion. Usually, you see those projects continue as a restaurant, maybe a different type of restaurant because that’s your most value for repurposing a building.

[00:28:32] Vicki Markussen: Let’s switch to community involvement. Yeah. Borton is very involved in the community. Why is that of value to your business?

[00:28:42] Paul Borsheim: We don’t look at our involvement as here’s a return.

[00:28:45] Paul Borsheim: It’s really giving back. I think a lot of that came from my parents. As I was raised to get involved in your community, get involved at church, worry about people that are less fortunate than yourself. anD it really got cemented with working for Chris and Jeff. They were very, they stressed in their mind the importance of getting involved in the community.

[00:29:12] Paul Borsheim: I got involved in Rotary when I was there. I’ve always had that instilled in me. And it morphed into joining the Boys and Girls Club board, and eventually a coach.

[00:29:24] Paul Borsheim: Been involved in the Eco Park through Rotary. Then joined the mail board, which was unique to have a contractor learning a lot about healthcare. My dad worked there for 30, 35 years, so I thought it was a unique way for me to give back and understand the business better and, there’s It’s a very, all the boards I’ve been on are volunteer boards.

[00:29:47] Paul Borsheim: Nobody gets paid. There’s a lot of time commitment. There’s a lot of people that donate to those causes because you’re passionate about it. I think a lot of it also has to do with just the time and talent and bringing your wisdom to those boards. And then obviously, when you can, you’re donating financially.

[00:30:07] Paul Borsheim: But, I’ve tried to instill that in my employees too, that, if there’s something that you’re passionate about outside, let’s, We want to support those type of things in the community. That’s part of what makes our community. And we’re pretty blessed in this community with all the people that think that way.

[00:30:26] Vicki Markussen: Absolutely. So that ties in well with my common closer question. What makes you passionate about what you do?

[00:30:34] Paul Borsheim: I really like the enjoyment of when you can take a project from concept. Here’s what I’d like to do. And when you’re done, talk to the client.

[00:30:47] Paul Borsheim: You really exceeded our expectations. We weren’t even thinking about X, Y, and Z as we first thought about this project. And because we were able to think about those other things. It’s a better project, and it helps our business, and they’re able to grow and expand. So one of our taglines over the years was helping build success.

[00:31:11] Paul Borsheim: It’s not worried about our success, it’s worried about our client’s success, our employee’s success. And I think our clients really get the experience that we’re looking out for them. And by looking out for them, good things are going to happen for us. And I think that’s what makes me passionate is when we connect with clients, and they feel that.

[00:31:37] Paul Borsheim: And, the best thing that can happen is a client calls us back up and says, I was so happy with you. I got another project. And I won’t go anywhere except Borden. Or, I’ve got a friend that wants to build this, and I already told him. You need to hire Borden, and this is why. That’s all that’s music to my ears.

[00:31:58] Paul Borsheim: And at that point, I know that we’re doing things right. When you

[00:32:02] Vicki Markussen: have that word of mouth power, that’s working for you. That’s amazing. I’m going to re ask that question about passion because you are the coach for the Logan boys. Freshman team, correct? That’s correct. So I’m always a big advocate for coaching.

[00:32:18] Vicki Markussen: My husband was a coach for many years as well. So what makes you passionate about coaching?

[00:32:23] Paul Borsheim: Oh, wow. I think it’s really seeing, starting with freshmen. I like that level. And I think part of the reason I like that level is because a lot of the kids are still learning the game.

[00:32:36] Paul Borsheim: They’re learning about themselves. They’re learning how to keep their emotions in check. And, when we can take, so we’ve got some degree of blank slate. There’s something there to start with. But, when you can take a young man or young lady, and have a group of them understand how to play as a team, and support each other.

[00:33:03] Paul Borsheim: That’s really rewarding for me. I had a game a couple years ago where I was able to sit back and stop coaching the game. And I sat there with Mike Poellinger who was an assistant coach with me, and it’s like, Mike, this is perfect. They’re doing everything they’re supposed to do, and we don’t have to tell them.

[00:33:26] Paul Borsheim: And that was like the most rewarding game I ever had. And to try to every year, you’re starting from scratch every year, trying to get those kids to understand how to play, how to play as a team. And once they start doing that, you see the reward on their end. And they become better friends, better students.

[00:33:50] Paul Borsheim: And

[00:33:51] Vicki Markussen: they’re

[00:33:51] Paul Borsheim: watching out for each other, right? That’s what I enjoy about it. And some years are tougher than others, but every year you see that development in these kids. And at the end of the day, you’re trying to make them be a positive role model in their life and have them successful in life. I think you’re helping set that foundation.

[00:34:12] Vicki Markussen: Absolutely. That’s a good way to end it. You have been listening to BizCast Greater La Crosse. That was Paul Borsheim, one of the owners of Borton Construction. I’m your host, Vicki Markussen. We’ll catch you next week.