This article originally appeared in the Ontario Construction Report, and was written by James W.A. Raiswell, Editor

The story of John Gordon Construction traces its roots back to 1911, where the Entwistle family of Cornwall, ON founded the business. In those days, it was known as John Entwistle Construction and remained so until Bob and Darlene Donaher assumed control of the business in 1995.

For more than 80 years John Entwistle Construction built a solid name for itself in Eastern Ontario by providing quality general construction and roofing work to customers in almost every corner of the industry. It was through a commitment to quality work that word of mouth spread and John Entwistle Construction became known one of the leaders in construction in the Cornwall area.

The Donahers first crossed paths with the Entwistle family in 1985, when Bob and Darlene began working for the business, Bob as a general construction superintendent and Darlene as the business' controller. But in the early 1990s, as the recession began to take a chokehold on the construction industry in Canada, the Entwistle family looked towards retirement.

For Bob and Darlene, the opportunity was almost too good to pass up. They made an offer to purchase the business from the Entwistle family and never looked back.

"My background has always been in construction and Darlene's expertises are with accounting, so from that standpoint, the decision just made sense," says Bob. "We wanted to become our own bosses for a change and this was the right opportunity for us at the right time."

Assuming control of an established business during a recession is a challenging prospect for any entrepreneur, but what helped the Donahers get through the first few years was the backing of a strong team of employees, many of whom today have been with the firm for 15 or more years and the solid track record the firm had built up over the decades.

Apart from Bob and Darlene, key members of the 16-person John Gordon Construction team include: project manager and estimator, Dan Desjardins, who has more than 27 years' worth of experience; general trades superintendent Don Brownell, a licenced carpenter with more than 23 years of experience and roofing superintendent Wayne Derochie, one of the most experienced and knowledgeable roofers in Eastern Ontario, who brings more than 30 years of experience to the table.

It's rare that John Gordon Construction (renamed when the Donahers took over) goes out to the open market to pursue contracts. More often that not (about 95 per cent of the time, says Bob) the firm takes contracts from repeat customers, for all types of work, from maintenance work to restorations, new construction or roofing.

"We have some customers who date back more than 30 years," Darlene explains. "They will call us back because they were so happy with the work we originally did for them. The company's reputation was a key advantage for us when we considered buying. In a way, it's also the most challenging aspects of the company as well - maintaining that good reputation."

John Gordon Construction works in a variety of fields and is as flexible as possible when it comes to working with their clients. While the firm offers the full range of residential, industrial, commercial and institutional construction services, as well as complete turnkey design-build services, from developing architectural and engineered drawings to the complete exterior and interior construction of the facility, the lion's share of its work, says Bob, comes in the form of maintenance contracts and renovation/restoration work in the industrial sector.

"Unlike some other firms, we don't really have a slower period of work during the winter," Bob explains. "That's because a lot of our contracts are in industrial plants. The winter is their slowdown or shut down season, which means that we move in to take care of any maintenance work or construction work that needs to be done.

"Of course, we have to work around the client's schedule and our team understands that. For these clients, production outweighs construction and if we are to service them, we have to stick to their schedules."

John Gordon Construction has recently been on site at Kraft Foods' plant in Ingleside, Ontario, where the team completed the unloading and installation of an expansion silo. They were also integral in relocating the plant office of the Richmond Division of Meridian Operations from Summerstown, Ontario to Long Sault, Ontario, including on-site preparation and renovation of their new 130,000-square-foot facility.

The team has also completed work for the ICT Group, a Pennsylvania-based call centre management firm. John Gordon Construction was involved in the construction of their new call centre outlet in Lindsay Ontario, where they constructed a 16,000-square-foot facility for ICT and is currently working in Peterborough on a new 30,000-square-foot building for the same client.

"We have also done a lot of work with three of the school boards in the Cornwall area," says Bob, "as well as a good deal of work with heritage properties, like the St. James Church in Avonmore, which involved stabilization of the church roof, masonry repairs, and painting and sealing."

John Gordon crews were also on site at the Trinity Anglican Church in Cornwall to conduct roof and wall stabilization, as well as at the Brockville Jail where they reconstructed the verandas of the 150-year old jail keeper's house and in Williamstown where they conducted renovations to the Sir John Johnston House.

"Any site within an hour's commute of Cornwall is local for us, any further away and we feel it's too far a field," Bob says.

But as much as the firm conducts renovation and new construction work in the ICI sector, Darlene says the company's strength is its roofing division. John Gordon Construction is certified by all the major manufacturers in the roofing business and offers a 15-year warrantee of all its work - one of the best of its kind in the industry. Their team will tackle jobs of any shape or size and offers the full spectrum of roofing services, including retrofits, restoration and preventative maintenance, as well as the ability to manage every possible roofing project, from roof surveys to reports and client budgeting.

"We have the experience of working will almost all types of roofing systems, including one-ply, two-ply and four-ply roofs, build-up roofing, and metal roofing systems, among others," says Bob.

Two currents underlie the work that John Gordon Construction does on every site. The first is a commitment to customer service. It's their goal always to create repeat business and the team does this by meeting the client's schedule, through using quality materials, and ensuring that the client is involved in all aspects of decision-making on the job.

The second commitment at John Gordon Construction is to site safety. General construction itself is a dangerous enough profession, but when you factor in also the element of roofing work, the job becomes doubly dangerous. For that reason, the company and its employees have created a contract of sorts. The company has promised to provide its employees with the safest possible working environment and the employees, in turn, have promised to work as safely as possible on behalf of the company. It's an agreement that Bob and Darlene and the rest of the team take very seriously.

"We have a written, signed document between ourselves and the team that describes our safety policy. We always make sure our training is more up to date than just what the basic standards call for and we're proud to have been accident free for the past four years," says Bob.

Down the road, Bob and Darlene says they are looking forward to continuing the trend of modest increases in their capacity and bottom line that they have enjoyed since they started in business. They are not interested in taking giant steps towards becoming the biggest firm in town, preferring to take only the jobs they feel they can manage and the ones in which they feel they can best service their clientele.

"Dan and Don are always pushing us to pursue new opportunities and to change our focuses somewhat. That is how we got involved with residential work," says Bob. "We enjoy the fact that our whole team is so committed to driving forward the company."

Building on a track record of more than 90 years' worth of quality work is no small task, but the Donahers are prepared to continue the good name and tradition of John Gordon Construction throughout Eastern Ontario.

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