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Owner Rob Smith is KTVN’s Someone 2 Know this week. Watch the full feature below!
KTVN Channel 2 – Reno Tahoe Sparks News, Weather, Video
Our Someone 2 Know moved to the region shortly after college and has 23 years’ experience in the construction industry – and says despite the current slowdown, he believes northern Nevada will continue growing.
Working closely with sub-contractors on a job site is all in a day’s work for Rob Smith, co-owner of Montane Building Group, based in Reno.
“We’re a commercial contractor that specializes in the design-build type projects,” Smith explains.
Their projects are considered ‘industrial’; “It can be restaurants, it can be retail, it can be a medical office.”
Smith says it’s not just existing northern Nevada businesses that are expanding, but –
“It seems like most of our projects are companies that are picking up their roots and moving to Reno, large corporations.”
Smith and his business partner started Montane in 2012, when Nevada’s economy was still bleak.
“We started Montane at the worst possible time, but there was only one way to go and it was up.”
And things were moving along pretty well until the recent pandemic shutdowns and distancing mandates.
“It’s hard to do construction when you can’t be six feet away from somebody, you know OSHA has been very tough, they’ve been very hard on contractors.”
That, says Smith, means projects take longer. And their current workload is about 70% of what it was, but he’s grateful.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to work, and that’s awesome.”
Smith says there seems to be a stigma about pursuing a career in the construction trades, and hopes to see more young people give it a chance and enter the field.
“We need them. During this pandemic we all kept working and it’s great industry to get into and I’d like to see more kids get into it”.
Click here to read the full article
