The Granby Public Library. Soldier On’s veterans housing in Chicopee. PeoplesBank’s banking center at the Yankee Pedlar site in Holyoke. Educare Springfield’s early childhood center. Way Finders’ headquarters in downtown Springfield.
All of these buildings have one thing in common. They were constructed by Western Builders.
The company, which was created in the 1970s in Granby as a subsidiary of Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, has long since come into its own and its 55 employees have made a name for themselves with projects important to the lifeblood of the communities they serve.
Each project may only be a “blink of an eye” for the organizations involved, but to Western Builders they are especially meaningful because the workers grew up and live right here in Western Massachusetts, says company president Chris Boino.
“We just really find it incredibly fulfilling and rewarding to have an opportunity to work with those type of organizations,” he says. “Even though it’s a very small part, knowing…what happens in that building will change people’s lives, improve people’s lives, that will go on for decades.”
Chris Boino, president of Western Builders Inc. (Red Skies photography)Red Skies Photography
Adds D’Lynn Healey, project executive, “We just work really hard to make sure those institutions get their money’s worth.”
Western Builders worked with Way Finders, the region’s anti-poverty housing agency, from the start to finish on the $16.8 million, 33,000-square-foot new headquarters where the Peter Pan Bus station once stood at 1780 Main St. In Springfield.
“I have all good things to say (about Western Builders),” says Laureen Borgatti, chief operating officer for Way Finders. “They were very responsive to anything we ran into and we needed to resolve, and they worked with the budget we set forth, which was really important to us.”
The building was finished and ready by May but still hasn’t been fully occupied because COVID-19 restrictions have meant many employees are working from home.
Way Finders continues its relationship with Western Builders, now working on two housing projects in Northampton and Springfield and discussing a third planned in South Hadley, according to Borgatti. “They (are) fantastic. They are an overall great organization to work with,” she says.
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Western Builders began with a focus on building wood-frame, multi-family homes and other smaller projects. While wood-frame housing is still the core of the business, Western Builders has evolved and expanded the scope of the work it does. Along the way, the company has added employees with expertise in concrete, structural steel and other skills, according to Boino.
“We have incredible employees with a legitimately broad range of experience and talents,” he says. “We are a traditional construction management firm with project supervisors, superintendents and project managers, and we have a small group of talented carpenters and laborers that perform very specific tasks on site.”
Healey, for example, has a degree in civil engineering. While her main job is to support the project manager to deal with the many unforeseen issues that come up during construction, she also often helps mentor the less-experienced employees when they join Western Builders, Boino explains.
One of the firm’s “rising stars” is assistant project managers Ta Karra Greene. A graduate of the Springfield Public Schools, she returned home after earning her engineering degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Greene was among those who worked on the Way Finders construction, gaining enough experience to now be managing a project at the former TD Bank building in Springfield.
Concerned that fewer young people are going into the trades and the difficulty of finding skilled builders, Western Builders is reaching out to the region’s technical high schools in a variety of ways, Healey says. They are offering co-op programs for students to learn on the job.
D’Lynn Healey, project executive, Western Builders, Granby (RED SKIES PHOTOGRAPHY)
“There is a serious drought of actual talent in the field, plumbers, electricians, things of that nature,” Healey says. “They make a very good living, they have flexibility to start their own small business or work for the union. It is going to hurt our infrastructure at some point.”
Western Builders has worked with Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School in Palmer and connected with Chicopee Comprehensive High School through one of its employees who has a son who teaches in the carpentry department. They recently hired one of a Chicopee Comp graduate recommended by the teachers to work on the construction of a $27 million, five-building student housing project in Sunderland, according to Boino.
Boino joined a professional advisory committee at Roger L. Putnam Technical Academy in Springfield in February, hoping to develop a relationship with the school and bring a co-op student onto one of the projects. While the pandemic stalled that effort temporarily, “We are committed to developing and mentoring and coaching,” he says.
That is not the only way the company is willing to help the community as Suzanne Parker, executive director of Girls Inc. of the Valley, discovered when her organization began discussing the need for a new headquarters after renting offices at the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club for years. They sought advice from Western Builders, Boino wound up joining the nonprofit’s board and has spent hours volunteering to help find a new home.
“He connected to us so many resources, and he did it in a joyful way,” Parker says. “We started to look at projects, and we went on a lot of field trips on his advice.” From assessing the organization’s space needs to getting cost estimates and securing financing, Boino’s help proved invaluable, according to Parker.
Western Builders president Chris Boino, right, with team member Roosevelt Wright on the job at Educare Springfield building in Springfield. (RED SKIES PHOTOGRAPHY)
“Western Builders has helped us find a potentially great new home for Girls Inc. and helped us in order to make it the best space for girls,” Parker says, adding the diversity of its staff that includes women in roles such as engineers have proven inspirational to the girls they serve. Girls Inc. Is in the midst of a $5 million capital campaign to help fund the project.
While Western Builders has continued operations throughout the pandemic since the construction industry is considered essential, it has not been easy, according to Healey.
Complying with the Centers for Disease Control recommendations for masks and other protective equipment and figuring out ways to work while maintaining social distancing, there were many other ordeals encountered over the pastyear, Healey explains.
The supply chain for building materials shipped from across the country and all over the world made it difficult at times to acquire different things, causing frustrating delays in jobs.
“There isn’t a project that made a day’s worth of progress in a day because of all the disruption,” Boino says.
Municipal building projects were slowed as boards and commissions adjusted to remote meeting schedules, and some delays also resulted from difficulties faced by owners in acquiring and processing funding for projects, he explains. Slowly, things are beginning to pick up again.
“We have most definitely seen a significant slowdown in the last three months of last year and the first months of this year, but we are very optimistic about a busy spring,” says Boino.
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