I came to work at The Ideal Company in the spring of 1985 and except for 1 3/4 years during the recession of 2009/10 have worked here full time and am presently employed here.
Before The Ideal Company I worked in various trades in construction including masonry, carpentry, roofing, drywall, etc., starting in 1975. One of the more interesting jobs I worked at was high rise construction for about a year in Naples, Florida in 1980.
In 1985 I came to F & M Contractors (Now The Ideal Company, Inc.). At that time the main client was Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers. At any one time we had 8 to 10 Wendy's under construction from upstate New York to the area of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Around that time, we also picked up a local Arby's franchise for which we built many Arby's and Lee's Famous Recipe chicken restaurants. At this time, we also built 7 or 8 Marion's Pizzas, a local pizza franchise.
At the end of the 80s we started building Cracker Barrels and over the course of the years have built hundreds of Cracker Barrels from Florida to Oregon and continue to build Cracker Barrels. Over the years we have specialized in many types of restaurants but slowly started to diversify as economic conditions changed.
Now we still build a variety of restaurants but can add motels, grocery stores, strip shopping centers, auto repair/maintenance shops, assisted living facilities, dialysis clinics, medical buildings, retail stores, church remodels, and many specialty buildings all which have different areas of need and specialization.
As time moves on, we have had to learn of new ways to adapt to the changing economic environment and pick up new skills and knowledge as we continue to meet new construction needs.
Throughout the years the one thing that has not changed is The Ideal Company's commitment to producing a quality building, practice of Christian values of fairness, and a family type of working environment.
