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CONSTRUCTION NEWS
The Industry’s Newspaper
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www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 21 H Number 10 H OCTOBER 2021
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Betting on Austin
Beginner’s truck
Advanced Consulting Solutions (ACS) Group LLC, co-founded by James Taylor ((far left), opens its new Austin office with the help of Principal Gage Weilert (second from right).
L-R: E+M Emergency Air Conditioning LLC’s Edgar Arellano and Maria Acuña in a throwback snap of their first business truck.
n 2019 in Las Vegas, NV, James Taylor and David Neschke founded Advanced Consulting Solutions (ACS) Group LLC. Two years later, the gamble has paid off; the company has grown to four technical engineering staff and one office administrator and opened its second location in Austin last month. Principal Gage Weilert, the Austin office’s sole employee at the moment, is responsible for the oversight and management of the new location. A 2016 graduate of Oklahoma State University with a degree in fire protection and safety engineering, Weilert is highly skilled in building and fire code consulting, alternate methods of compliance, hazardous materials management, and fire protection design.
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“The Austin office was established with the intent of expanding our company to serve the greatly growing Central Texas architecture, engineering, and construction market,” Weilert explains. “ACS Group can provide fire protection design, building code and life safety consulting, master egress planning, fire/smoke modeling, performance-based design, annual/semiannual testing of smoke control systems, fire protection commissioning, and fire protection construction management services.” The selection of Austin as ACS Group’s second location was strategic, given the area’s growth and popularity with other out-of-state companies. “As we know, central Texas, and continued on Page 14
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aria Acuña has an album’s worth of photos from the day she and her business partner Edgar Arellano bought their first truck for their new business, E+M Emergency Air Conditioning LLC. She remembers Arellano chuckling when she made a sign that announced the date to hold up in the photos. “I told him I wanted to remember this, that these pictures were going to hang on our walls someday!” Acuña says. “When we started our AC company, we said we wanted people to think of us as professionals because that’s what we want to be. So, when we bought our first truck, it was such a big deal to us. I have so many pictures from that day! And Edgar was so happy.”
Now, nine months after they started the business, they are wrapping their second truck, and it’s every bit as exciting as buying the first. “It was a really emotional thing for us to be able to do this in less than a year,” Acuña says. “It was a very proud moment to think, ‘We’re actually doing this! We’re growing and we’re okay!’ We’re very grateful for where we are right now, even though we’re at the point where money comes in and goes right back out! We’re able to pay our bills and that in itself is a great accomplishment. We haven’t been in the red at all this year, so those little things to us as a small company and new business are huge.” continued on Page 14
He’s got to be joking!
id you hear about the Roman soldier who ate his wife? When they asked him about it, he said he was glad he ate her! (Gladiator, get it?) This is Josh Hadden’s favorite “dad joke,” and he has a million of them. His fondness for joking while he roofs is the reason behind his company’s name, The Roof Joker. It’s also apt that the idea for the business came during a poker game. “I play poker with Justin Jackson, who is an attorney in Cedar Park, and Scott Brischke, who owns an investment company. We were at a poker night, and they asked me if I would be interested in being equal partners in a roofing installation and repair business. I told them I was comfortable where I was; I’ve owned companies before and didn’t want the headache. They started talking more, and at the next poker night, we
came up with a plan to launch it. “I already had the nickname: The Roof Joker,” Josh adds. “I have been telling dad jokes on top of roofs for years. If you get on a roof and take a video of yourself talking about pipe flashing, no one will watch it, but if you tell them a joke and make them smile, if they have a roofing issue later on, they’ll say, ‘I’m going to call that Roof Joker guy.’” On The Roof Joker’s Facebook page, Josh enjoys sharing his jokes with customers, saying that it breaks the ice and establishes a rapport. “I believe in having fun while you work because then it’s not work,” he says. “There are many aspects to this job that aren’t fun, but it’s fun if you decide it’s fun. For me, it’s fun to climb roofs.” Climbing roofs for fun was something he did from a young age – much to his mother’s disapproval. Then, someone The Roof Joker’s Josh Hadden
continued on Page 14