My interest in building started when my parents built our home about 15 years ago. My uncle was a carpenter and he would come around on weekends with some other family and friends, to help my mum, my dad and I to build it. The first job I remember doing was shooting the bottom plates of the frames down with an old Ramset gun.

I was working for another builder, and was also snowboarding competitively. Someone at Bellevarde saw my building and snowboarding activities on LinkedIn and reached out. Bellevarde has had a longstanding connection to The Snowy Mountains, so we bonded over that. They then decided that my carpentry experience on quality builds was appropriate for me to join them.

I was going to work in Thredbo or Jindabyne, but I was first asked to help out on quite a large build in Mosman. That became my first project, and I ended up staying there until completion. It was awesome. I loved it.

Jak Gannon was running that job, and I loved working with him and the team working out all the construction details as we went along. The fact that Bellevarde has all these people and resources is pretty unique and I think it’s amazing that we can do that.

I love Bellevarde’s attention to detail, where we constantly challenge decisions to find the best outcome—for the architect, the client, and the design. Lots of people from Bellevarde come together to contribute, rather than just run with the first idea that comes to mind.

After working with Jak, I went to work with Adam Howe, who’s been with the company for almost 30 years. He’s been doing this for almost longer than I’ve been alive, but he’s still so calm, focused and easy to get along with. It’s awesome that I get to learn from someone like that. As much as I love to wear a nail bag and get on the tools, my role is now to trust everyone else and make sure they get their job done. That’s another good thing about working with Adam, where he’s showing me the ropes on the site management side of things.

At Bellevarde, it feels like there’s a progression path for me here, so I definitely see myself staying long term.

I believe that Bellevarde’s job in the industry is to keep setting the standard above anything anyone else does. With John Fielding and the other longer term Bellevarde team members constantly willing to share their experience and knowledge, there’s no reason why we can’t continue to build on what they’ve created.