Alison Johnson and Heather Schreiner

Dad and his wife were on vacation. When they returned and headed to work, Dad found the company’s door locked with a note that they were out of business! Out of concern for the client projects in progress, families impacted by this unexpected event, Dad and his wife started the business in 1990. This was a rough way to kick off a business since the projects were in various phases of completion and of payment, but Dad just couldn’t leave these people in such a bind.

With Dad’s background in construction and his wife an excellent designer, they were a strong team. They knew they needed good bookkeeping so they bought Master Builder and hired a bookkeeper. Starting out of a home office, they added a Project Manager and started looking for office space. They found a space in mid-town Fort Collins and started growing the business. In 1994, they built the building they are in right now.

The company grew quite a bit, then in 2008, things were a little more lean. Heather was working as a teacher and her sister Alison was an office manager for a family practice. Dad asked if they were interested in coming into the business with the goal of ownership, explaining the many benefits. Heather and Alison decided on a trial period with Heather and her family moving from back East. The two sisters started working together.

The Colorado environment has changed quite a bit. Projects used to be huge additions, their anchor projects. Now the projects are smaller, shorter, requiring a different workflow. This required changes in the production team and project management. The pandemic years felt more like order taking with less opportunity for relationship building. When things opened back up, they were able to get back to their core values and the relational side of their client connections.

With these strong relationships, they’ve been able to walk alongside their clients during difficulties. One client did an addition in 2015 on a large property. After a serious health event, she chose to move to a smaller property but needed funds from the sale of the larger one to make this happen. ABD was able to meet her aggressive deadline and be flexible with payments. With a new family health event, changes were needed to meet some mobility limits and ABD was able to pivot and still stay within the budget.

Their favorite Syscon resource? The FIT System, and especially the time entry process! They also commented on the lifeline for S100C support. Also, it’s so nice to have S100C in the hosted cloud, getting rid of their on-prem server.

Heather and Alison couldn’t be happier! They love their clients and the work they do, and they get to do it with their best friend, their sister!