Jamie Duran: A Solar Opportunity

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

BRENTWOOD — Jamie Duran spent his early career working in an environment that stifled his entrepreneurial spirit, so when he saw an opportunity to start his own business, it was like a ray of sunlight piercing the dark. “Before getting into solar, I worked in finance,” he remembers. “I’ve always been very entrepreneurial, but there’s little opportunity to exercise that trait in the financial world. There are a lot of rules and, worse still, a lot of politics, so it was a constant uphill battle to affect any real, positive change.”

In the mid-2000s, Jamie took notice of an increasing trend toward clean energy, Read more

Ehsan Rezaee: A Clean Opportunity

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

PETALUMA — Ehsan Rezaee had often dreamed of running his own business, but he never imagined it would be a house cleaning franchise. “My younger brother, Hesam, and I had been talking about starting a business together,” he recounts. “Originally, we thought about running a restaurant franchise, but one day he called and told me about a house cleaning franchise he’d found. I didn’t know anything about house cleaning, but it seemed like a good opportunity and we decided to give it a shot. In 2013, we opened the Sonoma County branch of Molly Maid. It took some time to get fully acquainted with the industry, Read more

Chad Wolffe: A Fitting Career

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

SAN JOSE — When Chad Wolffe first looked into becoming a garage door technician, he found it was a good fit in more ways than one. “Before I got into garage door service, I was a technician for DirecTV,” he recounts. “One thing I didn’t like about my job was that I always had to access hard-to-reach places. If I wasn’t up on a 40-foot ladder, I was squeezing into a tight crawl space or attic. Being a larger guy, this was a constant struggle. Eventually, I decided to look for a different line of work and put my resume online. Read more

Ona Hennessey: Building a Livelihood

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

BRENTWOOD — Like many working mothers, Ona Hennessey once struggled to maintain a balance between career and family. Eventually, she decided the best solution was to build her own livelihood. “I worked for several years at Sierra Lumber and Fence, where, as manager of the retail department, I handled things like sales and ordering materials,” she recounts. “Being a working mom, I always wished I had a little more flexibility with my job, and by the time I was pregnant with my fifth child, I had put a lot of thought into my professional future. With all the experience I’d acquired working for Sierra, Read more

­­Mike Creeden: A Twofold Education

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

FREMONT — During his college years, when Mike Creeden wasn’t studying for his classes, he could often be found working on a rooftop. What he didn’t realize was that both activities were preparing him for his future career. “While earning my degree in business administration, I worked for my uncle’s roofing business on the side,” he remembers. “After I finished college, my uncle asked me to run his company for him. It was the best opportunity I had at the time, and between my college degree and my roofing experience, I was qualified for the job, so I took it.”

Five years later, Read more

Cory Wikstrom: Working in Doors

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

SAN JOSE — Starting in his early 20s, Cory Wikstrom has spent nearly his entire professional career working in doors—garage doors, specifically. “Right out of high school, my younger brother got a job with a garage door company owned by his friend’s family,” he remembers. “It seemed like a good job, so I decided to apply and got hired. I spent the next eight years there before moving on and working for a few other garage door companies.”

Eventually, Cory started talking with his friend/co-worker Chad Wolffe about starting their own garage door business. However, one element was still missing. Read more

Michael Fahey: Garage Door Guru

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

SAN JOSE — When Michael Fahey answered an ad for a management position, he had no idea where it would lead him…especially because it didn’t specify the industry. “It was just a generic ad placed by an owner looking for someone to run his company for him,” he recounts. “It wasn’t until later that I found out it was a garage door company. With my background in sales, marketing and home improvement, I had all the qualifications the owner was looking for, so I decided to give it a shot.” In 2018, nearly a decade later, Michael took the knowledge and experience he’d accumulated and started an independent garage door service company with partners Cory Wikstrom and Chad Wolffe. Read more

David Drowty: A Professional Priority

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

ARBUCKLE — When David Drowty started working as a roofer in his late 20s, he thought he was just getting into a trade, but it was actually the beginning of something bigger. “Initially, I saw roofing as just another job—a step up from my prior job working at Costco, but nothing particularly life-changing,” he recounts. “However, I ended up developing a real passion for both the work itself and the customer service side. I also began to develop a vision for starting my own roofing company. I’d worked with a lot of different contractors, and in most cases I felt I could do a better job taking care of customers. Read more

Brandy Straub: Dirty Work

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

WINDSOR — Born into a family of pest control professionals, Brandy Straub cut his teeth doing the dirty jobs no one else wanted to do before expanding his career horizons. “My grandfather started Redwood Empire Termite & Pest Control in 1946,” he recounts. “My father got involved in the business when he was 15 years old, and I started even younger, working after school, on weekends and during summer vacations. Of course, they had me do all the dirty work they didn’t want to do, like going underneath houses and cleaning up rodent remains. Eventually, I got tired of doing that, Read more

Moshe Spund: Assembling a Livelihood

By James Florence, Diamond Certified Resource Reporter

OAKLAND — As a kid, Moshe Spund enjoyed taking things apart and reassembling them, but he never thought he’d one day make a career out of it. “I’ve always had an interest in knowing how things work,” he affirms. “To me, it’s like a puzzle. If something isn’t working right, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what’s causing it and how to repair it. Still, I never considered a career in appliance repair until I saw an online job listing. When I went in for the interview, I was skeptical, but once I started, I fell in love with the trade.”

In 2018 (roughly five years after he started as an appliance repair technician), Read more