Bob Ernst
Title: President, FBN Construction
Age: 54
Experience: 32 years
Bob Ernst’s path to being a successful contractor was long and winding, but his early career in hospitality honed his customer service skills and prepared him for his current position. He got into construction by accident and learned a lot, but it was a decade before he learned how to run a business successfully.
Q: How did you get into construction?
A: I graduated from Philips Exeter and I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I lived on the golf course as a kid, so I talked myself into thinking I’d just go be a golf club pro. I went to a working-class club in New Hampshire and got a job as an assistant pro. After that, I went to Florida and got a little taste of what being a club pro at a nice country club was like. It wasn’t for me.
My father got a contract to work in Germany. I decided to go with him and I ended up staying for two years. At 19 years old, I opened an office for a Danish rental car company at the Frankfurt airport. Then I ran a car wash and was a transfer car driver, driving cars all over Europe. I came back and was planning to work on the Alaskan pipeline, but I stopped in Cambridge to see my sister, got a job at a restaurant and I stayed.
After two years, I was doing whatever they needed: cook, waiter, maitre’d, bartender. Then I decided I was going to quit and do something else. The owner asked me why I was leaving and I told him.
He said that in nine months he needed to close the restaurant for nine days to replace the sewer line in the basement. He asked me to spend the nine months finding out everything else that needed to be done in the restaurant and figure out how to get it done in those nine days. I told him I had never picked up a hammer in my life and he said, “Don’t worry about it, you’ve got nine months to figure it out.” I interviewed everyone in the restaurant to find out what worked and what didn’t. It was close to $2 million worth of work and we got it done around the clock in nine days. That was my entry into the business. I loved it.
Q: How did you transition from restaurants to construction?
A: Well, I eventually left to help the owner turn a big church on Walnut Street in Newtonville into a restaurant. I learned a lot and decided that I wanted to be involved in construction. Later, I took a job as a laborer with a framing company. I wanted to learn the business from the bottom up.
Then I started my own company with a colleague doing small jobs and it took me a while to learn the business. I struggled. I made a lot of happy clients and did a lot of nice work and I was constantly broke and struggling. I struggled significantly for about 10 years.
Q: How did you get from making people happy to making people happy while making money?
A: I met a guy by the name of John Deshazo, who had started FBN Construction. He was looking for help and I couldn’t run a business. I started working with him. We built it up and John was just getting started with the Builders and Remodelers Association of Greater Boston (BRAGB). This was about 1995. He invited me along and it was a really tight-knit group of remodeling contractors who are some of the biggest names in the business now. We all helped each other and grew and learned. We had role models and mentors and I went from struggling to being successful pretty quickly, once I had the network of role models and mentors around me. The more time I spent with BRAGB, the more time I had to do other things. It was cathartic. I’d been limited by my business acumen. I was a waiter who became a carpenter, who became a business owner, but until BRAGB, I wasn’t a businessman.
That’s why I give back a lot now. So many people are unhappy with their contracting experience, but that’s because of the way the business is done. My goal is to get businesses to understand that you can’t give excellent service and be the lowest bid.
Q: How should consumers choose a bid?
A: A bid is a lie. It’s the lowest price you can justify based on the information provided to you. There’s always surprises that will drive cost up. I’ve remodeled hundreds of kitchens in my life. I can’t tell you how much it’s going to cost in advance. I can give you a budget and we go over it weekly. We put control of the budget where it belongs – with the client. I just help them make informed decisions. Removing the veils from construction process starts with explaining the process to people. We show our clients our cost for everything, totally open book. I don’t think consumers understand the difference and their role in it. People should be better, more informed consumers.
Ernst’s Favorite Pastimes (In Order Of Importance):
- Spending time with his wife and kids
- Golfing
- Going to the beach
- Spending every July on Nantucket
- Food (restaurants and home-cooked)
