More businesses
across the U.S.
have no employees

For John H. Gregory IV,
going solo offers more
control -- and work

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

John H. Gregory IV, an Oahu general contractor and home builder, likes having control.

Even after swelling his company's revenues nearly 25-fold to $2.3 million last year from $90,460 in 1997, he keeps his office a one-man shop.

"I know every aspect of the project, rather than delegating it to a foreman or a superintendent," said Gregory, who owns Gregory Design Build. He builds high-end homes all over Oahu, and recently secured a $4 million contract on the North Shore.

Gregory's first project was for television producer Al Masini, which helped lift Gregory Design off the ground in 1995.

Gregory is one of a growing number of businesses nationwide that don't have employees, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

Some 15.7 million U.S. companies had no paid employees in 1998, up 1.7 percent from 15.4 million in 1997. The data includes 13.6 million individual proprietorships, 1 million partnerships and 1.1 million corporations.

Gregory said he likes to treat every project as if it's his only project. Not having employees means he oversees the building, the financing, the bidding and administration. He notes that he hires subcontractors to help with projects, like most general contractors.

The downside of having no underlings is that the work gets hectic if there's more than one project, Gregory said. The new job on the North Shore is going to overlap a current project in Kailua, which has Gregory thinking of hiring his first employee, a superintendent. If his company stays as busy as he hopes, the position will likely stay permanent.

"To keep all those ducks in a row can be tedious," he said. "It's actually becoming very cumbersome to juggle them all."