JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM Thomas Verdi, new contract manager for Kalu Glass Co., has decades of experience in the glass and glazing trade and will be working with some of the biggest general contractors in the state.

Verdi reflects on
career with glass

Thomas Verdi » New job: Contract manager of Kalu Glass Co., a 30-employee company based in Halawa Valley Industrial Park. » Previous job: Branch manager for Arcadia Hawaii, a manufacturer of architectural glass storefronts, curtainwalls, windows and doors. He worked at Arcadia from the end of 1996 up to last month. » Age: 48 » Born and raised: Cleveland

Question: What's your experience?

Answer: I've been in the glass and glazing trade most of my professional adult life.

I graduated with a degree in fine art and was a starving artist for two to three years. And after that, I've been in the management end of it now in excess of 25 years.

I started doing drafting for a glass company between semes-ters in college years. Having a good mentor helped a lot.

Q: Who was your mentor?

A: There was a gentleman in our scope of work -- Pittsburgh Plate Glass was the big glass conglomerate in the U.S. -- he mentored me into the management end of it from the drafting end. I remember looking for a job in Colorado in Denver and he said, "Get your drafting done in the morning and in the afternoon you are going to learn estimating and project management." I was 25 to 26 and that was the life-changing moment. I've never been without work since then.

Good mentoring and good hard work is what goes to create good fortune in your life.

Q:When did you come to the islands?

A: I came to Hawaii in August 1993. To me that was a major change in my life. I followed the estimating and project management trade of glass around the U.S. using my abilities and track record to see where I'd like to live. I was in Orlando, Denver and when I got out here, I said that's it, I put my roots down here. Even if the cost of living is higher than other areas, the weather, the flora, the beaches are just so wonderful that ... I'd pay my extra ante to live here.

Q: What does the company do?

A: We don't manufacture. We are the trade that represents the bringing together of the items needed from mainland manufacturers or wherever it comes from. We purchase from suppliers the ready-made products. We are the installing party. We have the men who go out and install it at the job sites.

Q: Do you transport the glass?

A: We'll do some transporting on the island but we usually try to have others do that because, as you know, union labor is expensive. We're mostly responsible for ordering, bringing it in, measuring, coordinating, matching the architects' intent -- what we call specifications.

Q: What attracted you to the company?

A: Kalu, at this time, was Arcadia's best customer. A general manager or branch manager doesn't just sit back and watch everybody else work. As construction is going strong, I was doing estimating and ordering materials.

Obviously, you only move for one reason, to move up economically or some reason. As you know, people are not just short of the labor guys; they are also short of management. There's a great lack of project managers and estimators for all of the glass companies here. Construction is booming but we are restrained and being limited by the trained professional in all of the trades from the trained experienced labor pool to the trained, experienced estimators and project managers.

It's the greatest challenge in construction. It's not having the work; it's proficiently doing it.

Q: It was a good opportunity?

A: That was a good open door there. Arcadia's a branch from California and I wanted to move from a California-based culture again to a Hawaii-based culture. I wanted to be involved closer to home in the dynamics of what I was doing. Visiting the job sites. ... I can troubleshoot in the field and bring solutions right to the heart of the project.

As a manufacturer you solve some problems, but usually, it's get it faster, faster.

Q: One of your projects is the new Lanikea at Waikiki high-rise. For a major condominium project like that, how much glass are we talking about?

A: There's several ways to look at it. Some of those towers are taking as many as 50 container loads of glass. It depends.

Q: What's your revenue?

A: We're averaging around $5 million a year. All it takes is one contract, one of these towers. Our estimator has quite a few various projects in his sites that are about to get moving.

But we have other challenges. Now on top of our labor shortage in Hawaii, we have other things that may be problems.

Materials being manufactured on the mainland, if the president, in order to make himself look better, mandates to make materials go to the Gulf Coast devastation area first as a priority over other existing places elsewhere, we're going to be part of that elsewhere ... which may lengthen the waiting time between order and delivery of materials. So we may be facing new challenges as early as the end of this year as people try to do their best to help those who are in the greatest need. That's definitely important to do. On the other hand, our economy, our people, will suffer some degree for that.