Meet David Supple of New England Design and Construction in Mission Hill

Today we’d like to introduce you to David Supple.

Thanks for sharing your story with us David. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am a graduate of Tufts University with a degree in Architecture. In California, I trained as an architect for three years, designing, directing, and managing 50- 100, 00 square foot renovations. Throughout this process, I realized that while I could draw really beautiful pictures on paper, this often translated very differently into the construction side of projects.

I wanted to get to know the construction side of the industry a little better so that I could educate myself further and provide better designs, so I started working for a construction company as a carpenter. In reality, I wasn’t a very good carpenter. In fact, I was pretty terrible. But, I did learn a lot about carpentry that I didn’t know prior to actually having hands-on experience. In the beginning of our business in 2005, I did everything. I did the designs, I built everything, and I handed out flyers for marketing. As we grew, the first thing I did was replace myself as a carpenter with someone who really knew what they were doing, but that experience was invaluable.

Since 2005, NEDC has grown quite a bit. Instead of me being a one-man show handing out flyers door to door, I have a great team of people that help me achieve greater goals. I have a design team with a licensed architect and two other designers. I have someone else who manages the marketing, and another person who runs the finances. I have an excellent team of project managers and carpenters who produce our projects. I can focus more on inspiring my team and creating better systems and organization for our company so that we can grow even more- we have big goals that I hope to achieve. I’m starting to replace myself within the business model in the hope that we can branch out in new directions, and I’m looking to break into development within the next year or so, which is a new market for us.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Well, one time I literally painted myself into a corner on a project that we were working on for a client. That is one of the reasons why I replaced myself as a carpenter within the company as soon as I could. As a business owner starting out, you really have to wear all the hats of the business. But as you grow, you slowly start to find people who are really good at things that you’re pretty bad at. Attracting the right people and creating a company culture has been a really interesting journey, and we’ve made some missteps along the way. We’ve hired people we shouldn’t, that didn’t align with what I was looking to create. Isolating as a company what our core values are and what our mission statement is has really helped to solidify our goals and who we want to attract. Now, we focus on finding people that have the same values as we do, and we’ve created a really great team. We’re at a point now where we want to create even more growth, and we’re learning how to create a stable base within the company that can expand. Systems are key, and creating systems and training that can be replicated for growth within the company is what we’re focusing on.

New England Design & Construction or NEDC – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a mid to high end residential remodeling company that uses a design-build method for producing projects. Basically, we combine the services of an Architect and Designer with the Construction team to produce remodeling projects. We feel that this is the most accountable way to produce projects for clients. Our complete planning process in design allows us to provide itemized budgets prior to construction and set very clear expectations about what the client will be receiving with us. Every single fixture, appliance, and material has already been selected by the client, and our team has picked out all the subcontractors and even aligned pricing for the subs prior to the actual start of construction. This allows us to really control the execution of the project and manage unexpected surprises after breaking ground. The industry standard rate for change orders (change orders being things that affect either the timeline of the project or the budget of the project) ranges from about 12-15% of the overall project cost. With our method of delivering projects, we’ve been below 3%. We have a very strong emphasis on the design process through all of our projects, and really stand by our work. We even offer a two-year warranty on our services which is extremely rare within the construction industry.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success by accomplishing and moving closer to the goals I set. I think goal setting is extremely important, helpful and an underutilized tool. I have shorter and long term goals. This year we have goals to strengthen our team, hit certain profit quotas and establish a world class training system.

Contact Info:

• Address: 103 Terrace St
  Boston, MA 02120
• Website: www.nedesignbuild.com
• Phone: 617-708-0676
• Email: kara@nedesignbuild.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nedesign.construction
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDesignConst
• Other: https://www.guildquality.com/NewEnglandDesignConstruction

Image Credit:
OnSite Studio photography

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