Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/101356
WORLD FENCE NEWS ��� JANUARY 2013 ��� Let me ask you: Are you ���Living the dream?��� They say if you love what you do you���ll never work a day in your life. I don���t believe too many people can affirm that scenario, but working for the past 15 years consulting in the fence industry and the past 10 years writing for the World Fence News has put me in the enviable position of being able to honestly say I haven���t worked a single day in the past 15 years and I have loved every minute of it! After finishing graduate school in the early seventies and working more than 20 years as a small business owner and then a senior consultant for a Chicago based firm, I began my first consulting engagement in the fencing industry in the mid-nineties with Miller Fence Company in Worcester, Massachusetts. Since that time I have traveled from California to Pennsylvania, from Rhode Island to Chicago to Miami and even to Hawaii. My Roadmap to Success program is being used not only all over the U.S., but also in many other countries around the world, from Russia to Australia to South America. I have been working with fence contractors and consulting for clients in every place imaginable and it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. And boy, do I have some great memories and more than a few interesting stories to tell about working with the great group of fencers that I have come to know and love over the past 15 or so years. With your indulgence, I would like to take a moment to thank some of the great people that I have known throughout the years in the fence industry. There are so many people to thank that I do not even know where to start, chronologically, geographically, or alphabetically. I know that what I cannot do is list my fencing friends by order of importance, which would be impossible. You folks are all top shelf. I also apologize in advance if I have inadvertently missed thanking anyone; this article has limited space and the full list of all the people who have positively impacted my life in the fence industry would be quite lengthy. That being said, as I mentioned earlier, my journey into the fencing community began roughly 15 years ago with Joe Miller at Miller Fence Co. and currently is continuing with another dear friend and veteran fencer, Butch Glasgow of USA Fence in Tampa, Florida. I would like to thank them first off, along with Ray Hohe of Complete and Northern Illinois Fence in Chicagoland, with whom I am working to develop a fence franchise model. I would like to thank all the fine If you love what you do you���ll never work a day in your life BY TOM LUBY, PROFIT BUILDERS INTERNATIONAL people from the America Fence Association. I have known and worked with so many AFA presidents, and wanted to start with them. Thanks to my old friends Bob Burton, Nate Levine, Bill Benner, Jere Jefcoat, Kent Bailey, Norm Legare, Robert Shipley, Mark Davis, Linda Chamberlin-Clark, Steven Bius, Phil Doyle, Lyle Buchanan, Lynn Hayworth, Fred Parker, and Larry Smith, just to name a few and not in any particular order. And how could I not include peo- ple like Joe Cox or Charlie Weston in South Carolina? Loren (Digger) Graber and his partners Larry and Everitt at Digger Specialties, Inc., along with my very dear friends and Roadmap to Success associates Steve Johnson and Adam Faulkner at CMM, both located in the greater South Bend, Indiana area. Also, how could I forget Viken Ohanesian of DuraMax Vinyl Fence Suppliers in the greater Los Angeles area? Also a tip of the hat to Hal Mante 29 of American Fence in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Bill Morrison of AAA Fence in Daytona Beach, Florida, and John Gamble of Houston Fence Company. I have also worked with fence industry veterans like Paul Harrison, former president of Merchants Metals who currently runs Eagle Fence Distributing in Alabama and Greg Jendreas, former president of Master Halco who is now president of Bergandi Machinery Co. in the greater Los Angeles area. The thing that strikes me most as descriptive of this industry is the honest and family like atmosphere that permeates most of the fence continued on next page A Leader in Custom Fencing Products with Top Level Service Buy American, Be American��� u u u AAMA 2604 COMPLIANT We are environmentally responsible