Why ‘Evergreen State Contracting’?

A lot of people name their company after their themselves, either their first or last name, I chose not to for two reasons. I never wanted to be associated with my company (I'll go into more detail in a minute), and I wanted a name that was very applicable to Washington state and (in the construction world) it refers to the construction industry but it's still a broad term. But outside of construction, I didn't realize that people don't know what contracting means. Very often they remember the name as Evergreen State Construction, and someone once asked me if contracting refers to a temp agency.

I picked Evergreen State Contracting because I wanted an extremely professional name and when people hear it they think maybe we’re the government…? Maybe we're not…? But either way it's a professional name so they must be a good, reliable company. I didn't want people to hire my company for me or because I'm a female contractor or anything like that. It was also my intention to be the visionary and the standard setter, not the one doing everything including running the business, doing the work, running the social media, doing online outreach, keeping up with communication with everyone I've ever met, bookkeeping, taxes, etc. The list goes on forever.

I was 26 when I opened my construction company and got my general contractors’ license so you can definitely say I was young and naïve. Actually, I originally opened the company as a painting company called ‘Painting the Evergreen State', and my intention with that name was to be funny and kind of punny but still very clearly we’re a painting company in Washington state. And then I felt like only sticking to painting was like playing in a kiddie pool and I wanted to be a big dog in charge of projects, managing multiple projects, doing complete house builds, and knowing everything about every step of the process, and how to do every trade correctly. So that's why I got my general contractors license and I changed the name of the company.

At this point since so many homeowners and clients don't know what contracting means, I'm sick of the name because it's so boring and basic and confusing for my clients. But on the other hand, it does give me a lot of wiggle room to change niches and focuses and be open and available for any job and have people reach out to me to me for any job because it's such an open-ended name. So I'm leaving it alone for now, I’ll worry about it later.

I know it's not very exciting story but I do love talking and sharing anything I care about myself, my company and my journey so I still wanted to take the time to share that little backstory.