The Beginnings:

Leonard and Jean Bertuglia founded Grayling, Inc. in 1964. This family owned business was lead by these two people until the late 80's. Leonard was the president, project manager, estimator and the job site Superintendent. At the time Leonard's construction background was learned on the job.

Before Grayling was established, Weeks Construction, a very large General Contractor of the times, trained him. Leonard supplemented his job site training by working on a home study engineering degree. He completed the degree in the late 60's and at that point Jean joined him as the bookkeeping arm of the business. Jean was also self-taught, and her checkbooks always balanced to the penny.

Most of the projects were fast food and convenience store related. Leonard & Jean also successfully developed several apartment building projects, duplex sites and office building projects. In 1976, I joined the company with my Bachelors in business in hand and little knowledge of the construction business.

Over the next 20 years I learned the business from the ground up. I started as a laborer on whatever project I was needed on. When fieldwork was slow, I came into the office and was taught estimating. Soon I was in the field as a Superintendent. I did this for about 10 years. Each year I took on more and more responsibility and my knowledge of the business grew. In the late 80's I was brought into the office as a full time estimator and project manager.

Shortly thereafter I began developing my own clients and learning the development side of the business from Leonard. We began to build small office developments; we developed the sites, processed them through the cities, utility companies and worked with various Architects building these 7-8 developments. As the buildings filled up, we did more and more tenant finish work. This gradually spread to the retail environment and soon we were working in most every major mall in the Kansas City area.

We kept fast food as our primary ground up business, but found that since we had done so much fast food work the tenant finish was easy and our clients were eager to work with a company that could handle the detail their specific space required. The three of us made a good team. The Ownership and Management change: In 1992 my Mom retired from the business and Dad kept working with me, as a project manager and as a superintendent. His knowledge was invaluable both in the office and in the field.

In 1994, Leonard also retired and my wife Lynn and I bought the company. We kept the name the same, all the people, the offices and the equipment. Very little changed in the eyes of the public. Lynn has an Engineering Degree, and works for Black and Veatch, a locally owned, International Engineering Company. Lynn worked for Grayling for a few months, during the transition period; she always wanted to maintain her own career and has found success with Black & Veatch.

In 1996 I brought Verlyn Neufeld into the office from our Superintendent ranks to help with estimating and project management as the work load had grown to more than one person could handle. Verlyn has added to the accuracy of our estimating. Since he is a project manager, he has also helped Grayling be consistently busier with the same personnel. He maintains our monthly work schedule and acts as general manger in my absence. With his assistance, we review personnel assignments to each project and keep the job sites safe for our personnel and our subcontractors.

Beth Troxel has recently joined the Grayling team. She heads up our accounting department. Beth was actually the controller and co-owner of a local wholesale fastener company. Within a 13 year period she helped grow that business from a 3,000,000 company to a 13,000,000 company. Beth touts from one of Kansas City's premier colleges, Rockhurst. Rockhurst has an outstanding business degree program and Beth earned her B.S.B.A. in accounting while at Rockhurst. While our accounting dept. is much smaller than what she had formerly been used to, Beth has taken our accounting department by the horns. She also brings a great deal (over 30 years) to guide our Health Insurance and 401K programs.

Beth's personality and spirit helps keep us light hearted, yet she can focus in an instant. She has brought a computer backup system into our accounting department and recently added several new reports which make our job tracking and job costs easier to review. Beth has quickly become a real asset to Grayling. I am sure she will help us be more profitable and keep our accounts payable and receivables in top form.

The company has grown. We now have four superintendents and two project managers doing both ground up construction and a fair share of tenant finish each year. One of our goals is to increase the number of ground up projects so that it raises our volume and rounds our personnel to be more complete project builders. By offering a health insurance plan including dental, paid vacations and a 401k program, we feel we have a lot to offer our employees.

We have over100 years of experience. We like to say that we bring value to our projects, usually beyond what new and first time clients expect. How long will we be around? Well we have a long-term plan, which goes well into 2015. So the short term is covered. On the long-term front I am working to see that Grayling can carry on its mission. We strive to handle your immediate construction needs and look forward to repeat projects of any scope or size.

Thank you for your interest in Grayling, Inc.

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