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Cupid’s Hammer
Construction
couples mix love and business
It’s one thing to be married to your job.
It’s quite another to be married to someone at your job.
How do you avoid bringing your work home with you? How can you help but bring your home to work with you? For that matter, how can you concentrate on work when the object of your affection is sitting right down the hall?
But perhaps the most important question is: What choice do you have when Cupid smacks you right between the eyes?
Workplace relationships can’t be easy, but love is a hard boss to refuse. And, believe it or not, that even applies to people in the construction industry.
Below, Wisconsin Builder writer Janine Anderson gets the lowdown on how construction couples build a marriage.
Ralph and Mary Lou La Macchia
Company:
The La Macchia Group LLC, Milwaukee
Positions:
Ralph is president, and Mary Lou is executive vice president. They run the company from adjacent offices, where Ralph works with construction design, marketing and sales, and Mary Lou handles the business end, focusing on finance and human resources.
“We work together, but don’t overlap in skills,” Ralph said.
When married:
They were married in a civil ceremony in the United States on St. Patrick’s Day 2001 to honor Mary Lou’s Irish heritage. They followed that up with a church ceremony in Italy on June 23, 2001, to honor Ralph’s Italian background.
How they met:
In 1995, Ralph’s company was hired to perform a market analysis for the Wisconsin Rapids credit union Mary Lou was working for.
“She was on the executive committee, and our presentation was to the executive team,” Ralph said. “That was when I first met her. I sat across from her at a board table.
“I asked her boss if I could ask her out, and he said, ‘Yes. Just don’t marry her.’ I started laughing. I was single for 13 years, a committed bachelor.
“The last thing a sales guy would do is marry an accountant.”
When they started working together:
Ralph’s company had gone through an ownership and management change, and he decided that wasn’t working out for him.
“My friends and my wife said, ‘Why don’t you start your own company?’” Ralph said. “I couldn’t figure out how to put it together. Mary Lou said she could help figure it out.
“We raised the capital needed and opened our doors May 31, 2002.”
Best part about working with your spouse:
Ralph: “If you have the right spouse, there’s nothing you can’t work out.”
Mary Lou: “We always look forward to spending time together. We’re very blessed we’re able to work so well together and enjoy it. After work or when we have vacation time, we can’t wait to be together because we really don’t overlap that much during the business day.”
Ralph: “We vacation all the time. Sometimes around the noon hour, it’s an hour vacation. After work, it’s a two-hour vacation.”
Worst part about working with your spouse:
“The hardest part is not thinking about work when you get home,” Mary Lou said. “We allow ourselves the first 15 minutes to half hour to talk about work and then try not to bring up work the rest of the evening. You need to balance your life.”
Dave and Mary Lawson
Company:
Potter Lawson Inc., Madison
Positions:
Dave was the executive vice president, president and chairman of the board. Mary was a project architect and vice president. Both are now retired from the company.
When married:
Dec. 29, 1984
How they met:
Dave and Mary worked together on the American Institute of Architects-Wisconsin board of directors in the late 1970s. Dave was working for the firm that would ultimately become Potter Lawson, and Mary started with the firm in 1981.
How closely they worked together:
They worked together on projects, but each had different roles.
“I was in management and marketing,” Dave said. “Mary was a project architect with certain responsibilities. We were not managing each other but working to solve our client’s needs on certain projects.”
Best part about working with your spouse:
Mary: “The other person is kind of a sounding board for your ideas. And really being in sync with the way we think, it was always a good discussion.”
Dave: “When we travel, we critique buildings mentally and then discuss ideas. We see the same solutions to somebody else’s building that could have made it different.”
Mary: “We see the same sort of things in buildings, nature and landscape. All the design projects have really connected us.”
Worst part about working with your spouse:
“On our house,” Dave said. “We wanted to remodel, to add to it on three sides and the top. We had somewhat of a limited budget and numerous design ideas.”
They talked about it for two years before they got down to serious work.
“It would be my design, then he worked on it and it was his design,” Mary said. “We went back and forth for two years.”
They finally figured things out on a flight back from Washington, D.C.
“We took out one of those little bags and started sketching a plan,” Dave said. “By the time we got to the airport in Milwaukee, we had a house.”
Time when working together helped:
Dave: “All the time. We had similar goals. It really all came out of the client’s needs coming first and bringing ideas and discussing them with clients. Mary’s favorite saying is, ‘Buildings should be happy buildings.’”
Mary: “I think if you talk to any of our clients, whether heads of corporations or teachers in a school, the people we worked with had fun doing it. We built on one another’s ideas and their ideas.”
A look back:
“Twenty-five years has gone by in a whisker,” Dave said. “We’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”
Grace La and James Dallman
Company:
La Dallman Architects Inc., Milwaukee
Positions:
Both Grace and James are principals with the firm.
When married:
Sept. 16, 1995
How they met:
James and Grace met at Harvard University, when they were both in graduate school.
Grace: “We met over the table saw in the carpenter center.”
James: “Grace was stretching canvases, and I was building a table. I think Grace and I started talking about architecture almost immediately. It was a shared interest. We have two different perspectives, but it’s always there.”
When they started working together:
James and Grace worked together for two summers in London and Vienna, Austria. Then, in 1999, Grace began applying for teaching positions, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee made a promising offer. They decided to make Milwaukee the home of their new architecture practice as well.
“It was nonstop for the first few years,” James said.
How closely they work together:
James: “Architecture is in some ways a kind of solitary endeavor, but we collaborate to share ideas, redirect and have general discussions. There are no walls between our offices. We all work in the same space.”
Grace: “There’s not too much difficulty working together. We may have differences and fight over the pencil, but, by and large, I believe if there is friction it results in a positive outcome.”
James: “We’re very different from each other, Grace and I, but I think those differences are complementary for the most part. We’re exposed to each other’s viewpoints and see through another person’s eyes.”
Best part of working together:
James: “Having someone who understands me, my way of looking at the world.”
Grace: “It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to work with someone who also happens to share in your life. You don’t have to separate so stringently work, play and life. You don’t have to excuse yourself for a thought or for time to embrace what you’re doing.”
James: “I can’t imagine having any other kind of relationship.”
Worst part of working together:
James: “With the work load and how intense it can be, sometimes I wish we could turn it off when we go home. There’s constant chatter about architecture.”
Grace: “We’re always trying to excel for our clients and also for each other. There is an additional pressure when you work with your spouse. You can’t just walk away. That’s not really possible.”
Tim and Debbie Anderson
Company:
Ruekert/Mielke, Waukesha
Positions:
Tim is a CADD supervisor in the firm’s civil/municipal department, and Debbie is a GIS supervisor in the firm’s GIS department
When married:
May 31, 1997
How they met:
They met at Ruekert/Mielke. Tim was already working there when Debbie started.
Debbie: “I thought he was arrogant. I was getting introduced, and he just sat and looked up like, ‘Why are you bothering me?’”
Tim: “Most of the time you stand up and shake someone’s hand. I didn’t even stand up.”
Things got better when they teamed up during a company paintball outing. They were the last two left on their team, and Debbie shared some of her last paintballs with Tim.
“We ended up taking six players out,” Tim said.
They spent time together at a bonfire after the party, and “things went from there,” Debbie said.
When Tim proposed, he took her to a set of railroad tracks, an echo of where they walked together after that party.
How they work together:
Their offices are on different floors, and their jobs don’t put them in daily contact with each other. But they said it goes well when they do have to work together.
Debbie: “A lot of the stuff I do, I get a lot of information for exhibits, and we communicate that way. It’s on and off, but not every day.”
Tim: “There’s not a lot of frustration. We work together very well.”
Best part about working together:
Debbie: “Riding to work together and riding home. You get all your work anxieties out.”
Tim: “It gives us a chance to communicate, even if it’s just what’s for dinner. We aren’t on the cell phone; we’re sitting next to each other on the way home.”
Worst part about working together
Debbie: “People worry about saying the wrong thing in front of us. That’s a concern maybe in general.”
Tim: “I wouldn’t say there’s a worst part. I’m not the touchy-feely kind. I try to avoid her at work. When we walk out of the car, it’s professional. We never really talked about it, but that’s how it is. There might be something in the stairwell, where I’ll smack her in the you-know-what.”
How does working together help:
Tim: “You know your significant other is safe where you are — they’re not on the road. Everybody has concerns that you could be in an accident or whatever.”
Debbie: “People have said, ‘I could never do that [work with my spouse].’ I didn’t think I could either. We’re fortunate it has worked out.”
Robert Thayer and Jaimie Aldridge
Company:
Tri-North Builders Inc., Fitchburg
Positions:
Robert works in marketing, and Jaimie is a project manager.
Wedding plans:
Robert and Jaimie got engaged in June and are planning a May wedding.
How they met:
“We met online,” Robert said. “I did not even live in Wisconsin yet.”
They were members of match.com, and when Robert knew he was moving back to Wisconsin from Virginia, he made a local profile.
“She saw my profile and sent a message,” he said. “We talked on the phone and met in person two days later. I happened to be here looking at houses.”
Jaimie said they started chatting online, but after they met, they were “pretty much inseparable from then on. I flew to Virginia to help him pack his things. It just kind of worked.”
How they began working together:
Robert’s parents own Tri-North Builders, and they offered him a job.
“A position opened up here that fit her qualifications perfectly,” he said. “They took the opportunity to snatch her up. My parents were the ones who came up with the idea. They encouraged it greatly.”
Jaimie said she was not nervous to be working for her then-boyfriend’s parents, though there was added pressure to “do a great job and not disappoint them.”
Robert said he was happy when she came to work for the company.
“The relationship was relatively new, but I really wasn’t worried about it,” he said.
“My mom and my dad have worked together for years.”
Best part about working together:
Their duties don’t put them in daily contact, but they are based in the same building.
“We can see each other whenever we want,” Robert said. “We’ve got the flexibility to talk face-to-face instead of over the phone. It’s just convenient. We’re in the same building and car.
“We’re planning a wedding now. That’s what I tend to do when I’m slow or on lunch breaks. We sit here and plan our wedding together.”
The rides to and from work are Jaimie’s favorite perks.
“We’re living in my house, and it’s 20 minutes away from the office,” she said. “It gives us time to chat on the way in. It makes it so when we see each other, it’s more than just when we get home. It’s extra time to spend together, which I think is a very good thing.”
Worst part of working together:
Jaimie: “Nothing’s the worst. I was never worried about working with him.”
Robert: “She wants to go to lunch every day, and I don’t really eat lunch.”