Employee-owner Outreach

Since he was five, Brian Andrews, Austin Commercial preconstruction manager (pictured at right), has been involved with church-sponsored groups that volunteer to help churches on and around the Mexico-U.S. border where churches, encampments and/or parsonages were in need of construction services. Today, he participates in his church's construction ministry that was started by his father in 1995.  “Up until 2006, our group had typically worked on projects associated with the Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association,” he said. “The last two years we have worked with Nehemiah’s Vision reconstructing houses damaged by Hurricane Rita in South Texas.”

Andrews and his group usually make their trip during the last week in August. Last year, they made a trip to rebuild homes in Orange and Vidor, Texas, where in one week they started at the leveled dirt and constructed the foundations, and framed, shingled and sided the houses.

“Coming from the construction industry where it seems a project is never completed fast enough, and it always costs too much, it’s such a blessing to give something to someone who can’t express their gratitude to you for what you’ve done,” he said. “We’ve worked for people who basically had lost all hope. I always feel like I leave more blessed than the people for whom we have worked.”