By: Joseph Wise

Picture this: snow up to the cuff of your boots, drenched socks, wind cutting through your jacket, licking the tip of your pen to keep it writing as the sun goes down over the horizon while you wonder if you should have brought a head lamp. This was the scene as I finished up the back wall of my first estimate for College Pro Painters. I hoped the homeowner didn’t see me going to the sides of the house I had already spent half of an hour on to add up a few more trim boards, or that they hadn’t been near a window when all of my papers fell out of my binder and into the wind. Through the nerves, blistering cold, and waning daylight I remembered I was here on my own accord. I was here because I wanted to be here, and, just then, my runny nose and numb fingers weren’t so troublesome. I was doing something for myself, an opportunity that College Pro and very few other established companies can offer.

By: Joseph Wise
Upper Midwest Franchise Owner

Another summer was fast approaching in 2010, and the idea of tracking myself on the retail monotony rail wasn’t as lucrative, or vocationally appealing, as it was in high school. I needed something that offered more in a summer job, something that wouldn’t only challenge me on a daily basis, but would also reward me for putting in the hard hours. I remembered a friend of mine who used to work with me in the retail world saying he now worked for someone who ran a painting company in the Minneapolis suburbs. He got to work outdoors, and not under fluorescent lighting, and he formed a tightly knit bond with his fellow painters. Having never experienced the manual labor field, I thought trying something new for a summer job would be a refreshing change. My mind was full of illusions of days spent in the sun, working on a team that takes a tired house and transforms it into a glimmering example of the difference a good paint job can make to a home.