PHOTO PROVIDED J&M Construction works on a car wash. The commercial construction firm’s work takes them throughout eastern Pennsylvania.

J&M Construction Specialty Inc. has been an area staple in commercial construction since the late 1980’s. Today the company continues to thrive, thanks to a legacy of devotion established by the founders, according to CEO Brian Shearer.

“We’re a second generation family business,” said Shearer, who began working in the family business at 12 years old.

This continued through college, where he received a degree in construction management from Pennsylvania College of Technology. After a brief move to Philadelphia, Shearer returned to the area, and has owned the company with his brother, Shawn, president of the company, and cousin, Jim, who acts as secretary and treasurer, since 2018.

“My father, Timothy and uncle, Robert, started the business in 1987, and we were incorporated in 1993,” he said.

“The J and the M are actually my mother, Marcia and my aunt, Jackie and Marcia,” he explained.

“My uncle was a traveling district manager for Payless Shoe Sources, and he got tired of wanting to do that. He was actually living in Philadelphia and wanted to move home,”Shearer explained.

“He and my dad started doing some small construction jobs together, and then we got into fixturing. We would go and put in new stores for Payless, take out old stores, and then just kind of grew from there, we started getting more into the commercial construction end of things,” he said.

Jim Bower Sr., who Shearer calls a “great mentor” would later give the company their big break into constructing hotels.

“He really took us under his wing and helped us progress in as far as building hotels and bigger projects like that. Another guy in the area that we work for a decent amount is Keith Eck, of Eck Realty. He’s another big mentor of mine,” Shearer said.

“We do anything in the commercial realm, from factory work to hotels to schools to churches, basically anything along those lines,” Shearer said.

J&M offers not only construction of the buildings, but design and modeling services as well.

A few notable projects around the city J&M have been involved in include the Fairfield Inn across from Penn College, Candlewood Suites in Loyalsock and down and the Dental Care Associates building on Sycamore.

They are currently hard at work constructing the new Domino’s Pizza on W. Third St. that is set to open later this year.

“We also work a lot in the Wilkes-Barre market with the Onvo truck stop team. We built hotels and truck stops for them,” Shearer said, adding that J&M was involved in the construction of the Onvo truck stop just off the 220 North exit in Avis.

“We are a repeat customer business. 90% of our business is with repeat businesses with clients,” Shearer said.

“We negotiate the majority of our projects with owners. We do go out and bid, but a lot of stuff is negotiated with clients because they know our reputation of being able to get the jobs completed on time and on budget,” he said, giving credit for that to their ability to partner with suppliers and subcontractors that are family operated and family oriented.

“It’s been a recipe for when Bob and dad ran it, and now that’s how we do it,” Shearer said.

“Even though we’re a general contractor, we are nothing without our subcontractors. We work hand in hand with a lot of other family owned subcontracting businesses, and you’re only as good as those that you surround yourself with,” he stressed.

“And, without the quality employees J&M has we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said.

“We’ve been pretty blessed to be able to work with them, and we also pride ourselves on getting them paid in a timely manner. That’s been our successful recipe for many years, we pay our bills before we pay ourselves,” Shearer said.

But what has always been at the forefront of the company is what has kept it the stalwart that it is today, a family commitment to providing quality services to the customer.

“We’re dedicated to our clients. When we partner with a client, we do everything in our power to make them happy and make them whole at the end of the day, and we pride ourselves on getting the job done as fast as possible, on budget,” Shearer said.

“I’d lose money before I would rip a client off. Our honesty and integrity has gotten us a long way,” he said.

“That was just bred into us from our father and uncle. We spent many years working side by side with them. They’ve always been our mentors, Shearer said.

“We can still, to this day, call and talk to them. They still give business advice and things like that, and I think being able to watch them operate it that way and be successful, and just being good people and try to treat their clients how they would want to be treated, we found it’s much easier to just be honest and upfront than it is to try to be underhanded,” he explained.

“It doesn’t get you anywhere, because one line compounds onto the next. If you’re honest and upfront, it’s just much easier that way,” Shearer said.