After Tim Fields graduated from college, he went to work in banking and insurance. He didn’t like the job, he said, didn’t like having to get dressed up every day, and especially didn’t like the figure on the paycheck he took home.
So when his friend, Dustin Doll, called him and asked him to come work for his construction company, DHL, Tim quit his job that night. The next day, Tim got into a truck and drove 14 hours to Columbus, Ohio, which had been hit by a storm.
“It was life-changing,” Tim said. “In six weeks, I had $80,000 in payments in the console of my truck.”
That was in October of 2006. When he quit his banking job and went to work in construction, Tim was married and had two children, 6 and 8 years old. And anyone can do it, he said.
“It was me and a truck and a will and desire to change my life,” he said. “I’ve never looked back.”
Since then, Tim has given up storm chasing, he said, which doesn’t have a good reputation. But when a city is hit by a storm, usually there aren’t enough companies available to do repairs that need doing, he said. Having workers come into town means that people get their homes repaired in a timely manner, he said, and their home insurance covers the bill.
Tim formed his own company, Classic Contracting, so is now his own boss. His mission: to let other people know that they are motivated and willing to work hard, they can change their lives like he did.
“So many people are one skill away from making the jump to construction,” Tim said.
The crews that work with him do roofing, siding, windows, gutters, flooring, sheetrock and electricity. But Tim is the only employee of his company, he said. There are no “sales guys,” just him, who he describes as the “corporate entity” and “boots on the ground.” He created the brand, does the marketing, meets the customers, likes to work alongside the crew, and handles the billing. Classic Contracting does jobs all over Missouri, he said, and some in Kansas, and is the only company he knows of that operates this way.
“We can build a house or fix your garbage disposal,” he said. “We built a truck stop, and helped build a hotel.”
He is a preferred contractor with insurance companies, and is called to make repairs on roofs damaged by hail, wind and rain, and as well as by fire and flood damage.
Tim, 43, is familiar with the vagaries of Midwest weather. Born in Northwest Arkansas, he moved to west-central Missouri when he was a child. His grandparents had a farm in Garden City. His mother Donna Fields, now lives in Urich. Tim attended Sherwood elementary and graduated from Sherwood High School in 1999, then earned several degrees at what is now the University of Central Missouri.
His goal now is to be everybody’s favorite contractor, he said, so that when you see his hat, you have a positive response.
“It’s easy, when you do what you say you are going to do,” he said.
A combination businessman and community cheerleader, Tim makes videos everywhere he goes, posting them on Facebook or Twitter. A video on the Elite Billiards Hall and Alehouse, a family recreation center that his sister, Tabetha Jamsek, and brother-in-law are creating in Clinton, got thousands of likes, he said.
“Facebook seems to be more oriented to what is happening in the community,’ he said. “When I post on Twitter, I get responses from all over the world.”
His long-range plan: to run for governor of Missouri in 20 years, and channel his enthusiasm and energy into helping people. He figures if he keeps posting videos for the next two decades, his face will be familiar to most people.
Making a change in the way politics operate in this country is his goal. Two things he thinks are important: Sunday chicken dinners, and valuing your family.
“It just might make a difference,” he said.
After changing his job in 2006, Tim said he spent the next ten years trying to get other people to see the world in the way he sees it.
“You don’t have to be stuck in a job you don’t like,” he said.
For more information about his company, go to the Classic Contracting LLC, Facebook page. To see where Tim is traveling and what he is making videos about, go to Tim Fields Facebook.
