Thomas Buckborough Associates
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Thinking Like Cathedral Builders
Guild Quality Master
Thomas Teaches NARI CR Certification
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May 2007
Dear friends -

It looks like spring is here at last! Baseball season is underway and grills are in working order.

Maybe I love spring so much because it represents renewal -- a theme that runs parallel to my business and personal belief of always striving toward reaching new heights -- thinking about the value and service we offer and researching environmental solutions for cutting edge design.

Hope you enjoy reading some of the work we've been up to in our continued pursuit of excellence.

thomas signature

"If you're not practicing, somebody else is, somewhere, and he'll be ready to take your job." - Brooks Robinson

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.  ~Proverb

Thinking Like Cathedral Builders
Yestermorrow Design Build School, Warren, VT

It's often the case that small businesspeople concentrate on what the business does - what
it produces - and fail to devote attention to what the business is - its purpose and its meaning to stakeholders and community. In addition, many business owners - who have poured heart and soul, and the better part of a life, into creating a business entity - have no idea what to do with it as they begin to age and wish to slow down. When we build a business we build a community that has a life of its own. Just like children, we must prepare it to stand on its own two feet (and provide for us in our retirement!)

I recently returned from taking this course for businesspeople young and old, experienced or not, who want to think together about how to create living, thriving, prosperous businesses that are positive contributors to community life and that honor the employees who create the wealth that is essential to doing good business. It is based in part on John's book The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place, the eight business
cornestones around which the book is structured, and his thirty years running a design/build business. This is about designing and building a business.

The 2 day class was a radical business primer full of stories, activities, and information about making everyday business a thrilling adventure. It mixed philosophy and practice, and tackled employee ownership, growth issues, personnel issues, benefits, community service, multiple bottom line thinking, and long term business planning and succession.

John Abrams

John is cofounder and CEO of South Mountain Company, a thirty-year-old employee owned green design and building company located on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His book THE COMPANY WE KEEP: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Placewas published by Chelsea Green Publishing in 2005. His family lives in a cohousing neighborhood that was designed and built by his company.

 
Guild Quality Master
Guild Quality logo 2007 Guild Quality Master Award

Thomas Buckborough Associates was recently awarded the GuildQuality, 2007 Guildmaster with Distinction Award. GuildQuality, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is an independent organization which conducts customer satisfaction and performance reporting surveys for custom builders in thousands of markets throughout the United States.

Guild Qualityconfirms that customer expectations are being exceeded and allow builders to identify where improvements are possible. Guild Quality defines and measures quality, performance, and customer satisfaction for builders, remodelers, commercial contractors, and real estate developers.

A Guild Master is a Guild Quality Member with a custom recommendation rate of 90% or better. Guild Masters must maintain this high level of superior service. The national average is only a 60% recommendation rate.


NARI Certification Programs
NARI logo

NARI's [The National Association of the Remodeling Industry] certification programs are the industry standard in training, testing, and identifying those remoderls with a level of proffessionalism above the rest.  Thomas put on his teacher's hat this past month and guided the latest Certified Remodeler certification program.

This advanced program provides contractors with enhanced training in technical expertise, organization, selling techniques, construction law and promotion.


TBA logo   Thomas Buckborough
  Associates
   Fine Residential Designers and Contractors
  
Thomas Buckborough Associates, one of Boston's premier, award winning residential design and build firms, provides you both the high level of style, drama and function you get from using a top architectural firm combined with the quality construction, single point of responsibility and simplicity of working with an established high quality residential design/build remodeling firm.

978-263-3850
358 Great Rd, Acton, MA 01720