Meet Doug Keeney of America 9 Construction in Cypress

Today we’d like to introduce you to Doug Keeney.

In early 2009 Doug transferred from Minnesota where he was living to work with a GC in Houston. Along with many in the construction industry in 2009 that GC lost a lot of their business and had huge lay-offs. Doug decided to stay in Houston and start his own company. So Doug started America 9 Construction in late 2009. He has been in construction most of his life and thought he would give it a try. With the new construction market crash he decided to go into residential remodel and repair. That kept him pretty busy but it was completely different to work in that field here Texas than in Minnesota where he was from. After a few years the commercial side of things started coming back so he decided to get back to what he knew best. So in 2012 he started working his way back into commercial. In 2013 he got busy enough for his wife Gina to quit her job in the waste industry and join the team. They rented a small 1500 SF office/warehouse and really started getting busy. Covering all 50 states and doing lots of retail product roll-outs there were lots of late nights and sleeping in the office for both of them. In 2014 they hired one project manager to help with the business side and Gina started focusing more on developing new business and accounting. America 9 quickly outgrew the 1500 SF office and in 2015 they added another 1500 SF making the office now 3000 SF. After adding the extra space they grew to a point of needing more people. At this time they had 6 full time office people and about 20 field guys. In late 2016 Doug and Gina decided they would build their own office so they started planning to develop on a piece of property they already had. Things went fast and in early 2017 they started construction. Today May of 2017 they are all moved in and running at the new place. Things are still being finished out but they are happy to be in their own place now. America 9 Construction specializes in Finish Carpentry, Tennant Improvement and Product Roll-Outs in Commercial/Retail, Schools, Hospitals and restaurants. Gina Keeney joined America 9 in 2013.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been a long rough road. We started from Doug working out of the house with a truck and 3 -4 guys doing residential to having our own 7200 SF office/warehouse with 5 full time office people and 20 +/- field guys doing large commercial projects in just 7 years. Growing a small business with nothing but faith and hard work. Not knowing about what it takes to run a successful business there has been lots of learning curves.

The field work was no problem for Doug but Gina had been in sales her whole career so from insurance to making sure the taxes were being done correctly, there were lots of late night talks and decisions made. We were and are still learning every day and making changes to be better business owners. Both of us came from the corporate world and want to take all the good from that to build our business. Monday morning meetings, hiring a full time bookkeeper and warehouse guy was a must so that we could both focus on growing the business. If I had to say one thing was the most difficult part of being a business owner it would be letting other people do what you have done for so long. Letting go and trusting new people you don’t really know to handle big things that could make or break a company is hard. We are learning to delegate and monitor the qualified people we have put in place but it is still challenging at times.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My vision for America 9 started off with us doing product roll-outs all over the US. We still do that but it is seasonal and we had to spread out to other things to grow. We have done work for NASA and started doing Schools, Hospitals and now restaurants. Installing owner provided fixtures and millwork. We hope to someday GC some small projects and try to get to a point someday to be a GC who self-preforms all the finish work. I would say one of the reasons we stand out from other companies is we are involved in the business. As owners we answer our phones all hours and know what is going on at all time. We are not the kind of owners that don’t show up. We don’t take vacations all the time and buy expensive play toys. We put everything we have back into the business. Our employees all know that we don’t ask them to do anything that we won’t or have not done ourselves.

What were you like growing up?
As a young man Doug worked with his grandfather in his construction business and learned how to run large equipment. Right out of high school Doug joined the Army and served for 4 years as a MP in Germany. From there he went to work in the construction industry. He enjoys hunting, fishing, riding his motorcycle and building guns in his spare time. Gina being the big sister of 5 siblings spent most of her childhood helping out with the busy family life. She has worked in sales most of her career and in 2011 she got her license to be a LMT. She volunteered for 10 years for HLSR but with the business she had to retire. She now enjoys decorating the new office and their home. They have no children but do have one fur baby named Finnegan. He is an 85 pound chocolate lab that goes everywhere with them, even to the new office.

Contact Info:

• Address: America 9 Construction
  19015 Wilks Dr, Cypress, Texas 77433
• Website: www.america9construction.com
• Phone: 281-256-0999
• Email: dougk@a9const.com or ginak@a9const.com
• Facebook: America 9 Construction

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