I will never forget meeting Cam. It was freezing outside and he showed up in a sweatshirt. He looked around our property and stroked his beard, then listened to my grand vision of what I wanted to do. "Well, I'm up for it," he said, and with that, we kicked off an extensive landscape remodel that took more than a year.
In that process, I learned a ton about our home - but even more about the thoughtful human I had hired (and his organized and efficient partner, Mindy). During our project, we had annoyed neighbors, unpredictable conditions (including the record breaking snow year of 2022-2023), and basement flooding which quadrupled the original size of our project. Through all of this, Cam and his crew were considerate, communicative, and actually fun to work with. While this was going on, we had friends taking their contractors to court for lack of progress and contract violations. Our contractor was unflappable.
There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about Cam and Mindy and the crew. Because of them, we have a dry basement. We have a safe, stable and flat backyard where our family can play. We have gorgeous moon rocks and a sandstone staircase that required Cam to create the backhoe piece to build. Our neighbors don't hate us because Cam took good care of them too.
My father is a contractor and I spent a lot of my youth around work crews. I am certain that it is one in a million who would take on the expansion I threw at him in summer 2022. When I called and said, "now I know you are working on the backyard, but I think we need to dig up the entire house and fix the foundation," he did not hesitate at all.
He built me a rock sofa for our Little Free Library for my birthday. He was so dedicated to his work and to his relationships.
Cam was a gem. I am sad that he is gone, and grateful that we had the chance to have him in our lives.