One Click Contractor Employee Spotlight: Mark Garringer

At One Click Contractor, our culture is fueled by the enthusiasm of our employees. We pride ourselves in having a workplace that’s fun, engaging, and innovative, with a smart and motivated team that loves coming to work every day (either in-person or virtually); a team that truly makes magic happen.

This month, our employee spotlight showcases our Lead Developer, Mark Garringer. Let’s find out more about Mark, his background, and his role at One Click Contractor. 

What’s your role at One Click Contractor?

I serve as the Lead Developer/Principle Developer for the engineering team. I’m responsible for most of the technology, architecture, best practices decisions as they relate to software development. Also, when the management team is dreaming and has the question or idea and asks, "How hard would it be?", that generally ends up on my plate to see what it would take to make it happen!

What do you like most about being a Lead Developer at One Click? 

I love working with a great team that’s all focused on helping to improve the businesses of home improvement contractors. I know that if we’re working on creating or enhancing a feature of the platform it’s usually something that’s truly a game-changer and needed by contractors and when it’s finished it’s going to get used.  Being able to talk with contractors in the field and see or hear about how they’re using a feature you just developed or a product that you are a part of creating makes the work very rewarding.

Tell me about your background before coming to One Click Contractor?

Well, you have to go quite a ways back (19 years) before you find a time when I wasn’t working with Chris Thornberry (CTO) & Dale Thornberry (Founder & CEO). The three of us have been helping to create technology for home improvement contractors for a very long time. Chris included many of the projects we worked on together in his employee spotlight - read the post. 

Before I worked with Chris and Dale, I had a work-study job programming before getting on at an incubator/engineering shop that was attached to my college, Rose-Hulman Ventures. I had some good experiences there working on a real-estate startup as well as a mobile health app, back when mobile meant an iPaq/PDA. 

We were actually able to engage again with Rose-Hulman Ventures when Dale, Chris, and I were looking for help on one of our past ventures, GeoEstimator.  

Since the summer before my senior year of college, I’ve been working with Chris & Dale putting together solutions for home improvement contractors. To date myself a bit, that’s been since 2004. Chris talks about some of our ventures like JeSTeR, Treasure Coast Exteriors, GeoEstimator and consulting in his employee spotlight - read the post.  

What are your top three life highlights?

If you’ll excuse the cliche, my wife, Emilie, and 2 children, Caleb & Evelyn are definitely the 3 major highlights in my life. We have lots of fun and adventures together and they definitely keep me sane. My wife and I have gone on some crazy adventures, and we’re working on them with the kids now, too.

My son and I are building memories outdoors. This past hunting season my son was lucky enough to harvest his first deer and with all the quarantine time we’ve had lately, I’ve been blessed to go on some long walks/rides with my daughter and hear her grand plans for the future. I really truly love spending time with my family, especially if we can go on an adventure together and if it's outdoors.

What are your favorite and least favorite foods?

So, not a lot of things fall into "foods Mark doesn't like" territory. Not sure I've ever actually had sauerkraut, but in my head, I don't like it. I'm not a fan of cooked peas (love them raw) but I eat those fairly regularly, so do I really not like them?

As far as favorite food, equally tough for the same reason.  My most favorite is probably any Japanese cuisine. My grandmother was Japanese and I've always been interested in all things Japanese, (Fun fact: I actually got to travel there in high school) and get Japanese foods whenever I can while I’m state-side.  

What embarrassing thing has happened to you?

A few Christmases ago one of my (younger) cousins had an adult size pogo stick at our get together. He had it down and a few others were trying with mixed results. It was tall enough that in order to get on it, you would start up on a step and jump off to start pogoing.      I got up on the step, made one jump, then on the second I came down at an angle and it completely slipped out from under me and I landed flat on my back, that quick.  My loving wife was recording with her phone and you can hear quite a bit of laughter when I landed with a thud on the floor. The laughter got more intense especially after I was deemed unhurt. She likes to pull that out from time to time for a good laugh. Let’s just say I am not going to win any awards anytime soon as a champion pogoer (if that even a real thing).