thedrifter
12-31-07, 07:58 AM
Real-life 'Spiderman'
By ANTHONY CLARK
Sun business editor
Spiderman Mulholland's story would be remarkable enough if it were just about his high-flying exploits rappelling up and down buildings to search for water intrusion.
Continue to 2nd paragraph
It's also a rags to riches tale of a tragic childhood ending as a homeless teen-ager who would go on to start a multi-million dollar construction and consulting business.
It's the story of a young man who found an outlet for his bitterness as a U.S. Marine, traveling the world training other Marines in counter-terrorism tactics and later training Florida SWAT teams to conduct high-risk entries.
Of a man who conquered his demons in the Pentecostal church.
Who reaches out to troubled kids with his testimony.
Let's start with the name.
Mulholland's unique approach to inspecting buildings by scaling the outside walls has made for good photos and videos for news outlets at work sites across the nation. The stories often referred to him as a real-life Spider-man. The nickname stuck and he liked the moniker so much he changed it to his legal name 20 years ago, from Scott Francis Mulholland.
Mulholland shut down a successful construction company in Pensacola and moved his family and the home base of his consulting service to Gainesville three years ago.
US Building Consultants Inc., consisting of Mulholland and his son, Scott, inspects everything from small homes to commercial high-rises for exterior water intrusion and toxic mold, diagnosing problems and recommending solutions.
“When buildings leak, people sue,” he said. “In fact, 80 percent of all construction litigation is associated with water intrusion.”
Mulholland is also sought-after for his expertise in exterior building construction, speaking to construction trade groups and writing for trade magazines. He was also a teacher and president of the Exterior Design Institute based in Virginia.
Not bad for someone the system gave up on as a boy.
The child of two alcoholic parents in Seattle, he was separated from his abusive mother at age 4 and at 12 his father was committed as insane. By age 9, he was on drugs. A perpetual runaway, he was in and out of 12 foster homes and receiving homes, sent to a youth center six times and institutionalized at age 15.
At 16, a judge emancipated him from the system.
“He said, 'We're through with you,' told me I was a menace to society and I'll never amount to nothing. I'm still trying to prove him wrong,” Mulholland said with a laugh.
He spent the next year and a half living on the streets and said he sold his body for food.
A barroom bouncer took pity on Mulholland and helped him enlist in the Marines. He would become a scout sniper instructor, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
He said the USMC taught him discipline, but he was still hateful and on drugs until he “got church” at a Pentecostal church at 21. He would later conduct Bible study and offer his testimony, in addition to reaching out to kids, volunteering with a troubled youth program in Pensacola for 18 years.
“It's my testimony that really helps them relate to me because I'm from where they're from,” he said. “And it gives them hope that if I can get out, they can get out, too.”
Someone in church suggested he start his own business. Having worked as a high-rise window cleaner for a short time and with Marine training in scaling buildings, he opened his own high-rise window cleaning business in Wilmington, N.C. He started by knocking on doors and within two years had 30 employees.
He also read books by entrepreneurs. He learned more about windows and started branching out into exterior inspections. His education would take him further into exterior construction. Mulholland said he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on certification and training to develop his expertise.
Mulholland moved to Pensacola in 1987 and built a waterproofing and inspection service into a multi-million dollar construction business within four years with 120 workers and separate corporations for general contracting, concrete restoration, wall cladding and roofing.
“We specialized in fixing buildings, sometimes tearing them down and building them back up,” he said.
His work would take him around the nation scaling buildings as tall as 80 stories. While rappelling down a hospital building in Mobile, Ala., he saw a woman giving birth.
“I didn't know whether to tell her to push or send flowers,” he said.
Although he's been in the business 25 years, he said he can still go up nine floors in 27 seconds.
Mulholland's heart was in inspections and consulting, so other people ran his construction operation. Although the construction business was growing, with a $1 million increase in revenue in its last year, Mulholland struggled to find the right people to run it and decided to shut it down when he couldn't find a buyer.
With work throughout Florida, he moved to Gainesville for its central location.
Although Mulholland has had some work in Gainesville, he is only now actively trying to get the word out about his services locally since work from hurricane damage elsewhere is just starting to slow down.
“We are like the CSI of the construction industry,” he said. “If there is a problem, we can usually find it.”
Ellie
By ANTHONY CLARK
Sun business editor
Spiderman Mulholland's story would be remarkable enough if it were just about his high-flying exploits rappelling up and down buildings to search for water intrusion.
Continue to 2nd paragraph
It's also a rags to riches tale of a tragic childhood ending as a homeless teen-ager who would go on to start a multi-million dollar construction and consulting business.
It's the story of a young man who found an outlet for his bitterness as a U.S. Marine, traveling the world training other Marines in counter-terrorism tactics and later training Florida SWAT teams to conduct high-risk entries.
Of a man who conquered his demons in the Pentecostal church.
Who reaches out to troubled kids with his testimony.
Let's start with the name.
Mulholland's unique approach to inspecting buildings by scaling the outside walls has made for good photos and videos for news outlets at work sites across the nation. The stories often referred to him as a real-life Spider-man. The nickname stuck and he liked the moniker so much he changed it to his legal name 20 years ago, from Scott Francis Mulholland.
Mulholland shut down a successful construction company in Pensacola and moved his family and the home base of his consulting service to Gainesville three years ago.
US Building Consultants Inc., consisting of Mulholland and his son, Scott, inspects everything from small homes to commercial high-rises for exterior water intrusion and toxic mold, diagnosing problems and recommending solutions.
“When buildings leak, people sue,” he said. “In fact, 80 percent of all construction litigation is associated with water intrusion.”
Mulholland is also sought-after for his expertise in exterior building construction, speaking to construction trade groups and writing for trade magazines. He was also a teacher and president of the Exterior Design Institute based in Virginia.
Not bad for someone the system gave up on as a boy.
The child of two alcoholic parents in Seattle, he was separated from his abusive mother at age 4 and at 12 his father was committed as insane. By age 9, he was on drugs. A perpetual runaway, he was in and out of 12 foster homes and receiving homes, sent to a youth center six times and institutionalized at age 15.
At 16, a judge emancipated him from the system.
“He said, 'We're through with you,' told me I was a menace to society and I'll never amount to nothing. I'm still trying to prove him wrong,” Mulholland said with a laugh.
He spent the next year and a half living on the streets and said he sold his body for food.
A barroom bouncer took pity on Mulholland and helped him enlist in the Marines. He would become a scout sniper instructor, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
He said the USMC taught him discipline, but he was still hateful and on drugs until he “got church” at a Pentecostal church at 21. He would later conduct Bible study and offer his testimony, in addition to reaching out to kids, volunteering with a troubled youth program in Pensacola for 18 years.
“It's my testimony that really helps them relate to me because I'm from where they're from,” he said. “And it gives them hope that if I can get out, they can get out, too.”
Someone in church suggested he start his own business. Having worked as a high-rise window cleaner for a short time and with Marine training in scaling buildings, he opened his own high-rise window cleaning business in Wilmington, N.C. He started by knocking on doors and within two years had 30 employees.
He also read books by entrepreneurs. He learned more about windows and started branching out into exterior inspections. His education would take him further into exterior construction. Mulholland said he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on certification and training to develop his expertise.
Mulholland moved to Pensacola in 1987 and built a waterproofing and inspection service into a multi-million dollar construction business within four years with 120 workers and separate corporations for general contracting, concrete restoration, wall cladding and roofing.
“We specialized in fixing buildings, sometimes tearing them down and building them back up,” he said.
His work would take him around the nation scaling buildings as tall as 80 stories. While rappelling down a hospital building in Mobile, Ala., he saw a woman giving birth.
“I didn't know whether to tell her to push or send flowers,” he said.
Although he's been in the business 25 years, he said he can still go up nine floors in 27 seconds.
Mulholland's heart was in inspections and consulting, so other people ran his construction operation. Although the construction business was growing, with a $1 million increase in revenue in its last year, Mulholland struggled to find the right people to run it and decided to shut it down when he couldn't find a buyer.
With work throughout Florida, he moved to Gainesville for its central location.
Although Mulholland has had some work in Gainesville, he is only now actively trying to get the word out about his services locally since work from hurricane damage elsewhere is just starting to slow down.
“We are like the CSI of the construction industry,” he said. “If there is a problem, we can usually find it.”
Ellie