Sonoma State University student Kori Burningham, branch manager for College Works Painting, supervises painting being done at a home in Petaluma by her company.

Describing Kori Burningham's summer job as an internship falls far short of the level of responsibility that the Sonoma State University senior has taken on in her position as a branch manager for College Works Painting. Burningham handles the marketing, estimating, budgeting, project management and profitability of each house painting job, making her more of a small business owner than office employee.

I took on the challenge because I believe that if I can run a small business over the summer, I can do anything after that, Burningham says.

While it seems unlikely that the petite brunette who is majoring in human development with a long term goal of becoming a certified nutritionist would be knocking on the doors of Petaluma homeowners to offer house painting services, College Works Painting hires and trains more than 2,000 college students every year. The organization, one of the nation's largest exterior home painting contractors, is fully licensed and insured.

Burningham, who had been working at Raley's in Petaluma since 2011, says that when she filled out a form and then got called to attend an informational meeting for College Works Painting, she was a little wary at first. I wasn't a business major and I'm not a sales person, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity to come out of my comfort zone, she says.

The organization provides sales training so the students learn how to approach clients and build relationships. Cold calling is scary at first but it has made me more extroverted and I'm learning professional communication skills. There is a lot of problem solving involved when I'm working with the homeowners on an estimate.

But Burningham's involvement with the process doesn't end with lead generation. She also received advanced production training so she understands every aspect of the painting process including materials, equipment, and how to manage her painting crew.

I am on the job site at 8 a.m. checking the task list and I'm back at the end of the day to review the day's work with the client. Anything that is not to their liking is addressed immediately. Good communication is a major selling point for our clients, she says.

Burningham has set a goal of $80,000 in revenue for the summer and how much she earns from the total depends on how well she budgets the job, taking into account the amount estimated for labor, materials, and the percentage that goes back to the company.

One painting job has been completed, a second is about to be finished and she has 10 more clients booked. She estimates that she needs five to six more to reach her goal. Having the motivation to continue her marketing efforts is easier now that she has some houses in production.

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Spending summer running a business

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Rehab of Warren's Redstone rocket begins

Ten unlicensed contractors who were illegally bidding on home-repair work in areas affected by the recent Cocos Fire were arrested on June 4 in a sting operation initiated by the Contractors State License Board.

Fraud investigators in San Marcos, posing as homeowners, requested bids on work, ranging from painting and driveway-paver installation to replacement of a gazebo destroyed by the fire.

None of the individuals responding to the sting ads were found to be specifically targeting fire victims, which would have added a felony charge for contracting without a license in a disaster area. Seven of the ten will, however, face an additional charge of illegal advertising, as unlicensed contractors and handymen are required to disclose their non-licensed status in all ads and refrain from bidding on jobs with a value greater than $500.

The highest-value offender caught is San Diegan David Hargrove, who, in addition to providing an unlicensed bid of $6000 to replace the fire-damaged gazebo, was found to be in possession of a bag of prescription narcotics that were not prescribed to him at the time of his arrest. He's also accused of taking $21,000 from an active-duty Navy sailor for a home addition and remodel job, which he abandoned before completing although he'd been paid.

Hargrove is in jail awaiting arraignment; others caught in the sting are scheduled to appear in North County courtrooms in mid-August.

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San Marcos sting nets ten unlicensed contractors

State authorities have arrested 10 people for allegedly working without a contractor license in San Marcos neighborhoods impacted by recent wildfires, as part of an undercover sting operation.

Investigators posed as homeowners seeking bids for fire repairs in the Coronado Hills area of San Marcos, which sustained much of the damage from last months Cocos fire, according to a statement issued by the Contractors State License Board in Sacramento.

The Cocos fire destroyed more than 30 homes in and around San Marcos.

Task force investigators from state and county agencies posed as homeowners seeking bids for wildfire repairs and home improvement projects, including the rebuilding of a gazebo, exterior painting and driveway repairs.

Suspects arrested in the June 4 operation face misdemeanor charges for contracting without a license.

Officials said contractors working on any job totaling $500 or more for labor and materials must be licensed by the state license board. Seven of those arrested were also cited for illegal advertising.

State law requires contractors to place their license number in all print, broadcast and online advertisements.

The contractor license board is part of the California Department of Consumer Affairs. The recent sting included task force partners from the San Diego County District Attorneys Office, the County Sheriffs Department and California Department of Insurance.

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10 Arrested in Post-Fire Sting Targeting Unlicensed Contractors

Optimized palette reflects colors consumers actually want to live with

We found in our research that while consumers are generally confident about what color family they want, most experience a great deal of difficulty in selecting the exact shade to put on the wall, said Rob Horton, PPG director of marketing, architectural coatings. The new color palette for Glidden paint was thoroughly researched to make color selection less daunting and to help consumers clearly visualize how each color will work in their homes.

To arrive at the 488color palette, the Glidden paint color team extensively researched what customers really want and how they process color. They sorted through tint sales data, reviewed website traffic, and studied color sample movement throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico to assess customers purchasing habits. For example, the team found that the neutral color family accounted for 60 percent of Glidden paint sales and so ensured that it had a starring role in the new color palette.

The Glidden color team also scoured social media websites such as Pinterest, home and decorating publications such as House Beautiful, Elle Dcor and Veranda, and catalogs from retailers such as Crate & Barrel, IKEA, and J.Crew to get a sense of trending styles and the different ways people are incorporating color into their homes. They created an inspiration board for eight featured color families and filled them with magazine and catalog clippings that helped evolve and shape the new color palette. As these inspiration boards are a reflection of the Glidden paint customer, the color team was able to make direct connections to how customers actually use color in their lives.

According to Barbara Richardson, PPG manager of color marketing, All of these connections allow us to truly understand the way people incorporate color into their homes and the reasoning behind their color choices. Our customers are very important to us, so the insights we gather from our research are used directly to build our color program.

In addition, a new retail display will feature the eight color families, divided into three groups to provide simple navigation toward the perfect color selection. The Glidden paint color chips have also been revamped to help consumers with the color selection process.

Each chip displays a photograph of a room in the featured color to help customers visualize what the paint would look like in their home; a step up and a step down hue to help consumers pick just the right shade; and recommendations for coordinating colors.

The Better Color Palette:

Each color family is organized into three groups to further simplify color selection for consumers:

Horton noted, Weve given the new Glidden paint color palette a great deal of thought, and we are confident that this will really help consumers color selection process and give them the colors theyll love living with.

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GLIDDEN Paint Brings Better Color to a Store Near You

Havelock Commissioner Jim Stuart, on ladder, watches as a crew from McGowan Painting Contractors begins work on the job to paint an HH-46 helicopter at the Havelock Tourist and Event Center last week. The crew is also painting the RF-4B jet.

By Drew C. Wilson, Havelock News

Two old, retired Marine Corps birds on display at the Havelock Tourist and Event Center are getting new paint jobs.

The HH-46 Pedro helicopter and the RF-4B Phantom jet will be sanded down and repainted over the next two weeks.

The city set aside money for the maintenance of the aircraft in this years budget, so weve opted to do two aircraft with the money that was allocated, said Havelock Commissioner Jim Stuart, who is also curator of the Eastern Carolina Aviation Heritage Foundation.

The city budgeted $46,000 for painting some of the five historic Marine Corps aircraft that are on display outside the center. McGowan Painting Contractors of Greenville was hired for $40,000 to do the job.

It will make them more presentable and get them on a schedule to where every five or six years we revisit them and check their condition and everything, Stuart said. Previously, the volunteers did all the painting, and were still going to continue to do all the basic maintenance and things of that nature, but given the age of the volunteers and how intense the work is, the city opted to fund the aircraft by some commercial folks.

Stuart said the helicopter and Phantom were selected to be first based on their position in front of the center.

Its kind of the central showpiece for the whole place, he said.

Stuart said volunteers repainted the helicopter about four years ago, while the Phantom had not been painted since it was placed in front of the center in 2002.

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Aircraft on display in Havelock

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Painting Contractors Houston
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An undercover sting operation resulted in the arrest of 12 illegal contracting suspects in San Mateo County on Thursday, according to a statewide agency that oversees licensed contractors.

The sting took place at a commercial property in Belmont, and was carried out by the Statewide Investigative Fraud Team, who posed as property owners.

SWIFT members asked suspects to bid on painting, drywall and flooring projects ranging from $1,000 to $14,000, according to Rick Lopes, a spokesman for the California Contractors State License Board.

In California, all home improvement jobs valued at $500 or more must be conducted by a company or person with a CSLB-issued license, Lopes said.

All 12 suspects were cited for contracting without a license, and one, an East Palo Alto man, was also cited by CSLB on an unrelated $5,000 warrant for driving with a suspended license.

In addition, 10 of the 12 suspects were cited on a misdemeanor charge of illegal advertising. Lopes said seven suspects were contacted through ads on craigslist.org, while five were called from business cards and newspaper ads.

The 12 suspects are Dardo Osmar Romano and Dino Joseph Landucci III, both of San Mateo; Edwin Francisco Zavala Valdivia of Sunnyvale; Hugo De Leon-Garcia of Hayward; Rafael Vicente Andrade Villalta, Concepcion Flores and Rossemberg Emmanuelle Hernandez, all of Redwood City; Loni Taaniela Maama and Filino Sokai Masifilo, both of East Palo Alto; Louie Graciano Ortiz of San Jose; Mario Ramirez Reynoso of South San Francisco; and Daniel Aaron Dayton of San Francisco.

The suspects are scheduled to appear in San Mateo Superior Court on July 15 to answer to illegal contracting charges.

CSLB officials encourage consumers to verify that a potential contractor is licensed before hiring them.

Dont rush your spring clean-up, only to ruin your summer fixing someones bad work. Check the contractor license. Get three bids, CSLB registrar Steve Sands said in a statement.

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Unlicensed contractors caught in sting

I needed a bathroom painted. Badly. For all the right reasons. The walls looked shabby-especially after having crisp, white ceramic tile installed so my guest bath floor no longer imitated chunks of glossy egg yolks spilling from corner to corner.

To save money, I invested in a sturdy mallet, a crowbar and protective gear and experienced, firsthand, what contractors undergo when chiseling ceramic tile cemented in place around the time Caesar conquered the world. My motivation was simple: I was desperate to save bucks on my bathroom refurb and frankly, I welcomed the chance to smash unmovable objects into smithereens for too many reasons to mention here.

What's someone without a lot of money to do in the rarified suburbs of Chicago--where price tags on goods and services cause downstate Illinoisans to laugh out loud when comparing their prices to ours? Find a savior.

In this case, I needed to find a painting savior. At the onset of my search, I gathered quotes, considered doing the job myself and grew so frustrated, I was about to leave the wall as is---until an intriguing flyer missed my trash bin, landed on my floor and caught the cat's attention. Reaching for it, I spotted the headline saying, in essence, we paint small rooms for $99.

Say what? $99 to do my small bathroom? What's the catch? I headed for the contractor's website, $99PerRoom.com and learned that there was no catch. My bathroom fit size criteria for a $99 paint job and since I wanted white walls, there was no additional color mixing charge. White paint comes standard and is included in the cost of the job. Turns out, an environmentally safe formulation is used to boot.

$99PerRoom.com is the brainchild of young suburban Chicago entrepreneur Chris McCarthy. He's done contracting work most of his life and holds a real estate license, but admits to having grown tired of listening to people complain that their budgets couldn't cover the amount of decorating work necessary to spruce things up. Could I relate? You bet your paint can opener.

Like the flyer that narrowly escaped my cat's claws, McCarthy's marketing instincts kicked in when the idea of $99PerRoom dawned because the concept could kill three birds with one stone: He could do what enjoyed, own his own business and establish a unique niche that's so price-driven, customers like me can't help but be attracted to his concept.

He's no fool, by the way. I recall being so excited about the price attached to my bathroom walls that I upped my order to include a second project. That's how much money I saved.

Here's the beauty of $99PerRoom.com: You head for the website and consult the chart on the home page to figure out your final room painting cost based on your measurements and the addition of a color that adds about 20 bucks to the cost. Receive a free estimate based on your own figures and a detailed invoice arrives in your e-mailbox. My experience was idyllic.

McCarthy's website is packed with information about everything from the story behind his mission to make room painting costs affordable to his use of green paint products. His concern for the ecosystem doesn't end with his paint choices: McCarthy and his crew regularly undertake volunteer clean-up jobs in the community; they tackle unique ecological challenges like removing garbage from wooded areas, waterways and easements.

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First Person: Affordable Chicagoland Paint Contractors? Found One!