Odd Jobs: High-rise window washer

MONTPELIER, Vt. -

It's a job that starts 85 feet in the air.

"Check that everything is locked, safety's on, pins, pins, pins. And you go over," Matt Donahue said.

Donahue has no problem rappelling off the roof of the National Life Building in Montpelier.

"And you descend down," he said.

He's a high-rise window washer. In fact, he and his wife run the family business. It's an idea Donahue got from his dad.

"He figured out that he could make as much money with a $20 squeegee, than he could with a $20,000 backhoe," Donahue said.

He grew up learning the business.

"When I was 14 years old I did my first drop at the McClure building at Fletcher Allen when it was new," he said. "And every summer since then, I've been washing windows."

In 1995, he started Donahue Window Cleaning. He only had four contracts that year. Now he has 88 clients and got so busy he had to quit being a Montpelier volunteer firefighter.

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Odd Jobs: High-rise window washer