Sugar Land resident Jason Pierce said he has been building homes for 17 years. His company, Pierce Built Homes, builds custom homes and also provides remodeling services, mostly for residential projects.

Pierce said his first job was working for his father’s painting and drywall company on weekends as a teenager. The experience introduced him to the world of construction and home repair.

“Laying Sheetrock can be difficult, and making the finished project look good takes practice,” Pierce said.

Pierce said he started his construction company in 2013, right before the price of oil plummeted, vexing the Texas economy.

“It was risky,” Pierce said. “It was probably not the best time to start a business.”

However, Pierce was introduced to the operators of a large company that was buying up single-family homes left over from the foreclosure crisis, and they needed contractors to rehab what they bought, he said.

“Some of them were trashed,” Pierce said of the homes he worked on. “One had suffered a fire and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. I was working 14 hours a day.”

His first job in the construction business was working for a Houston-based builder as a punch-out man.