By Khalida Sarwari
Custom home builder the Conrado Company last month was named the 28th Assembly District’s Small Business of the Year.
The firm’s founder and CEO, Paul Conrado, called the experience humbling.
“It was a big surprise that I never expected,” Conrado said.
Assemblyman Paul Fong recognized the company at the annual California Small Business Day awards ceremony in Sacramento on June 16. Held annually by the California Small Business Association, the event offers an opportunity for state legislators to honor a small business from their legislative district. This year, about 81 businesses were honored for their contributions to the state’s economy.
A week later, the assemblyman, along with staff members, stopped by the Conrado Company office on Saratoga Avenue to present Conrado employees with a plaque and flowers from his own shop, the Flower Cottage.
The company, which specializes in building homes and doing residential maintenance in Saratoga, the South Bay and Peninsula, was also ranked in the Silicon Valley Business Journal as the No. 2 residential contractor that brought in the most money from Silicon Valley projects in 2013 after De Mattei Construction Inc.
Conrado said that while the industry as a whole doesn’t have a great reputation, he is proud of helping change that.
“It is repairable and there’s good people in the industry, and this in some way proves it,” he said.
The Conrado Company was founded in 1988 and has grown to 14 employees, which includes Conrado’s wife and daughter. To date, the company has built 80 estates, 35 of which have been in Saratoga.
“I’m proud to have done it that long,” Conrado said. “It’s a difficult business and to do it all these years, it’s pretty big.”
Conrado received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s in business from Santa Clara University. He got his start in the industry in the early 1980s as an engineer and then land developer before getting into the home building business.
When he’s not busy running his company, Conrado, a native Californian and 24-year resident of Saratoga, sits on the board of trustees at Villa Montalvo, is a member of the Heritage Preservation Commission and the Saratoga Rotary Club and has been a winemaker for Sacred Heart Church for 14 years.
“I just love Saratoga,” he said. “I’ll always be a Saratogan.”
For more information about The Conrado Company, visit conrado.com.
