Before and after shots of the men’s bathroom at Smyrna Middle School.
At Dow Smith Company, our purpose is to serve. That spirit of service shows up in the way we take care of each other, the exceptional and unique experiences we provide clients, and in our dedication to the community in which we live and work.
We recently completed a bathroom restoration project at Smyrna Middle School (SMS). This project comes after we built an outdoor theater for Smyrna Elementary School in 2023 and a new field house for Smyrna High School in 2024.
The SMS project came to our Training and Skills Coach Cody Abston, who met with SMS Coach Justin Morton to talk about how we could improve the bathrooms in the field house and concession stand. Field Operations Director Phillip Street, Superintendent Zac Neely, Lead Technician A.J. Blankenship and Construction Technician Trace Petrilli were all involved, with A.J. and Trace on site every day.
“We more or less completely gutted and redid everything in the men’s field house bathroom,” A.J. said. “We did away with two small single stalls and built new partitions and made it just a single stall unit and added two urinals.”
A.J. explained that he and Trace reworked partitions in the women’s restrooms in the concession stand and field house, and that they removed the existing urinal system in the men’s restroom in the concession stand and added two urinals.
Trace Petrilli, left, and A.J. Blankenship on the jobsite.
“If I’m looking at it from a training aspect, there was a lot of opportunity – not just for Trace but for A.J. too,” Cody said. “They both got a lot of experience for training and then, I think that anybody should get to experience what it feels like to serve.”
The entire project took seven days for A.J. and Trace to complete. DSC donated most of the supplies needed and the urinals were donated by Ferguson. SMS will paint the partitions.
“A.J. and Trace did an amazing job,” Zac said. “The bathrooms were in really bad shape and I’m very happy with it. They did it in less time than we were thinking. I love A.J.’s drive and passion and sense of detail. And Trace has learned so much. So I think they were the perfect people to be there and to get it done.”
Zac, who was also the superintendent on the Smyrna High field house, said it means a lot to him personally that Dow Smith Company has done so much for local schools.
“They really needed some love so I’m glad we’re able to do it,” Zac said. “I hope we continue to be able to do stuff for them in the future.”
