I've made the same mistakes you have. That's most of what I know.
Why I built this
Twenty-five years managing construction projects taught me where money quietly disappears — and it's almost never in the building. It's in the decisions made before anybody breaks ground.
A scope nobody picked up. A budget that never matched the drawings. A subcontract that left too much open.
I know because I've missed those things myself. Most projects go fine. The ones that don't are the ones you remember, and they taught me more than the easy ones ever did — the numbers that came in short, the conversations nobody enjoys having after closeout.
These aren't failures of character or competence. They're the cost of running lean in a business that doesn't forgive much.
I started Stable Ground Consulting so other people don't have to pay for every one of those lessons themselves. That experience is only worth something if somebody else gets to use it.
What I'm actually trying to do
I'm not trying to become a permanent line on anybody's overhead.
The best version of this work ends with you not needing me. A contractor whose own people start catching the things I would have caught. A homeowner who understands where the money goes well enough to make his own calls on the next one. That's not losing a client. That's doing the job right.
So when I tell you something, it's going to be straight. If the answer is that you don't need what I offer, that's what I'll say. If a number is uncertain, I'll tell you how uncertain and why, instead of handing you false confidence and letting you find out later.
Construction has enough uncertainty in it already. Nobody needs a consultant adding to it.
A little me
I'm Michael Batease. I moved to Boise, Idaho in my early 20’s wanting more out of my life than working at a lumberyard in Eastern Oregon could provide. Crazy thing about it was that I only knew one person when I moved here. I basically threw everything I owned in my truck and moved here without a plan and really without a clue on what direction I was going.
Construction has always been a part of who I am. I remember when I was seven or eight years old, they were building some new houses near where where we lived. I would walk those sites at the end of the day after everybody left, and I would pick up scrap two by fours and plywood. I had no clue what I was gonna do with them, but I just picked them up.
I remember the framers giving me a few nails one day after asking me what I was up to. I took those nails home with those scrap two by fours and that plywood, and I built a doghouse. Oh, it was horrible. It was so bad, but I built that.
Nobody showed me anything. No plans. Heck, I didn't even have a doghouse In the neighbor's backyard to use as a reference. I simply just started nailing boards and plywood together. You know, it's kinda funny. I remember sticking sticking my head inside and seeing so many nails that were sticking through the top of the plywood.
I don't think I actually ever let a dog go in there. And, honestly, thinking back, I don't even think we had a dog at the time. I just wanted to build something.