Pat O’Donnell paused to consider a question: How difficult was it to let his son Scott go from the family home-building business?
“When Scott had to go, I don’t know how to express it,” Pat said.
His construction firm, J. Patrick O’Donnell Inc., had been busy for 30 years. Then one day in 2010, a son became a father’s liability.
“All of sudden when the world changed, I didn’t need Scott anymore,” Pat said.
An older son Patrick also worked for the company but had left months earlier, knowing the family business as a premier builder of multi-million-dollar custom homes was not generating enough to support his salary. But Patrick had always planned to move on in his field, technology and marketing. The home-building downturn provided the fork in the road for him to leave about a year before Scott, even if the business timing was bad.
In Tuesday's newspaper, the AJC continues its occasional series on refugees from the housing downturn. AJC housing reporter Christopher Quinn explores personal stories behind the virtual collapse of one of metro Atlanta's most important industries. It's a story you'll get only by picking up a copy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper's iPad app. Subscribe today.
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