GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Steve Huizenga entered the trades industry as a Calvin University dropout who loved to work with his hands.

Since childhood, he’d tear things apart and build them back up again like it was any other kid’s toy.

“I wanted to see how things worked,” Huizenga said. “It just made sense to move into engineering, but I have the attention span of a gnat and I can’t sit still — so I’m sitting in a college class thinking, ‘This is not for me,’ and I finally had it.”

He decided to work at his grandfather’s family business, Allied Mechanical Services, where he remained for over two decades, working up the ladder from plumber and welder to president and CEO.

Then Huizenga stepped away and moved on to a women-owned startup called Freedom Construction for two years.

That change so

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