By Paul Post
The Go Two Guys have one thing in mind when it comes to growing their new home improvement business.
Show up, on time, and do a good job.
“We’re going to show up when we say we’re going to be there and we’re going to do quality work,” co-owner Kevin Higgins said. “We had a lady who gave us a job just because we answered the phone.”
“That’s the model we try to have with this business,” said Brian Bayle, his partner. “It’s very important. One customer said, You guys are awesome! But I said, We haven’t done anything yet. They said, That’s okay. You called back number one, you said you were going to be here and then you confirmed to make sure we’d be home.”
Two Guys specialize in all kinds of repair and renovation projects from windows, doors and floors to interior and exterior painting, drywall work and kitchen and bathroom remodeling.
“We want to do things the big buys can’t or don’t want to do,” Bayle said. “It doesn’t matter the size of the job. Just call us up.”
The partners, both South Glens Falls residents, were introduced through a mutual acquaintance, the late John Marcantonio, vice president of business development for Glens Falls and Saratoga National Banks.
They launched The Go Two Guys last June, coming from considerably different backgrounds and circumstances. Bayle, 54, had been shipping director at Lehigh Cement Company when the Glens Falls plant shut down in 2023, putting 85 people out of work.
Over the next 18 months about 1,600 more area jobs were lost with the closure or downsizing of large employers such as Essity Paper (300) in South Glens Falls, Great Meadow Correctional Facility (649) in Fort Ann, Quad Graphics (435) in Saratoga Springs and AngioDynamics (210) in Glens Falls. Angio retained 140 jobs after revising plans to cease all local operations.
Some people retired, others have been forced to move or commute long distances – Lehigh workers to a Lafarge cement plant in Ravena; corrections officers to Coxsackie; Quad employees to other plants the Wisconsin-based company owns.
“I could have done that, but I always wanted to do this, so I decided to give it a go,” Bayle said.
Some displaced employees have found work locally, but at significantly less pay and benefits.
A report prepared for Washington County said employees of local correctional institutions had an average of $138,948 in 2023, more than double the average wage ($59,956) of most other public and private sector jobs in the county.
County Administrator Melissa R. Fitch has said the state Department of Corrections tried to “strong arm” prison workers into taking transfers, instead of helping them find alternative jobs that would have kept money in the local community.
“Because New York State does not require a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notice of impending closure with attendant tracking we have no way of knowing how many employees transferred, quit or found other employment,” county Economic Development Director Laura Oswald said. “All of our questions have gone unanswered.”
Warren County employers have about 1,500 jobs available at any given time in winter, a number that typically doubles during the busy summer tourism season.
“That’s why our community is more resilient when businesses do close,” said Liza Ochsendorf, Warren County Department of Workforce Development director. “We still have plenty of work for folks, but it may not be the long-term career they want. Great Meadow employees were making way more money working for the state. It’s hard to find other local jobs, inside or outside government, that pay what they were making. It was hard seeing some of our Great Meadow corrections officers feel completely broken and lost.”
“This is more than just about a paycheck,” she said. “This is about dignity, about being a provider. It’s harder on men because a job is such a strong sense of identity and purpose with men. If you’re head of household you really feel stuck in moments like that.”
“If people are transitioning, we want to make sure it’s to a good new job,” Ochsendorf said. “There are a lot of great businesses in our community. That doesn’t mean they’re all great employers.”
“If they’re paying minimum wage, have no benefits and employees have never felt valued, heard, seen or included in problem solving, those are some of the things we look at when determining if a business is a great employer or not,” she said.
Higgins, 58, left a secure job with Andritz Inc. in Glens Falls, where he specialized in computer design, to launch The Go Two Guys with Bayle.
“It was a little scary losing a steady paycheck,” he said. “My wife actually had to push me out the door. I loved my old job at Andritz. It was a great place to work, but it was time for something different.”
Last year, exemplifying The Go Two Guys’s willingness to do just about anything, Higgins designed and built a trebuchet, a catapult-type device, for a “punkin chuckin” event at Dancing Grain Farm Brewery on West Road in Moreau.
“If we can’t do it, we know somebody who’s reliable and trustworthy that can,” Bayle said.
At present, the partners work out of their garages, so there’s very little overhead. They have a Facebook page, but most marketing is word-of-mouth.
They took time off before Christmas because most people don’t want their home disrupted with projects during the holidays.
“On January 1 the phone started ringing off the hook,” Higgins said. “We’ve got four or five good-sized jobs lined up just since Christmas. Down the road we’d like to work with other contractors who do new housing, go in and paint, for example. We’re fully insured for commercial or residential.”
“We’re getting a lot of work from seniors and we’ve just hooked up with a few real estate agents who are looking to get their houses cleaned up for sale,” he said.
Eventually, the pair hope to open a shop of their own.
“It’s slow growth,” Higgins said. “We’re not looking to take out big loans and try to grow too fast. I’ve seen too many businesses fail by trying to over-expand way too fast. We don’t want to do that. It’s just me and Brian. We’re keeping ourselves busy.”
Ochsendorf said a variety of resources, including her department’s Career Center, are available to help displaced persons still looking for work, or better jobs.
“We provide job search assistance, resume updating and we also pay for people to be trained,” she said. “If someone from Essity, for example, wants to obtain a CDL license we sponsor them for programs that help prepare them for a new career. If someone’s unemployed and needs $150 work boots, we have a contract with Super Shoes, making sure that person has what they need to start new job.”
Additional services include virtual workshops and employment counseling, and job-seekers can use her department’s phone, fax, printer and office computer, for free.
“We really want people to feel supported,” Ochsendorf said. “When doors close, there are opportunities for new doors to open. We try to help people figure out what their skills, talents and interests are that they want to tap into.”
Quad Graphics, which printed well-known publications such as Sports Illustrated, said its closure was largely due to a wholesale change in people’s reading habits away from magazines to online sources, and increased postal costs.
Saratoga Economic Development Corp. President and CEO J. Gregory Connors said 60-70 percent of impacted workers found jobs elsewhere in the region with employers such as GlobalFoundries and Curtis Lumber. Some went right next door to Quad’s neighbor, Soleno, a Canadian firm that makes plastic piping for everything from residential uses to largescale wastewater treatment facilities. This is the company’s first manufacturing facility in the U.S., with plans of expanding business throughout the Northeast.
The former Quad plant, at Grande Industrial Park, has been purchased by Regeneron, a biotechnology company that invents, develops and commercializes medicines for people with serious diseases. It’s currently using the facility for warehousing and distribution, while exploring other options for using the large space.
Connors said he’s optimistic about the surrounding area’s ability to provide quality employment for residents. “We have seen just in the last year, regionally, an uptick in the employment numbers,” he said. “We’re very pleased with that trend and trajectory and hope that it continues. It’s certainly a collaborative effort by everybody to keep the job market robust.”