Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I I N O. X V I I I A U G U S T 7 , 2 0 1 7 18 F aced with an enormous hive of 100,000 honeybees found in the walls of a renovation project, other general contractors might have called the exterminator. Not Deirdre Wadsworth, president of Hardypond Construction in Portland. e renovation involved converting the for- mer Clark Memorial United Methodist Church, in Portland, into 25 moderately priced apartments. Learning of the hive, she wanted to do everything she could to save the bees, given widespread colony collapses. So she halted construction on that part of the building and had the bees relocated to the home apiary of her site supervisor, Andrew Green Jr., who also happens to be a beekeeper. "People were ready to get out a can of Raid," she says. "We shut down that part of the job site for a few weeks and did some additional work to be able to safely transfer them. And the honey was absolutely amazing — the best I've tasted in my entire life." Wadsworth is not daunted by surprises. In fact, she relishes them as part of the work's fascina- tion. Mostly, it's about innovation to get better results. In the church conversion, now called Clark on Pleasant, Wadsworth and her crew retained many original elements of the historic John Calvin Stevens-designed structure, confi guring unique apartments to showcase the original wood beams and a Tiff any stained glass window in the sanctuary. "It's pretty cool, and it was the one of the fi rst apartments to rent, even though it's one of the smaller apartments," she says. Wadsworth began driving a backhoe at age 7. She was helping her father, Bob Gaudreau, who founded Hardypond Construction in 1990 to work on small commercial and educational renovation projects. In 2015, she took over leadership of the company. Hardypond Construction expects to have $12 million in revenue this year from a range of projects, including renovations, historical restorations and commercial construction. Clients include Norton Insurance in Cumberland, Sterling Rope in Biddeford and executive search fi rm Smith & Wilkinson in Scarborough. Currently, it is building a radiology facility at New England Cancer Specialists and doing interior and exterior rebuilds at the former Foundation for Blood Research, both in Scarborough. Wadsworth realized early that the job would never be boring. A leader steeped in the family business B y L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r Hardypond Construction 7 Tee Drive, Portland 04103 Founded: 1990 President: Deirdre Wadsworth Employees: 15 Revenue: $12 million for 2017 Contact: (207) 797-6066 / hardypond.com P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY C O N S T R U C T I O N Deirdre Wadsworth President Hardypond Construction Deirdre Wadsworth, president of Hardypond Construction, talks with superintendent David Garand at the Contour Properties site in Scarborough.

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