College Pro

This is one of several College Pro Painting franchises in the Missoula area, and the only one who displayed at the Spring Home and Garden Show at the Adams Center. Ryan Hover is the owner and an upper level business major at UM who has enough experience with a general contractor in painting previous to this enterprise, plus having worked as a painter and job manager for other College Pro franchises in the Missoula area. While they missed their start date by a week, it was through mutual agreement, because we wanted "experienced" painters, but their "college kid" painters began to quit early (a couple weeks before school started) putting our job off a week - but it worked out with our schedule. There is a sweet spot in scheduling, where the beginner painters have a few weeks of experience and are not completely new, which is why we selected an early August date. We did get our bid in shortly after the garden show so were on his schedule early. Ryan Hover is a high-energy, committed, and thorough budding entrepreneur. He communicates well and kept us informed by telephone with follow-up calls. He intends to continue this business in the future and may already be scheduling 2014. We were very pleased and would be happy to have anyone from Angies List in the Missoula area look at our home and his work if it will help during their consideration of house painters. We contacted a total of 4 painters, receiving bids from two others. Some may question the "all A's" rating, but I'll be happy to break it down. Price was fair, considering other bids. Quality was excellent - I'm not sure a painter with years of experience would have done any better - maybe a little quicker with a smaller punch list - but even our "punch list" of some drips here, and missed fascia there, etc. was only about a 45 minute touch-up job. Responsiveness - again excellent - I don't think a call-back was more than a day; Ryan was prompt considering he was on multiple jobs. Punctuality - he was on time for every meeting or phone call. Professionalism - maybe he was not a painter with 20 years experience, but he has a solid group of people to "go to" when needed, and as above, I'm not sure the results could be better. Thus, an overall "A" rating. - Dave Mihalic