PRINCIPAL OWNER
Brian is a local boy, born and raised in Palo Alto, where he attended Gunn High School and first developed his passion for the outdoors—a passion that derailed his initial mechanical engineering studies and eventually led to his degree in landscape architecture at UC Davis. With diploma in hand, Brian struck out for the great northwest, but Seattle’s weather lived up to every blustery, rain-battered expectation and he was back in the Bay Area within a year.
Brian spent the next few years managing production for mountain bike manufacturer Voodoo Cycles, followed by a stint fabricating small instrument panels for period aircraft, where he applied his engineering know-how and attention to detail to the business of metal fabrication, powder coating, silk screening and the like. But it wasn’t until he joined Netscape/AOL that Brian cut his teeth in real high-pressure project management. Great experiences all, to be sure. None of which, however, fulfilled his true, unrealized passion—residential construction—so Brian eventually left the relatively secure world of Silicon Valley technology and began building homes for Habitat for Humanity.
A chance meeting in a video store with a former Voodoo colleague, Troy, who was now working at Mediterraneo, led to an interview, and Brian was hired on the spot as a carpenter. Perhaps because of his experience in engineering, design, fabrication and project management, not to mention good measures of charm, wit, intelligence and can-do attitude, Brian was soon thereafter managing his own projects from initiation through completion.
In 2006, just a decade out of school, and fueled by his success and close friendship with Troy, the two were busy laying plans to venture out on their own when they were jointly approached by their boss at Mediterraneo. Maybe it was karma, maybe it was luck, or just maybe it was a little voodoo, but he hoped they’d be willing to take over the business so he could realize his dream of moving to Mexico. It’s obvious how that turned out, and although Troy has since left in pursuit of a somewhat simpler lifestyle, Brian continues to lead Mediterraneo, further defining it as one of the Bay Area’s most sought after custom home builders and remodelers.
And when he’s not doing that, Brian is deep into his other passions—first and foremost his family (wife, three kids and two dogs), and anything outdoors; mountain biking in particular, camping, fly fishing and skiing.