Featured Alumni

Anita Mefford

Anita Mefford says she's living proof that a formal education in a trade can pay big dividends.

When Anita Mefford decided to strike out on her own and create a commercial painting business, she figured a good strategy would be to mix classes with work in the profession. She found what she was looking for in the Painting and Decorating program at Saint Paul College, which requires a semester of classes and an apprenticeship lasting three years and involving 6,000 hours of experience.

After graduating in 2003, Mefford continued to work with commercial painting companies before launching Color Works Painting and Decorating two years later. The three-person, Blaine-based company quickly found projects in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul in familiar landmarks such as IDS, Wells Fargo and the US Bank building. Twin City Co-ops Federal Credit Union became a big customer, too, assigning her work at several of its bank branches around the metro area.

"I feel like my education has helped me more than if I had just done my learning out in the field," she says. "At Saint Paul College I got to learn a lot of things I don't use every day but which I do get to use on certain projects. It's the finer things you learn by taking classes."

The 40-year-old business owner recalls taking courses that dealt with color matching and fabric hanging in the 18-credit Painting and Decorating certificate program at the College. The program requires that students take six courses on topics such as small hand tools, refinishing (color matching falls into this course), spray painting, wall covering, finishing and employment. "Everyone can paint, but not everyone can match finishes or hang fabric," she says. "These are skills I appreciate having and it makes me a more valuable, and a better, contractor."

Education matters

Commercial painting is a second career for Mefford. A trained culinary arts manager, she worked in Ann Arbor, Mich., restaurants for more than a decade until the long days and late hours began to wear thin. She relocated to the Twin Cities in 1995 and later worked on the staff of a couple of commercial painting companies before enrolling at Saint Paul College.

These days, her company's work involves not only painting, but wallpapering and hanging commercial vinyl in individual offices-and sometimes the entire floors-of office buildings. Some projects last a few days, others take several weeks. Most of the work comes from projects in Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul and require that union labor be used; suburban projects tend to have a 50-50 union split. Mefford and her staff are, of course, members of the local painting union. "It's been a great transition into organizing my own business and managing people and managing several jobs at once," she says.

Mefford's success does not come as a surprise to her former Saint Paul College instructor. "Anita's a savvy, smart businesswoman who has done really well," says Mark Christianson, a College Painting and Decorating instructor and a journeyman painter himself. "She came in with the idea of starting a business and she has done that-and done it well. She has been one of my best graduates."

Christianson is hoping for more graduates like Mefford since the ongoing retirement of baby boomers is opening up a slew of painting jobs these days-with more on the horizon. "It's a 'gray hair' field now," he says, adding that education matters, even in a field where many practitioners learn on the job and never bother with professional classes.

Mefford is an example of what a professional education in a trade offers. "Thanks to Saint Paul College, I'm more confident that I can put out a good product" she says. "I'm extraordinarily happy I got a formal education in painting and decorating rather than just learning from being in the field."

Frank Jossi is a St. Paul-based freelance writer.

Learn more about our Painting and Decorating Program