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Business & Tech

Horsham 'Jock' Constructs Hands-on Career

Eric Boyer, a Horsham native and resident, runs a basement construction business, EBCON Services.

Horsham resident Eric Boyer did not think he would end up in the construction business much less owning a business specializing in finishing basements.

The owner of EBCON Services had interests in athletic training in his college years. He landed a sales job in joint replacement after he finished school, but it left him unfulfilled. In 1996, the Hatboro-Horsham High School grad started a construction business that covered everything.

Around the time he and his wife, Amy —a 1986 Hatboro-Horsham graduate — moved back to Horsham from East Norriton in 2004, Boyer decided choosing a specialty was the right path for his business.

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“I originally thought I wouldn’t have an interest in basements because I thought, ‘that’s inside; it’s not macho; it’s not real interesting or fun. I want to do additions or houses,’” Boyer said.

His interest and skills in construction originate from his childhood. His family moved from Roxborough to an older house in 1970 in Horsham. His father and grandfather worked on many projects throughout Boyer’s home. He developed his interests by watching them and doing his own projects with houses or cars as he got older.

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“I grew up in old houses and watching my dad, who was an engineer, and his father, who was a mechanical type person, redoing our house,” he said. “I was kind of like born into it. How I got started really was tinkering on houses and stuff.”

His business is much different from his earlier life as a Hatter. A 1985 Hatboro-Horsham grad, Boyer and his wife both participated in sports.

“I was your typical jock athlete,” Boyer said.

He played football and still holds the javelin throwing record for the Hatters’ track and field team. He was also the head coach of his son’s 90lb Horsham Hawks Pop Warner football team this year.

Boyer said his son and daughter are growing up in a similar fashion to his childhood and adolescent years.

“My son who’s 9 and my daughter who’s 12 are growing up in a similar situation that I grew up in, watching a project that will probably never end because I’m working on other people’s houses,” he said. “But I’m still a husband, a father, a coach.”

 “You kind of think that when they are kids… they would stray away from it,” Boyer said of his children. “We live in a wooded lot so there’s always a lot of sticks to pick up — I’m talking zillions of sticks — and stuff outside to keep the yard looking nice. You just think, man they’re going to live in a condo and never pick up a stick ever again.”

He labels himself as a bit of a people pleaser, so one of his inclinations towards working on basements was avoiding disrupting the everyday lives of his clients tucked away downstairs as opposed to a higher traffic area, like the kitchen.

“No matter how good of a job, no matter how neat and clean you are, people are going to be more stressed because you’re affecting their life,” he said. “You can do a whole project and be down in someone’s basement for two months and you’re really not affecting their lifestyle too much.”

Boyer strives to be atypical in the construction business so much so that when clients give him their patronage, it’s not because they just want to get it done, but because they want Boyer to do it.

 “I will do nothing to jeopardize my reputation because it’s my livelihood,” he said. “We aren’t going anywhere. I’m not going to just decide I don’t feel like going to work anymore.”

Ultimately, Boyer wants to do right by his clients and give them a positive experience and the basement they want. 

“We’re not saying we’re perfect, no one is perfect,” he said. “But we’re trying to do it the right way hoping that by doing that, we’ll be blessed with having work. So far we’re still paying the bills.”

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