THIS PHOTO SHOWS a shed owned by Ken Kau before Tom Etter from Tom’s Pro-Painting applied a product from Miller Paint that helps to fill in and completely seal rusty corrugated metal.
AFTER THE MILLER Paint product was applied to this shed by Tom Etter of Tom’s Pro-Painting, this was the result. The product has such a hard exterior finish that water can’t penetrate it.
BATTLE GROUND – Tom Etter, owner of Tom’s Pro-Painting, brings a couple of other things to the table aside from his painting skills – he often hires people who are in need to be a part of his painting crew.
Etter remembers one particular couple, who were homeless and lived in their car, who worked for him for a couple of months.
“I was able to get them well trained to the point they were employed by a large commercial painting company,” Etter said. “They have found a place to live and now train other painters how to paint.”
Etter, 66, said he first started Tom’s Pro-Painting three years ago after painting in Portland for three years at a residential care campus. In conjunction, Etter also works full time at the Winco store in the Brush Prairie area. For his painting business, Etter said a couple of full time employees and he also hires part-time painters as needed. He offers interior/exterior painting jobs, along with wall paper removal and repainting corrugated metal roofs. He also offers gutter cleaning if needed.
To repaint corrugated metal roofs, Etter uses a Miller Paint product that fills in and completely seals the rusty corrugated metal. He said they then pressure wash all the old existing loose dirt and any other debris and then apply two coats. The product has such a hard exterior finish that water can’t penetrate it. The project can be made up in nearly in color.
As far as trends in painting go, Etter said that many homeowners are moving away from the traditional dark wood kitchen cabinets or maple-colored cabinets and are having them repainted to either a soft white or antique white. He also said he’s starting to see more of a move towards multiple colors, not unlike the San Francisco color patterns in which a particular house may have four or more color schemes.
“Tans, olive green, black with red highlights,” Etter said. “Let the imagination go wild.”
Tom’s Pro-Painting offers services in the Clark County area. Etter has hired four to five people who came his way through his church, St. James Catholic Church in Vancouver. He currently have two full-time employees, but also has a pool of part-time people from Winco that he can use when he needs to or when they need some extra hours.
Etter lives in Battle Ground and has lived in the area since 1990. He previously lived in Portland and before that lived in Reno, NV. He said he did a four-year stint in the Marines and spent a year in Vietnam. It was while he was in Vietnam that he realized if he got out of that place alive, he needed to go to college. After attending college at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied forestry after getting married in 1979, Etter painted for a year and then landed a job as a forester for a log home manufacturing company.
In 1983, Etter said the timber market wasn’t good, so he moved his family to the Northwest. He started working on his master’s degree at Western Baptist Seminary. He eventually began working at UPS full time, and had planned to retire after 25 years. There a came a bit of a bump in the economy and Etter decided to get back to work painting, and then six months later the Winco opened in Brush Prairie and he applied and was hired. He now works there full time in nearly all the departments and runs his painting business.
For a free onsite estimate, call Tom’s Pro-Painting at (360) 936-2718 or email Etter at etter605@msn.com.
