Michael Medina has been doing fencing since he was about 16. He owns FortiFence in Santa Paula now, and one of the people on his job sites is his father.
“I started the company to be able to reach out to a broader community, and my father having nearly three decades of expertise has been the difference maker, given that I’ve learned a lot by watching him in the trade over the years,” Medina says.
He does not describe a training program or a handbook for how the work should be done. He describes a job site where everyone can see everyone else. “We all just share that, just by everyone looking at each other on the job sites, keeping an eye on each other,” he says. “We all learn from each other, so we’ve all just kind of learned to be that way.”
By his account, what the crew picks up from one another is a refusal to cut corners. He counts almost a decade in the trade, and he says he has full confidence in the people around him. They don’t leave anything with cut corners, he says, and “they don’t cheap out on anything.” When a job runs long, they stay. “If they have to stay late to make sure it gets done right, they do that.”
The size of the outfit matters less to him than whether that care shows up in the finished fence. “You can buy the best materials, have the largest company do it, but if the quality isn’t there, none of that really matters,” he says.
FortiFence works mainly on houses, and Medina says it is residential owners who tend to appreciate attention to detail. The company installs vinyl, wood and wrought iron fencing, along with gates and railings, across Ventura County and the surrounding area. Its posted hours start at 6 a.m., six days a week.
His promise to customers is short. “We’re there when we say we’re going to be there, and we do what we say we’re going to do,” he says. He wants the fences themselves to last decades.
Weather can test that. One homeowner whose fence came down in high winds and rain described Medina staying in frequent touch about the schedule while wet ground and continuing rain held up the work. Once it cleared, two of his crew rebuilt the fence in redwood dog-eared boards, and she found it looked nicer than she had expected.
Medina has a next step in mind. He wants to work for larger home builders, which would mean taking on more commercial work than he does now. He has seen how much fence goes up alongside new residential construction, and he has an idea of who should be building it.
“I want FortiFence to be the go-to installation company for when quality and dependability is most important,” he says.