Scott Steiner: My Favorite Project

When choosing a favorite project, Scott Steiner has a lot of experience to draw on. He began working in construction as an apprentice carpenter for the carpenters union in 1987. He was 17 and had just graduated from Lanphier High School. For several years, he worked for many contractors, including some that were outside of Illinois.

“I started working for Harold O’Shea Builders in May, 1995, and haven’t worked for anyone else since that date,” Steiner says. “For 28 years, I have been made to feel like a part of Bud and Helene O’Shea’s family.”

Steiner was sent to O’Shea as a journeyman carpenter by the union hiring hall. Now he’s O’Shea’s Building Services Project Superintendent. At that first job for the company, Steiner installed ceiling grid at the Hospital Sisters Health System corporate office building at the Franciscan Motherhouse near Riverton. It was the first of many religious buildings he worked on for O’Shea.

“My favorite projects -- without a doubt - have been the numerous churches we have built or remodeled throughout the area,” Steiner says. These included: Hope Church, Cherry Hills Church, Springfield Southern View Chapel, and West Side Christian Church.

“But Blessed Sacrament and the Cathedral were my favorites,” he says. “We did renovations on the entire churches. All the pews and brass were sent away to be refinished and we did a lot on the woodwork. I really liked Blessed Sacrament because there were more woodwork and ornate decorative finishes. We took a lot of it back to our shop to finish it. We took out two confessionals, took them completely apart, and turned them into cubbies with a statue inside. I like finish work. When I first started, I was building houses and it was the first thing people would see. When I go into a building, I sit and look at the architecture.

“I think the reason I've enjoyed those two churches the most is because I imagine people sitting in them and really getting a chance to look around and take in the finish work that has been done, the woodwork, marble, ornate paintings, and stained glass.”    

Projects aside, two of his favorite memories at O’Shea were coaxing David L. O’Shea III to climb up into the trusses, “the bottom cord at least,” at the Staybridge Hotel build, Steiner says. “David doesn’t like heights. He climbed off the ladder into the bottom cord of the trusses and sat there for a while, then climbed right back down. That was probably a first for him!  My other favorite memory was going with him to pick up something from the shop while we were working on the Hampton Inn, then stopping off to visit his grandma (Helene) and eating her delicious chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven.

“I apologize Mike, I owe you an hour or two, but in my defense, David insisted.”