Partners
Our six partners, each uniquely experienced, combine to make considered decisions together. By listening to each other and practicing collaboration, we learn when to hold ground, when to give, and how to lead a group of equals. At least one of us stays immersed throughout each build, so you’ll always have the ear of an owner.
Michael Cello, President
He shapes our method, so you can count on our results.
Michael was born for this. The son of our co-founder Kris Cello, he was seven when he laid eyes on our first project, and never wanted to do anything else. He joined us every summer before making it official in 2002, and, from each angle of the work, led us in distilling complexity into direction. President since 2015, he’s keeping us growing throughout the Bay, connecting our roots to our future. He and his wife Lesley are raising their family in their rebuilt mid-century modern near North Beach.
You’ll meet Michael first, and he’ll stay with you long after the build. He listens deeply, deftly sensing and embracing different viewpoints. Generous and deliberate, he cultivates easy friendship and disciplined process. He shapes our method, so you can count on our results.
Bill Maudru, Project Director | Founding Partner
Consider him your ace in the hole.
The son and grandson of chemical engineers, Bill built houses in Woodside while in school, and loved the blend of physicality and planning it called up. He studied at Cal Poly, joined a contractor, and was soon ready for his next step. Determined to treat people fairly, he wanted a business to believe in, and started ours with Kris Cello in 1987.
Bill rallies us to lead change rather than weather it, seeking ever-better ways to build. His daring spirit keeps him flying planes, crushing slopes and fishing the Sierras when he’s not home in Napa with his high school sweetheart Terri and their four kids.
Bill’s long and varied experience means he’s seen most surprises, knows most people and stays more than ready for the unexpected. When we’re facing an obstacle, he looks at it differently and sees a new solution. Consider him your ace in the hole.
Noelle Passalacqua, Director of Preconstruction
Because she strengthens connections, effort becomes more effective and more enjoyable.
In their living room in a small town near the Shasta mountains, Noelle watched, fascinated, as her engineer father designed homes, playgrounds and furniture. She, too, became an engineer before fitting her creative curiosity and love of math to preconstruction. With firm logic and reverence for detail, she finely compares the expectations of owners, architects, engineers and builders, resolving conflicts early to reduce change orders.
When she’s not using her methodical craft to upgrade her traditional home in Healdsburg, Noelle hikes, bikes and runs, and cheers her kids through baseball and rodeo.
While many in construction find pride in the buildings they leave to last, relationship feels most concrete to Noelle, and its continuation most satisfying. Since 2011, she’s spurred us to confront uncertainty, uncover ideas and choose smarter steps together. Because she strengthens connections, effort becomes more effective and more enjoyable.
Bill Schaeffer, Chief Operations Officer
He’s why our organization outsizes our numbers, while your team stays tight.
Childhood road trips to celebrated American buildings awakened Bill’s love of purposeful architecture. His study of Environmental Design at UC Davis helps bridge gaps of understanding between architects, builders and owners.
Bill’s been a continuous force for progress since we met in 1996, introducing surprising technologies and thoughtful ways to reach agreement. He lives with his wife Toyoko and daughter Laleh in a turn-of-the-century Shingle Style, and meticulously restores an MGBGT and Austin Gipsy when his ingenuity’s not otherwise engaged.
Bill looks for the best answer, not the first. He leads construction management, overseeing the system of controls that keeps everyone informed, communicating, and confident that materials are correct, actions are timely and needs are met with accuracy and speed. He’s why our organization outsizes our numbers, while your team stays tight.
Katie Molinari, Chief Financial Officer
With her oversight, your true financial status stays clear.
Katie’s spent her whole career with us, beginning in administration in 1993 before finding fit with attentive accounting and honing our practice of finance. Serious and methodical, she assures the accuracy of our records and cost projections on each build, so your investment is put to best effect.
Katie is candid and careful, uncannily able to take in all opinions, speak up for what’s fair and smart, and help straighten tangled ideas when the room gets noisy. We call her our conductor.
Katie leads our accounting, administration and contract management teams, activating and attuning their support of our preconstruction, construction and service teams. With her oversight, your true financial status stays clear.
Dan Milano, Project Director
Long compelled by how things go together, his stewardship of how people come together elevates capability and confidence.
Dan’s love of creating places rose early and stayed seeking through a childhood obsessed with Legos, an adolescence studying drafting while his parents built their home, and a degree in Environmental Design at UC Davis, where he met Bill Schaeffer. On a partner track at 28 as a commercial architect, his preference for intimate scale found a better fit in construction, and with us in 2015.
After living all over the Bay Area, Dan’s returned to his hometown of Santa Rosa to realize a lifelong desire to design and build for his own family. When not chasing sun around the world, coaching his son’s sports and applauding his daughter’s arts, he finds joy in celebratory cooking, a legacy of his Italian dad and dietician mom.
Dan connects you to our crews, overseeing timely and impeccable installation and setting the training standards that enable it. His multidisciplinary pragmatism serves both the technical fruition of artistic ideas and pleasure in the process. Long compelled by how things go together, his stewardship of how people come together elevates capability and confidence.
He shapes our method, so you can count on our results.
Michael Cello
Michael was born for this. The son of our co-founder Kris Cello, he was seven when he laid eyes on our first project, and never wanted to do anything else. He joined us every summer before making it official in 2002, and, from each angle of the work, led us in distilling complexity into direction. President since 2015, he’s keeping us growing throughout the Bay, connecting our roots to our future. He and his wife Lesley are raising their family in their rebuilt mid-century modern near North Beach.
You’ll meet Michael first, and he’ll stay with you long after the build. He listens deeply, deftly sensing and embracing different viewpoints. Generous and deliberate, he cultivates easy friendship and disciplined process. He shapes our method, so you can count on our results.
Consider him your ace in the hole.
Bill Maudru
The son and grandson of chemical engineers, Bill built houses in Woodside while in school, and loved the blend of physicality and planning it called up. He studied at Cal Poly, joined a contractor, and was soon ready for his next step. Determined to treat people fairly, he wanted a business to believe in, and started ours with Kris Cello in 1987.
Bill rallies us to lead change rather than weather it, seeking ever-better ways to build. His daring spirit keeps him flying planes, crushing slopes and fishing the Sierras when he’s not home in Napa with his high school sweetheart Terri and their four kids.
Bill’s long and varied experience means he’s seen most surprises, knows most people and stays more than ready for the unexpected. When we’re facing an obstacle, he looks at it differently and sees a new solution. Consider him your ace in the hole.
Because she strengthens connections, effort becomes more effective and more enjoyable.
Noelle Passalacqua
In their living room in a small town near the Shasta mountains, Noelle watched, fascinated, as her engineer father designed homes, playgrounds and furniture. She, too, became an engineer before fitting her creative curiosity and love of math to preconstruction. With firm logic and reverence for detail, she finely compares the expectations of owners, architects, engineers and builders, resolving conflicts early to reduce change orders.
When she’s not using her methodical craft to upgrade her traditional home in Healdsburg, Noelle hikes, bikes and runs, and cheers her kids through baseball and rodeo.
While many in construction find pride in the buildings they leave to last, relationship feels most concrete to Noelle, and its continuation most satisfying. Since 2011, she’s spurred us to confront uncertainty, uncover ideas and choose smarter steps together. Because she strengthens connections, effort becomes more effective and more enjoyable.
He’s why our organization outsizes our numbers, while your team stays tight.
Bill Schaeffer
Childhood road trips to celebrated American buildings awakened Bill’s love of purposeful architecture. His study of Environmental Design at UC Davis helps bridge gaps of understanding between architects, builders and owners.
Bill’s been a continuous force for progress since we met in 1996, introducing surprising technologies and thoughtful ways to reach agreement. He lives with his wife Toyoko and daughter Laleh in a turn-of-the-century Shingle Style, and meticulously restores an MGBGT and Austin Gipsy when his ingenuity’s not otherwise engaged.
Bill looks for the best answer, not the first. He leads construction management, overseeing the system of controls that keeps everyone informed, communicating, and confident that materials are correct, actions are timely and needs are met with accuracy and speed. He’s why our organization outsizes our numbers, while your team stays tight.
With her oversight, your true financial status stays clear.
Katie Molinari
Katie’s spent her whole career with us, beginning in administration in 1993 before finding fit with attentive accounting and honing our practice of finance. Serious and methodical, she assures the accuracy of our records and cost projections on each build, so your investment is put to best effect.
Katie is candid and careful, uncannily able to take in all opinions, speak up for what’s fair and smart, and help straighten tangled ideas when the room gets noisy. We call her our conductor.
Katie leads our accounting, administration and contract management teams, activating and attuning their support of our preconstruction, construction and service teams. With her oversight, your true financial status stays clear.
Long compelled by how things go together, his stewardship of how people come together elevates capability and confidence.
Dan Milano
Dan’s love of creating places rose early and stayed seeking through a childhood obsessed with Legos, an adolescence studying drafting while his parents built their home, and a degree in Environmental Design at UC Davis, where he met Bill Schaeffer. On a partner track at 28 as a commercial architect, his preference for intimate scale found a better fit in construction, and with us in 2015.
After living all over the Bay Area, Dan’s returned to his hometown of Santa Rosa to realize a lifelong desire to design and build for his own family. When not chasing sun around the world, coaching his son’s sports and applauding his daughter’s arts, he finds joy in celebratory cooking, a legacy of his Italian dad and dietician mom.
Dan connects you to our crews, overseeing timely and impeccable installation and setting the training standards that enable it. His multidisciplinary pragmatism serves both the technical fruition of artistic ideas and pleasure in the process. Long compelled by how things go together, his stewardship of how people come together elevates capability and confidence.
Carpenters
We are carpenters. We love the deep quiet that rises in the absence of dissonance, when thousands of careful choices made by woodworkers who’ve been with us for more than twenty years match the grain, shape and fit of timbers piece by piece. So we make cabinets and doors ourselves, and guide other trades through the alignment of every edge and angle, aiming each perfected piece into a serene whole. This is a craft that thrives in precision, not for its own sake, but to create a permanent place that feels peaceful and entire.
Building now makes structure and finish one, meeting reclaimed and rustic materials in clean margins that demand exactness exceeding natural tolerances.
As design pares to essentials, it requires attention, invention and expert technique to heighten beauty and steady support.
Tuning these modern skills to carry history, our carpenters framed a stable near Sonoma with antique oak. Each beam and post, differently twisted by time, was chosen from spent barns, hewn by axe and adze. Resized in our on-site sawmill, mortised by hand with a unique jig and lanced with steel, they wrap the structure in a chronicle of the 1800s, secretly held fast by load-engineered knife plates. Stones, pulled from the earth beneath, fringe the foundation. A new stable wearing the face of the ages, it’s solid and hushed, striking to see and easy to be in.
