MAHONING VALLEY Company reflects close-knit community

The company has come full circle with two projects in Hubbard, 80 years apart.
By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
HUBBARD -- Tom Downie grew up in the Mahoning Valley and knows what a strong work ethic exists here.
"It's amazing," he says. "From generation to generation in families here, you find people who are not afraid of hard work."
Downie himself is a product of that upbringing. He is part of the third generation of Downies to work in the family business, Alex Downie and Sons Construction on Youngstown's West Side.
The company started in the 1920s as Hawkins-Downie Construction, when his grandfather, Alex Downie, came to this area from Philadelphia and started the business with another man.
One of the first jobs was some renovation work in Hubbard at the building that was the high school at that time.
Now known as Roosevelt Elementary School, the building still houses the gymnasium where Hawkins-Downie did much of the construction work, Tom Downie said.
"I went there and looked at the plaque to see if their names were on it, but it just listed board of education members and architects and stuff," he said.
These days, Downie has plenty of chances to check out the work his grandfather did in Hubbard, since he has a job there now, too.
Working on the high school
His crews are working to install new windows and doors at the current Hubbard High School, which sits less than a mile from the site where his grandfather worked.
"We're really happy to be there, doing that work," he said.
He understands the family business has, in a way, come full circle, performing similar work in the same town almost 80 years later, but he knows it's not just his family that brought the business to this point.
The company has survived through the years off the hard work of Alex and his offspring -- his son, Alex; grandsons Alex, Ted and Tom; and even his great-grandchildren. But, as Tom notes, other families -- families who also carry with them that strong work ethic -- are just as important to the company's success.
One of them is the DiTommaso family.
Tony DiTommaso Sr., who started working for Alex Downie and Sons almost 30 years ago, reared his family -- which included four sons -- in the close-knit community of Hubbard. The boys -- Tony Jr., Joe, Danny and Michael -- all graduated from the same school the company is now renovating.
Leading the construction crew is Tony Jr.
As he walks through the same halls where he attended English, science and math classes in the 1980s, DiTommaso talks of how it's a perfect fit for the company to be working in Hubbard.
"People stay here for generations," he says of the town where he lives with his wife and son. "They are here, their kids are here, their grandkids are here."
He jokes how his wife, who grew up outside Pittsburgh, has nightmares about leaving Hubbard -- a town where everyone knows everyone else, families help one another and everyone takes pride in the community.
Finding a company like Alex Downie and Sons, he said, just reinforces that sense of community.
"My dad started here 29 years ago," he said. "I've been with the Downies for 16 years. All of my brothers got into the carpenters union working with this company. It's a big family."
A sense of history
DiTommaso says he and other employees have heard the stories of Downie's grandfather working on Roosevelt when he first came to the area, and love the sense of history they are working with now. Downie says he sees it in their work, too.
The renovation work by the crews will continue through the middle of November, when DiTommaso's crew will have replaced 358 windows throughout the building, Downie said.
"These are guys that have always taken pride in their work, and it shows in the quality," he says. "But now, with some of them being from Hubbard, you can see it even more."
slshaulis@vindy.com