Rich Cartlidge grew up in a family of builders. Before he was old enough to run a saw he was on jobsites — sweeping them, loading them, learning that a wall is only as good as the layout under it and that the crew who shows up on Monday is worth more than the lowest bid. That’s where the standard came from. It didn’t come from a brand book.

He carried that into his own license: a Florida Certified Residential Contractor (CRC1335809), building custom homes, additions, and high-end renovations across Palm Beach County.

Then he did something most builders never do. He went to law school, and spent his career on the other side of failed projects — the ones that end in arbitration, in defect claims, in liens and delay damages and owners who trusted the wrong handshake. Today he is board certified in construction law by The Florida Bar, a designation held by only a small fraction of Florida attorneys.

That experience is not a marketing line. It’s a checklist. Rich has read the contracts that left owners exposed, deposed the superintendents who couldn’t produce a daily log, and watched change orders get argued about years after the trades went home. So Cartlidge Construction is run the way a project should be run when someone already knows exactly how it falls apart: a real scope, a real schedule, a contract that says what it means, and documentation from day one.