Why a St. Louis contractor started another contracting companyOur story
We set out to become the contractor we always wished existed, but could never find.
Why we exist
These are the calls that never got returned.
Larry Cohn had a bathroom put in. Custom work, upstairs, done properly as far as anyone could tell.
Then the basement flooded.
The contractor came out, looked at it, and told Larry he’d be back the next day to sort it out. Larry never saw him again. Not the next day, not the next week. The number stopped working.
He had a finished bathroom upstairs and standing water underneath it.
An out-of-state investor bought several properties here in St. Louis. He hired a contractor to rehab them, paid as the work progressed, and got updates the whole way through.
When the jobs were close to finished, he flew in to walk them.
Nothing had been started. Not one of them. The contractor was gone.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
My dad needed a microwave mounted. That was the whole job. A microwave, above a range that didn’t work and was too expensive to replace. An hour’s work for someone with the right bracket and a stud finder.
Nobody would come out for it. Too small to be worth the drive.
So he went without. Not for a day — for weeks. That microwave was how he was going to cook. There wasn’t another way. The job was too small for anyone to care about, and too big for him to do alone.
— Amber Dirden
Then there’s ours.
Two buildings, five years apart. Same city, same trades, same promises made at the start. Both times we were the ones holding the invoice and the mess, waiting on people who’d already moved on.
We didn’t set out to start a contracting company. We set out to stop being on the wrong end of one.
How it started
Two buildings, five years apart, the same failures
Four Scopes started as a concept in 2017. It became a company in 2022. It didn’t start working until Rich.
2017 — the original building
Ground broke on the original NexCore building in 2017. We hired experienced contractors, communicated clearly, and paid on time. None of that turned out to be enough.
Contractors took money and walked. Work was abandoned mid-job. Some of what did get finished had to be torn out and done again.
That’s where the idea came from. Not a company yet — just the thought that somebody ought to be the contractor we couldn’t find.
2022 — the new building
When we launched the new building in 2022, the same cycle repeated. Things were stolen. We were overbilled. Work was underperformed. Contractors showed up intoxicated, creating dangerous conditions on an active site. Flooring went in wrong and had to be pulled up and laid again.
Five electricians came through and the work didn’t get done.
Then Rich (But not until 2026)
Rich Schaub finished the electrical. We chose to partner with him. He wasn’t a rescue that happened to stick — he was the first person who met the standard.
Four Scopes became a legal company in 2022, founded by Jim Shelvy. Not a single project was done under the name until Rich. We had the company and we had people asking. We refused to take work until the contractors we’d lined up proved themselves. They never did.
That’s the same reason more services aren’t listed yet. We haven’t found the right people.
We set out to become the contractor we always wished existed, but could never find.
Between us the team has more than 50 years in construction, electrical, renovation, maintenance and automation. The rule we run on is simple: if we would not accept the work in our own home or business, we will not ask you to accept it in yours.
The team
Who you’re actually hiring
Head of Power
Head of Four Scopes Quality Control — All Scopes
Rich Schaub
Rich is a plumber’s son. He spent years working alongside his uncle in asphalt before becoming an electrician, and he came through immense personal challenges early in life to get here.
Today he heads up Power, and as an experienced tradesman he works across the other three as well, overseeing quality control for the whole company.
He also signs off the work across the other three.
His standard is the one this company was written around. The strongest companies are not built on skills alone. They are built on character.
It took four years to start a company called Four Scopes.
I tried for four years. The problem was never the idea. It was that Rich was working a full-time job, and this wasn’t something he could take on.
Then everything lined up. Call it a miracle, the universe, God — whatever you want. Rich was able to help us save NexCore and get it open when nobody else could. Or maybe they could, but nobody else did.
He stepped in on a lot of these projects. It was Rich who came in when the house nearly caught fire. It was Rich who came in and finished the job after the things were stolen.
That’s when it became the right time.
— Jim Shelvy
More services are coming. We haven’t added them yet because we haven’t found the right people yet — and we would rather be short a trade than put a name on work we cannot stand behind.
The Standard
Eight things, on every job
Every service we provide — a small repair, a commercial electrical project, a renovation, a complete automation system — is delivered to one standard.
- 01
We Show Up
We keep the appointment. If something changes, you hear it from us first.
- 02
We Tell the Truth
No hidden costs, no invented reasons, no comfortable version of a bad answer.
- 03
We Do the Work Right
Correct the first time. Craftsmanship is not the part we negotiate.
- 04
We Communicate
You know where the job stands, from the first call to the last walkthrough.
- 05
We Respect Your Property
Clean site, organized, treated like somebody lives there. Because somebody does.
- 06
We Finish What We Start
We do not leave a job half done. That is the whole reason this company exists.
- 07
We Stand Behind Our Work
If something is wrong, we come back and fix it. Trust outlives any one invoice.
- 08
We Build Relationships
We would rather have you for ten years than for one job.
Four Scopes hung the microwave.
Four Scopes fixed the fence.
Four Scopes finished Larry’s basement.
Four Scopes cleaned up what the repair company left behind.
Not the investor’s properties. That one was too long ago, and some of them don’t get an ending.
None of these are strangers. They’re family, friends, people from our own community. We watched them happen and couldn’t do anything about it.
And if we asked you, you’d have one too — a time you needed help and couldn’t get it, or watched someone you love go without.
That’s why Four Scopes exists. So the next one has a different ending.
That was Four Scopes. Before it was Four Scopes.
It was Rich. It was Matt. It was Devon. It was Amber, Courtney, Brad and Nick. When the painter didn’t show up at NexCore, when the AC had to go up on the roof, when somebody had to actually do the work — it was them.
They’re who Four Scopes is, as it grows.