About Andrew Brackman

I worked at The Finishing Touch with my dad during summers, as early as grade school. I remember how I loved working with my dad, but I didn’t think concrete was what I wanted to do: it was too hard, too hot, and too cold, and the idea of “mindless labor” ran against the grain of my active imagination.
​
After Dad passed away and I felt some responsibility to help in the family business, I applied myself to construction and found out that it was anything but “mindless!” It is an endless problem-solving exercise that is very rewarding to (almost) everything that you put into it. I also learned that hard physical work has a certain satisfaction attached to it that nothing else matches.

I graduated from high school early when I was 16 and went straight to work in concrete. During the winters, the outdoor construction season slows down, and as a young man I was able to learn many different aspects of construction, including framing, electrical, plumbing, and steel erection.​ My brother, Matt, and I became partners in Brackman Excavating around 2007 to complement the concrete construction. We bought The Finishing Touch from our mom in 2014. 

​

I have lived in Idaho my entire life, so I may be biased. Idaho is the most interesting, geologically diverse, and certainly one of the most beautiful states in the union. So yes, I'm biased!
​
For me, When people ask what to do in Idaho, there's one good answer: "Head outside!" Idaho has much to do and much to see outside. The mountains are some of the most beautiful anywhere, with vast tracts of wilderness and the longest un-dammed river on the continent. The deserts are the "wallflowers," an acquired taste. Sometimes, it takes a trained eye to see the subtle beauty- and a love of solitude, long views, and the smell of sagebrush when it's hot outside.
​
Camping, hiking, hunting, skiing, and just watching nature are some things I love to do outside. As a pilot, I love to see Idaho from the air! It's really a pilot's state, with few roads and some world-class backcountry airstrips.

 

 I've been an avid bird watcher since I was ten years old and discovered my love of elk hunting and the habitat they lived in when I was about fourteen, which was also close to the time a friend took me on my first backpacking trip into the Sawtooths. Ever since, I've loved each minute I get in the mountains!

​