Dave Zell works full time at the local home repair and remodel company, One Guy with Tools. The company does it all: kitchen, plumbing, wiring, basement – to be safe, let’s just say they know the ins and outs of the structure of homes and buildings.
And, Zell does too.
He spends his workdays accomplishing the projects needed by the company’s clients. Then, he goes home to his own Valparaiso house and does it all again.
Zell was born and raised in Valpo. He took classes at Ivy Tech and found himself weaving through multiple different positions before working at One Guy with Tools about five years ago.
He had his own company called the Northern Indiana Tent company, then moved onto working in the maintenance department at the Porter County Expo Center.
When he moved to One Guy with Tools, his work duties expanded. The company does both indoor and outdoor projects for residential and commercial buildings, yet Zell had no trouble joining the team.
“I pretty much knew everything,” he said. “I learned a lot from my dad. We had built our own home when we were younger, so I learned a lot from him about house construction.”
His dad also worked on a lot of custom furniture projects too, Zell added.
For his position at One Guy with Tools, his projects include drywall, plumbing, and electrical work and repairs.
He specializes in electrical work, which includes everything from lighting installations to wiring outlets.
“It’s running brand new wiring for basement remodels, running new wires when something new is installed in a house, when new lighting installed,” Zell explained. “A lot of it is just new wiring run through the house and troubleshooting any wiring to find out what the problem is.”
That was his job when he arrived at the Ideas in Motion Media cabin. Zell re-figured the wiring from being a timed-lighting fixture into an on and off switch. Since his visit, the random wave of an arm or leg from the statue-like writers at their desk to turn the censor light back on has ceased to exist!
Zell said he was asked to the join the team several years ago, and enjoys working with the small, but well-experienced staff.
“I like the people I work for,” he said. “I really like James and Vanessa, they are good to work for and we just all get along. We get along like family.”
James and Vanessa Moore took over the business in 2015.
Zell’s home family includes his wife Donna, two sons, and four grandchildren, who all live in the Midwest.
Zell’s usual weekend activities involve inviting the grandkids to visit or traveling to them for numerous holidays and birthday parties.
Right now though, he and Donna are holding off the hostess-gig so that they can remodel their house.
“Right now my hobby is gutting my house,” he said. “We just moved into it a couple of years ago and it hasn’t been updated since the ‘70s and we are doing everything. New flooring… everything.”
In the summer, he hopes to be close to finishing the house project so that he can move onto the vast-expanse of property the house is on.
Zell’s family is in Valpo, his wife’s family is in Valpo, and their children are all within just a few hours of the region. Valpo will always be home to the Zell family.
“My whole life has been here,” he said “We just stick around. Basically, we just try to keep in touch with all of our family, have our little parties with the kids, and everything. That’s what everybody enjoys.”