(This week The Columbian-Progress spotlights flooring contractor Robbie Bond.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born on the West Bank in Gretna, La., on April 26, 1979.
Q: Where did you attend school?
A: I attended both Sumrall and Columbia. We moved around a lot when I was a kid.
Q: Where do you work? Tell us about your job/company.
A: I’m a flooring installer and have been a sub-contractor for 17 years. My first gig was contracting with Lowe’s. I contract with Quality Flooring now. I do anything from hardwood and carpet to vinyl-click, vinyl floors and vinyl commercial tiles. I’ve repaired houses and work anywhere from section-A apartments to a house in Canebrake. I’m not picky.
Q: What led you to your profession?
A: One of my buddy’s family worked in flooring, and I was talking to him one day when I was working on a tugboat and he asked me to come work for him. I tried it out, and that was 22 years ago. I just got into it. It was easy enough to do, and it was something I could see myself doing for a while.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: That there’s something different every day. It’s never the same exact thing. I might lay wood today, carpet tomorrow and vinyl-click the next day with different people every day. There’s nothing the same about it.
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
A: The wear and tear on your body with the years of doing it, always being down on your knees and bent over.
Q: What is the most important lesson you have learned in your career?
A: The only way to make money is to learn a trade. If you’re not trying to learn it and be the best at it, you’ll never make it. The only way to make it, which is what I tell young people today, you have to make it at something and be good at it.
Q: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: I always thought about the military, maybe the Navy.
Q: What was your first job?
A: I worked with a local carpenter named Lonnie Hudson as a kid after school and on the weekends.
Q: Who have been the people who have been the most influential in your life?
A: My dad, Robert Bond Sr., because he worked every day for 40 years as a tugboat captain. My uncles own tire shops and always said, “If you’re going to make it, you have to go get it.”
Q: What is your spouse’s name?
A: Eva Bond. She’s a stay-at-home mom.
Q: Do you have children?
A: I have two boys. The oldest is Troy Hingle, who is 22, and the youngest is Ethan Bond, who is 16.
Q: If you could have anything for your last meal on earth, what would it be?
A: A filet cooked medium to medium well cooked at home with a baked potato. You can’t cook a better steak than at home.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: Everywhere from Hawaii to Jamiaca to the Grand Cayman Islands to France to experience different cultures. We’ve been on several cruises anywhere you can go pretty much from our local area.
Q: What hobbies do you like to do in your spare time?
A: I have a 1965 model Chevrolet pickup, and I take her on some trips. I work with wood a lot, building things like entertainment centers and shelves tinkering around after I get off work.
Q: What do you enjoy about Columbia and Marion County?
A: The people. You can’t find a better group of people. They support you in any way they can. That’s the good thing about working here.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone from your life or history, who would it be and why?
A: I’d like to go back and have lunch with my grandfather, Levis Bond. He worked for Avondale Shipyard, and he passed away when I was young. One more time with him would be it.
Q: If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do all day?
A: Help people move forward and do everything I can for my community. I’d travel for a little bit, but it would get old. I’d always have to find something to do.
Q: What moment in your life has had the biggest impact on who you are today?
A: Meeting my wife changed who I am today. I went from a wild child to a man I recognize.
Q: What is one thing you want to do that you’ve never tried?
A: Skydiving just to feel the adrenaline rush of it. I have fast cars and drove at Talladega. I think skydiving would be the next fun thing to do.
Q: What are your top three morals?
A: I’m loyal, try to be the most honest I can and being the best I can be.
Q: How would you like to be remembered?
A: I’d like to be remembered just as a good man. A simple, hard-working good man. People like me, that’s who we look up to. A man that gets up, goes to work every day and takes care of his family. When we see that, we see a man.
— Joshua Campbell
Pictured Above: Robbie Bond said he became a floor installer and contractor following a suggestion from a friend, and it has become a profession he enjoys because it offers something different every day. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
