On a Saturday morning in Manson, Wash., Garret Brown is probably on a soccer field. He’s coaching his son’s U-10 team, running drills, working on the fundamentals — adjust, react, keep moving. It’s volunteer work, the kind that doesn’t pay and doesn’t need to.
“My son came of age, and I started giving back to the program,” he said.
By Monday, Brown is back on the road, visiting precast concrete plants across the Pacific Northwest. Same principles, different setting.
“In soccer, how you react and adjust on the fly — the same things we work on the field are what you’ll do for a living,” he said. “Both sides of the same page.”
That thread — between community, craft and the next generation — runs through everything Brown does. As Regional Quality Control Manager for H2 Precast Inc., Brown oversees quality across multiple plant locations operating under the H2 umbrella, including Columbia Pre-Cast and Rogue Valley Pre-Cast, from its home base in East Wenatchee, Wash. He also serves as president of the Lake Chelan Football Club and volunteers as a wrestling coach at the local high school.
Sports have been a constant Brown’s whole life. He played one year of professional indoor soccer and four years of semi-pro soccer and coached soccer at Wenatchee Valley College for four years. But the youth coaching role feels closer to home now, literally and otherwise.
Brown came to the construction industry the way many people do: practically. After high school, he sized up his options and landed on construction as the one field that, in his words, “would pay well enough to have a family.” He worked quality control in the field for another company before a friend pointed him toward H2. He’s been there since 2016, working his way from Quality Assurance Manager to his current regional role. The job suits him.
“The best part of quality control is that I have my hands on production and shipments. I’m involved from square one,” he said.
On a typical day, Brown might be reviewing design specs, navigating DOT federal regulations, guiding plant quality teams and then getting in a truck to visit a facility a few hours away.
“I enjoy the fact that I’m able to get on the road and help multiple places and venues,” Brown said. “It helps us grow.”