In 1977, my father, Joseph L. Sorbera, Sr., took the advice and encouragement of his clients and founded JLS, a general contracting company in service to major Wall Street institutions.

In fact, his first clients remain our clients to this very day. It is these people who know us best — and who are our most loyal customers as well as our strongest references.

This is because, at JLS, we employ professionals from all the various facilities-related disciplines — so that we can best understand, anticipate, communicate and manage the diverse requirements of our clients and their projects. The rigorous training and depth of experience of these professionals enables us to provide a superior level of service to our clients.

Our in-house staff consists of seasoned professionals with extensive backgrounds in the architectural planning, design, engineering, and management fields. Our company operates across three departments, each of which is led by a JLS senior manager:

• Contracting — headed by 24-year JLS veteran, Lou Vigorito
• Finance — headed by 25-year JLS veteran, John LoVerde
• Project Management, Cost Control and Administration — headed by 27-year JLS veteran and current president, Joe Sorbera

Each project continues to be directly supervised by a JLS principal. And each of the senior JLS managers is available to our clients and their professional teams on a 24/7 basis. Our commitment to service does not end at 5 o’clock or at the office door.

We’re also a strong proponent of the "team" approach to project development. We have a reputation for doing everything we can to assist other member firms that are attached to a project. And we encourage them to do the same for us — because it’s in everyone’s interest that each party involved in a project perform at their best.

And we should know. After all, ours is a company that wears two hats: we have a division that serves as general contractor and one that serves as project management. Keep in mind that JLS never simultaneously fulfills both roles for any of our clients. However, our clients do enjoy an added benefit from this characteristic of ours: because each division feeds off each other in a symbiotic relationship, we’ve gained greater insight into what to look out for before and during an even greater variety of projects.

Our unequivocal commitment to delivering more than is expected of others in our industry is one of the reasons we’ve successfully offered our services to banks, investment banks, internet service providers and retailers in major markets throughout North America, Europe and in Hong Kong. And while the annual value of the portfolio of work under JLS management has grown to over $200 million today, we continue to keep our firm small and flexible — and based in lower Manhattan.

It’s something that would make my father and company founder — and the clients who encouraged him — proud.

We invite you to see for yourself how the structure we bring to your construction projects can help them come to fruition in a manner that is smoother, more transparent, and more beneficial to your bottom line.

Joseph L. Sorbera, Jr.
President