Our Story

Our story - ShopDrawings.com

How it all started

David Fleming began his career in the sheet metal contracting industry, where as an estimator he dealt with schedules, project management and bids. In the early 1980s, which were still the “pencil and paper” draftsman days, he turned his hand to drafting as a part-time work. As his expertise became known, Dave saw the perfect opportunity to create his own firm.

He created our company under the name of Contractor Technical Services, also known as CTS, Inc. and we started to provide shop drawings services to MEP subcontractors in the booming mid-Atlantic construction market in Rockville, MD. Our office quickly became busy and our team became bigger.

We advanced with the times, moving from strictly pencil and paper into the world of automated drawing. As Computer Aided Drafting software (CAD) became popular, we decided to create our own CAD program adapted for our specific needs, instead of bending to the slow interfaces with pull down menus and slow drawing processes of other popular CAD software. We built and upgraded our software in order to enter data the most efficient way and trained our new team members to develop muscle memory and use the keyboard like they would use an instrument.

Our company today

Today, our team is formed by a passionate crew who enjoys both small, quick turnaround projects and large, complex jobs that challenge us and bring us into the subcontracting team through drawing coordination. We draw immense satisfaction from knowing that that our work on a shop drawing from their drafting tables in Hagerstown translates into a smooth hand off from trade-to-trade on construction sites all over the country.