Founded in 1960, Korellis has spent the last six decades helping build the Region with their work on the roofs of steel mills, churches, schools, offices, and businesses of all kinds. As a local business, they are a core part of the Region’s landscape, and few things are more important to the contractor as respecting their roots in the community.
These roots grew from Hammond High School – the 1945 alma mater of Korellis Founder George Korellis. Today, the contractor’s CEO, vice president, and a number of their tradespeople are all alumni from that same school and bring over 200 years of combined experience to the team. It is only fitting that Korellis played a major role in the next step of Hammond High School’s history – constructing the brand new Hammond Central High School.
“So many of our team members, past and present, have gone through Hammond High School,” said Pete Korellis, CEO of Korellis. “For us, this was a project where we said to our team, ‘We need to do this roof.’ There’s a lot of emotional attachment, but it was a really good project and our team did a great job. If there’s any building in Lake County that I feel we should be working on, it’s Hammond High School.”
Hammond Central High School is set to be a fixture in the city for decades. It is replacing the old building as the district consolidates Clark and Gavit into Hammond High.
“I’m so excited for the kids; the old schools have so much history but were obviously aging facilities,” Korellis said. “I’m happy for the neighborhood, and I’m happy for all the kids that are going to get an education in a state-of-the-art building with all the latest amenities.”
Under the leadership of project managers Tony Sagrati, roofing, and Larry Millefoglie, sheet metal, Korellis completed over 200,000 square feet of roofing and wall panels on the state-of-the-art building.
“We put about 7,000 hours into roofing, 4,100 hours doing the sheet metal wall panels, and 600 hours of carpentry work,” said Sagrati. “It was a big step for me, personally, to be managing such a large project. It’s really incredible to see something come out of the ground and know that it’s going to be there for the next 40 or 50 years.”
Millefoglie led the efforts to install the wall panels that make up large parts of the building's exterior.
“It’s kind of an art form; I’m proud of the work we did and the school looks great,” Millefoglie said. “It’s really special to be a part of a project that’s so connected to the history of the company. I didn’t really realize the age of the old school until we started working on it, so with a new building and all of the technology, it’s going to be great for the students.”
Korellis is thrilled that their work on the school turned out so successfully and is excited to see the students start attending the successor to his family’s alma mater in fall.
“Every time we do a really neat project I say, ‘I wish my dad could see this,” Korellis said. “He’d be really proud of how far the company’s come along in the short time since he hasn’t been with us.”
To learn more about Korellis, visit Korellis.com.
