Meet the West Covina Team Behind Seedling ADU West Covina
An ADU is not a side project. It is a new home on your lot, which means the people who show up matter as much as the plans they carry. Our West Covina crew is built around that idea. We hire people who understand that your driveway, your side yard, and the walkway to your back door are part of your family’s daily life. Every technician who steps onto a property here is background-checked and uniformed, so you always know who belongs on site. That is the baseline. The rest is the kind of care you can only get from a crew that has actually done this work in the San Gabriel Valley, on real lots, with real setbacks and real soil conditions.
Our People
Ben Ortega, Owner
Ben runs Seedling ADU West Covina the way he runs a job walk: he points at the thing everyone else walked past and explains why it matters. He has spent his career in residential construction, and he has seen enough subfloors and old garage slabs in West Covina to know that every lot tells you something different. Ben is the person who walks your property, listens to how you actually want to use the space, and writes the price down before any work starts. He is the one who signs the 365-Day Done Right Promise on your project, and he takes that signature personally. When he is not on site, he is usually on the phone with the city about a permit detail, or doing what he calls “reading the dirt” at a new lot in Covina or Baldwin Park.
Luis R., Lead Technician
Luis has been building residential structures for over twelve years, and he is the person who makes sure the foundation is square before anyone gets excited about drywall. He specializes in garage conversions, which in West Covina almost always means working around existing slabs, old electrical, and the occasional surprise from a 1960s build. Luis is certified in framing and concrete work, and he leads the crew on most conversion projects from demolition through final walk-through. If you hear someone asking about slope and drainage before anyone has swung a hammer, that is Luis. He keeps a small notebook in his back pocket and writes down measurements twice. When he is not on a build, he coaches his daughter’s soccer team in Glendora.
Maria T., Senior Installer
Maria came up through finish carpentry and has an eye for the details that show in the final month of a project: trim, door alignment, cabinet hardware, transitions between flooring types. She works frequently with prefab and modular ADU systems, coordinating with Abodu, Cover, Dvele, Mighty Buildings, Boxabl, Plant Prefab, and Tuff Shed panels and modules so the factory-built components land correctly on site. Maria is certified in prefab panel installation and has completed dozens of modular ADU assembles across Los Angeles County. She is also the person most likely to remind the crew that a family is living ten feet from the work zone, which is why she carries extra shoe covers in her truck and checks the drop cloths before the first cut of the day. On weekends, she restores mid-century furniture, which explains a lot about why her trim work looks the way it does.
Jake M., Apprentice Installer
Jake is about three years into his construction career and works under Luis and Maria on ADU builds, garage conversions, and home additions throughout West Covina. He grew up in the area, attended high school in West Covina Unified, and has family in the neighborhood, which means he treats every job site like his aunt might walk by at any moment. Jake handles a lot of the site prep work, material staging, and daily clean-up, and he is currently working toward his framing certification. He is the one who takes the photo of the clean-up before the crew leaves each day, which the whole team appreciates because it means nobody has to argue about whether the site was left the way it should be. When he is not learning on the job, he is either hiking in the San Gabriel mountains or trying to keep his vintage truck running.
One Standard, Every Job
We work under the Cedarwell Care Promise, and it applies to every single project, from a 400-square-foot ADU to a full garage conversion. Here is what that looks like in practice on your property in West Covina: shoe covers go on before anyone walks through your home, and drop cloths protect the floors along the path to the work area. If there is a choice between a standard product and a pet-safe product, we pick the pet-safe one. Before the crew leaves for the day, someone takes a photo of the clean-up, and that photo is part of the job record. If you call during a build, a live person answers, 24/7. That is not a call center on the other side of the country. It is someone who can actually help with your specific project. And because the crew is background-checked and uniformed, you will always know exactly who is walking through your gate. Families with kids and pets should not have to wonder about that. Neither should anyone else.
Written by Ben Ortega, Owner at Seedling ADU West Covina.
