About Dom
About Dom
A handyman grounded in building, growing and practical problem-solving.
Dom The Handyman brings together carpentry, horticulture, traditional timber framing, natural-building training, solar-electrical experience, arboriculture and years of hands-on garden work. The goal is simple: understand the project, communicate clearly and leave the customer with something useful and well built.
Builder behind the business
Carpentry is one part of a much broader hands-on background.
Dom graduated from the Capital Region BOCES Building Trades program with a Carpentry specialty in 2026. His construction experience also includes traditional timber framing, small-structure foundations, greenhouse and farm structures, residential solar installation, electrical pre-apprenticeship training and practical repair work.
His timber-framing training included a pavilion build in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, with hands-on participation in layout, mortise-and-tenon cutting, hand chiseling, fitting, pegging, assembly and raising. Later project work included cutting and helping raise a roughly 20-foot-wide hemlock patio frame in Pittsburgh using traditional joinery.
Training & experience
A practical mix of trades, land skills and systems thinking.
BOCES Building Trades, Carpentry
Capital Region · Graduate, 2026.
Plant Science, Urban Forestry
University of Maryland · B.S. Plant Science, Urban Forestry concentration.
Electrical & Solar
Electrical pre-apprenticeship plus hands-on residential solar installation experience.
Naturalist Training
One-year naturalist certificate with a concentration in wilderness survival.
Arboriculture
Tree-health, pruning and climbing experience; Certified Tree Climber training through Penn State.
Permaculture & Horticulture
Permaculture Design Certificate. Garden design, soil building, greenhouse systems, irrigation, native plants and food-growing systems.
Natural building
Training beyond conventional stick framing.
Dom has pursued natural-building and small-home methods alongside conventional carpentry: a hempcrete building class with Root Down Building Collective, multiple cob-building classes in Morelia, Mexico, a shipping-container-to-tiny-home class, and traditional timber framing. That training does not mean every natural-building method is offered as a standard flat-rate handyman service. It does mean larger custom projects can be approached with a wider understanding of materials, moisture, structure, site conditions and low-impact building methods.
Hempcrete
Hands-on building-class experience using hemp-lime construction methods.
Cob
Repeated natural-building coursework focused on earthen construction.
Timber framing
Layout, hand-cut mortise-and-tenon joinery, fitting, pegging and frame raising.
Small-home systems
Training that includes shipping-container-to-tiny-home concepts and practical small-structure work.
Training
The joinery behind the frames.
Chiseling a mortise at a 2021 timber-framing class, Upper Marlboro, MD. Training, not a customer project. 
Bench work at the 2021 pavilion class, Upper Marlboro, MD. Training, not a customer project. 
Pavilion frame assembly, 2021 class, Upper Marlboro, MD. Training, not a customer project.
Grower & garden experience
Gardening is not an add-on service. It is part of Dom's background.
Dom holds a B.S. in Plant Science with an Urban Forestry concentration from the University of Maryland and has worked across organic farming, greenhouse systems, permaculture, arboriculture and community garden projects. Past work includes managing a quarter-acre intensive urban farm with a 10x20 greenhouse, chicken coop, compost systems and more than 6,000 square feet of market-garden space; designing and managing a community garden; establishing an experimental teaching garden in Baltimore; supporting a Baltimore Recreation and Parks community-garden project; and doing permaculture-oriented farm design focused on native plants, low-input food plants and ecological function.
Permaculture
Permaculture Design Certificate plus hands-on site and farm-design experience.
Greenhouses & irrigation
Experience with greenhouse operations, growing-space layout, irrigation and practical growing infrastructure.
Native plants & trees
Arborist-in-training experience, certified tree-climbing training, plant identification and native-plant-focused design work.
Teaching gardens
Community and teaching-garden work centered on food access, growing skills and hands-on participation.
Community commitment
A business built to be useful to the community around it.
Dom The Handyman is a Black-owned business with an intentional commitment to keeping skilled help accessible while still building a sustainable business. That includes a self-selected Community Support Rate for customers facing meaningful financial barriers, alongside standard and pay-it-forward pricing. No income paperwork is required for the Community Support Rate.
The same principle shapes the work itself: communicate clearly, document the scope, avoid surprise charges and build long-term relationships instead of treating every visit like a one-off transaction.
Start Your Project
Need a straightforward project handled?
Standard appointments run 8 AM to 5 PM. Same-day work may be available when the schedule allows and carries the standard $100 rush fee. Work before 8 AM or after 5 PM is after-hours service at 1.5x the applicable hourly rate with a two-hour minimum.
Send the full task list, photos and your ZIP code for the fastest quote. Dom reviews it and sends the written price himself.