Synergy Contracting, Inc. builds on the work nobody sees

The first thing Jeysi Zuniga fixed in construction was a queue. In July 2001, she accompanied a friend to his workplace and found the office in payday chaos. Workers wanted their checks. She climbed onto a chair and organized the line. By the time she left, the owners had offered her a job. An industry famous for making things had recruited someone who could make things run.

“It was supposed to be a summer gig, and it lasted 18 years,” Zuniga told High-Profile in 2021. She founded Synergy Contracting in 2019. That origin is revealing. Construction experience includes knowing how to remove a wall; it also includes knowing how to organize the people, payments and decisions surrounding the wall. Her first intervention happened on the administrative side of the job.

The building before the photograph

Synergy occupies the less photogenic stretches of a construction project. It offers environmental remediation, selective interior demolition, painting, final cleaning, labor support and materials. Its website describes serving contractors, institutions and government agencies across New England. Think of the space between an old room becoming available and a new room becoming usable. A surprising amount of a building’s future is decided there.

The distinction within demolition matters. Synergy describes removing interior fixtures, materials and structures while preserving the building’s core infrastructure. A customer renovating an existing space needs control as much as force. Painting and cleaning then answer a different question: can the finished space be handed over? The company’s service range follows those successive needs, giving a buyer several ways to engage the same contractor.

The customer who changed the plan

A company founded in 2019 had very little time to settle into its assumptions before the pandemic arrived. Boston Impact Initiative’s account says construction stopped just as Zuniga had lined up contracts. Hospitals began requesting skilled cleaners. Synergy created a hazardous cleaning division; Zuniga said it sustained the company for the next two years. The early plan met a customer need that was more immediate than the plan.

That is a useful distinction for another business owner. An adjacent service is attractive when it uses skills customers already trust you to supply. Here, the request came from hospitals. The lesson to copy is the question: what are existing buyers urgently asking for that your team can competently deliver? Answering it requires more than giving an old service a fashionable new name.

Growth arrives with an equipment bill

Before founding Synergy, Zuniga considered a construction labor app. BII reports that she abandoned the idea after confronting its complexity and capital requirements. Contracting offered another route. Then, in 2022, encouragement from the painters’ union presented an expansion opportunity with its own upfront labor and equipment demands. Choosing a practical business does not exempt an entrepreneur from the cost of making it work.

BII’s 2023 impact report records a 2022 line of credit to smooth Synergy’s cash flow. The report also connects its support with heavy equipment for two multi-million-dollar projects. The distinction is straightforward: winning work and possessing the capacity to execute it are separate accomplishments. A machine must be available when the job requires it, even when the cash from that job has yet to arrive.

“It was supposed to be a summer gig, and it lasted 18 years.”Jeysi Zuniga, speaking to High-Profile in 2021

A quarter-million dollars, on call

One public award makes the business model tangible. Lowell Housing Authority lists Synergy as the contractor for its 2025-9 asbestos-abatement procurement: $250,000, covering September 22, 2025 through September 21, 2026. This is a contract value. It should not be mistaken for the company’s annual revenue or a universal price for asbestos work. Synergy sells defined work to buyers with defined buildings and requirements.

The authority’s meeting minutes add texture. Purchasing staff described an as-needed contract, with remediation requirements at City View Towers contributing to its size. They also described a field attracting numerous bidders, from small operators to larger companies. Synergy is competing in an established trade. Its customers can choose alternatives; they need a credible combination of scope, execution and commercial terms.

The workforce is part of the offer

Synergy’s unionized employment model gives its story another dimension. The Latinas in Construction profile of Zuniga describes health insurance, education, pension and annuity benefits, scholarships and apprenticeship opportunities. It also describes her advocacy for women and Latinos in the industry. These are specific arrangements around a working life, with more substance than a recruitment poster promising that everyone belongs.

The company lists WBE, MBE, DBE and LGBTBE certifications. Its labor and materials offerings address buyers’ supplier-participation goals. That can make Synergy relevant to a procurement team for two reasons at once: the work required and the participation sought. Ownership credentials help explain its market position, while union training and site planning explain how it proposes to carry out the work.

For a prospective customer, the practical starting point is a scoped conversation: which hazards need assessing, what stays in place, which crews are needed and what handover means. Synergy describes project-specific safety plans, training, hazard identification and audits. Those details make its range of services meaningful. They also set conditions on the growth lesson: nearby demand is useful only when the business can staff, equip and safely perform the job.

The queue in 2001 had a clear problem and a direct remedy. A construction company faces harder versions of that same task, repeatedly: identify what is obstructing the work, organize the response and let the next stage begin. Synergy’s case is interesting because the obstacles are so concrete. A room needs clearing. A crew needs support. A project needs equipment. Somebody has to put things in order.