Michael Archambault, Paris, France
An American almost in Paris.
by Stacey Enesey Klemenc

In his heyday, Michael Archambault was more than a casual contender. Back in the ’70s, before he was 25 years old, the sassy lad who grew up in San Diego had Houston by its concrete tail. He not only owned a Patterned Concrete Industries franchise but eventually bought out the mother company and served as president. Archambault also sat on the board of the American Society of Concrete Construction and was very involved with the American Concrete Institute, serving on four different committees.

Yes, he was in the mix, caught up in the business, smack dab in the thick of things, he recalls.

“I worked decorative concrete [in that capacity] from 1977 until 1995,” he says. But success had its price. Twice divorced, he finally figured out the source of his woes: He just wasn’t cut out to run a big company. “It took its toll mentally on me,” he says. So he did what most red-blooded Americans would do in his situation. He sold his shares of both Patterned Concrete of Houston and Patterned Concrete Industries and bailed.

Luckily, there was a parachute within reach.

Opportunities abroad
Right about that time, Archambault got a call for help from a contractor in England. “I decided to go for it,” he says, which meant he spent the next couple of years shuttling between Houston and the UK.

“Then I got a call to come to France,” he says. The job involved helping with a project at Disneyland Resort Paris, where he had previously worked in 1991 and loved every minute. Working on the Disney project “opened huge doors” for him, he recalls, and before too long, L.M. Scofield Co., whose products he has always used, offered him a three-year contract as a consultant. Their relationship continues today.

Archambault moved to France in 1998, remarried and today lives about 10 minutes from the Disney resort with his French wife and their 3-year-old daughter.

For the past seven years or so, he has been teaching people all over the world how to work with decorative flatwork and colored concrete. Largely through the agreement with Scofield, he has trained crews throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.

Archambault says his years in Texas working with Mexican crews helped prepare him for his current job. “I’ve always had a knack for teaching,” he says. “And I can teach the basics of concrete finishing to other people even though I don’t speak their language.”