With his Egyptian heritage combined with the military precision honed during his time in the armed forces, it’s no wonder Michael Malak runs every building project as though he’s constructing the Great Pyramid of Cheops. His attention to detail is hawk-like, and his passion for ensuring the optimum result for his community is exemplary.
Your best laid plans can often seem like they were put together by mice rather than men, and that’s how it felt when Michael Malak came up with the plan for the name of his company.
JAPM is a development and project management company for the construction and property industry. JAPM stands for Jacquel Australia Project Management, a name registered by Michael and his then fiancee, now wife, back in 1992.
“I wanted a name that would represent both of us so, after trying dozens of combinations we decided to use part of her name and part of mine. So we combined the first part of her name and the last part of mine and came up with Jacquel.
“We were about to get married, so it made sense to have a company name that was personal, and something unique to us.”
The agreement was to use ‘Jacqu’ from his wife’s name, Jacqueline, and the ‘el’ from Michael. A sound idea! That is until it appeared on the business cards and Michael could actually see what he’d created.
Ironically, it wasn’t until after the name was registered that Michael realised there wasn’t really any part of his name in it at all; it was just Jacquie’s, with the last few letters dropped. As he wryly notes, “I think Jacquie knew all along and just kept quiet.”
Michael’s excuse for not realising this soon enough, was the amount of pressure he’d been under at the time. He was doing a lot of building and fit-out work and there were also the preparations for the wedding. A stressful period for any man!