Hunter Wilson/Daily NewsSabit Salihovic, owner of SS Construction, has helped build numerous structures in the area. He and his family fled Bosnia and eventually made their home here.

Sabit Salihovic had just finished a cigarette in the new You and Me Sports Bar in Sugar Maple Square, where his construction craftsmanship surrounded him and the bar’s owner sang his praises.

“He used 15,000 nails just for the bar,” Hazim Ibrahimovic said, minutes after the bar opened for the first time Thursday.

Ibrahimovic then recalled other work Salihovic had done for him, including the interior construction at You and Me Restaurant on Chestnut Street.

“I think he’s the best quality (I’ve ever seen),” Ibrahimovic said of Salihovic, whose resume also includes construction of Brickyard Garden on Chestnut Street and The Bistro on Russellville Road. “And he’s an honest man, and for that I trust him. … You just bring him a flat plan and give him a key and he’ll do everything.”

Salihovic is owner of SS Construction.

It’s a company that was a dream come true for the man who came to Bowling Green as a refugee from Bosnia in 1996.

“When I came here, I don’t have a penny in my pocket,” Salihovic said.

He spoke quietly about his life as he sipped coffee in the sports bar he’d just helped put the finishing touches on.

“I’m working in 1996 two jobs,” he said. “I work almost three or four months in Eagle Industries. I worked at night in a restaurant, cleaning everything. After that I started construction.”

Four years ago, Salihovic, who was a car mechanic in Bosnia, was able to start SS Construction.

It’s a business that also specializes in homes, such as the one he’s building for his brother, Sabahudin Salihovic in Crossridge Subdivision.

“I like new houses,” Salihovic said. “There are a lot of Bosnian families here and we’re 80 percent (building) for Bosnian people.”

Salihovic well remembers when his home in Srebrenica, Bosnia, was burned by Serbs in the 1990s.

“Every day it would be some big cemetery,” he said of the unrest that devastated the region. “They killed Catholics, Muslims, anybody who’s not a Serb. I’m a Muslim.”

With help from the Red Cross, Salihovic’s wife, Zumreta, and their children, Selma and Hajro, fled Bosnia for Slovenia in 1992.

Two years later, they made their way to Germany, where Zumreta had a sister.

Salihovic stayed behind in a Bosnia, where there was no electricity and food was scarce, to take care of his home and his parents, who “were there and too old and needed help,” he said.

But he longed to see his wife and children.

So in January of 1995 – the year Serbs killed his father-in-law – Salihovic began his journey to Germany.

It was a destination he wouldn’t reach because he was caught in Macedonia without proper travel documentation and put in jail by the Serbs.

Surprisingly, Salihovic said, “this was not 100 percent jail,” and “nobody troubled me” there.

And just as the Serbs were preparing to send Salihovic back to Bosnia, the Red Cross stepped in and sent him to this country.

“And I sent papers for my wife and children,” he said.

Now, he said, “I like Bowling Green. I like everything. I like the people. It is a good town.”

Here, many members of his and his wife’s extended family now live.

In Bowling Green, Salihovic has been able to buy a home and he’s also been able to earn enough money to buy a house for his parents in Bosnia.

It’s something Salihovic was thrilled to be able to do for the parents he hadn’t seen in nine years when he visited them in 2004.

“It’s hard,” he said of the separation from his parents.

But he plans to go back to see them next year.

And he dreams that some day he can split his time between Bosnia and the United States.

Sometimes, he misses his home land.

Still, Salihovic, his wife and his brother recently became citizens of the United States.

Now, Salihovic would like to travel more throughout the country, where he’s already journeyed to visit family in St. Louis and Jacksonville, Fla.

And the 45-year-old who works seven days a week, while his wife works hard in a factory, would like to reach more personal goals.

“Right now I’m 45,” he said. “Maybe a couple years more I’ll work hard. After that, I’ll be a general contractor. Right now I’m a general contractor and worker.”

Salihovic can see himself in retirement someday, getting to enjoy spending more time with his two grandchildren and seeing his children prosper.

“I like my grands,” he said with a smile, “and maybe (hope) for (more) little children.”