Jose Berlanga, Former Owner and CEO of Tricon Homes When Jose Berlanga, former owner and CEO of Tricon Homes and present-day real estate developer with Onyx Land Partners, arrived in Houston, Texas, in the mid-1980s to attend the University of St. Thomas, he did so propelled, in part, by his...
Joshua L. Waltzer, Chief Executive Officer, HomeVestors of America, Inc. It was the adventure of a lifetime. In May 1999, I arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia, to start a cross-country bicycle ride with 12 strangers. We took a few days to get to know one another and prepare our rigs for a...
Jeff Watson, Home Depot’s Senior Director of Pro Sales West By Carole VanSickle Ellis When Jeff Watson was framing houses in college, he had no idea that his decision to leave that job and look for “more consistent” work at The Home Depot would result in a career with the company spanning more...
Nate Zielinski, Senior Partnerships Coordinator at RCN Capital By Carole VanSickle Ellis When Nate Zielinski graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism in 2015, he did not foresee real estate investment financing in his future. Nevertheless, when he joined private lender RCN Capital in 2020,...
Larry Goodman, CEO, HomeVestors of America By Carole VanSickle Ellis When Larry Goodman, CEO of HomeVestors of America, graduated from the University of Alabama with a real estate finance degree in 1987, he dove right into the industry as a real estate appraiser in Miami, Florida. It was not long...
John Gordon — Director of National Accounts, Home Depot By Carole VanSickle Ellis In 1980, a newly married John Gordon and his wife were heading toward Lansing, Michigan, where they expected Gordon to join computing powerhouse IBM in the company’s marketing department while his wife earned her...
From Dreams of Baseball to Leaving the Insurance Industry Better Than He Found It Shawn Woedl’s journey to becoming the President and CEO of National Real Estate Insurance Group (NREIG) has been guided by one saying by Rear Admiral Grace Hopper: “The most dangerous phrase in the language is,...
RCN Capital’s Jeffrey Tesch is Pushing the Limits and Staying in the Fast Lane By Carole VanSickle Ellis If Jeffrey Tesch, CEO at private direct lender RCN Capital, were not involved in the private lending industry, he would probably be zooming at top speed around an asphalt track in Daytona or...
From “Dirt Poor” to Successful Real Estate Investor By Carole VanSickle Ellis When Dana Nutt moved to Afton, Michigan, at the age of 6, he got his first experience in rehabbing real estate. “We lived in a one-room schoolhouse with an outhouse,” he explained. “But we just kept cleaning and sanding...
