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Recession strategy | Building green, earn green
40 Under 40 Honoree
Ingram's Fastest Growing Companies
Smart Companies to Watch
Recession strategy | Build green, earn green
How to tell clients you're moving Going green has produced soaring sales for Homoly Construction Inc. of Kansas City, North.
Revenues have risen from $1.5 million in 2006 to $6.5 million in 2009.
Company president Andrew Homoly attributes the growth to an "aha!" moment four years ago: "Green building is a better way of building."
Green building is all about environmentally sound and sustainable practices in selecting a site, designing a building, choosing materials and using plans that save energy, conserve water and improve indoor air quality.
Most of what Homoly Construction builds these days is geared toward such practices. Interest in green building has become so strong, in fact, that now 80 to 90 percent of Homoly Construction's jobs have some green elements - compared with 5 to 10 percent in 2005.
Homoly has kept up with the green building movement, but he found early construction techniques and designs costly, crude and unpopular.
Then two things happened in the last five years. Energy conservation became a mainstream concern when gas prices climbed to $4.50 a gallon, and green residential and commercial construction became affordable and effective with advances in technology and improved designs.
Walls of houses, for example, can be built with panels that more than double the insulation value and are twice as strong. Yet the walls are no thicker than regular walls.
Green features cost on the average only 5 to 10 percent more, offer some tax benefits and can significantly reduce energy bills, Homoly said.
Consumer demand for environmentally friendly features created a market for building green homes because buying such homes wasn't an option - they didn't exist.
And Homoly Construction was ready to build.
Homoly also does light commercial construction and remodeling to meet green demand.
"This is not a fad," Homoly said. "It's a better way to build."
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Andy Homoly: 40 Under Forty Honoree
Not often will you find a 40 Under Forty honoree who can trace a career back three decades. But Andy Homoly, now 39, was just 10 when he started working for his father, carrying the family's contracting tradition into a fifth generation. "I am," he says by way of introduction, "the son of a carpenter." Perhaps because it is so deeply ingrained in the family DNA, Homoly doesn't define himself through his work, even though he certainly can take pride in tripling his company's revenues in a year when many contractors are on the brink of insolvency. Instead, family is the prism through which he views life. He and his wife, Catherine, have four children ages 6-13, and Homoly has been more than just an after-hours fixture in their lives. Over the past decade, he's coached more than 40 of their combined youth sports teams, and says that calling is a "special gift" that allows him to connect with the community around him. "We have won numerous championships," he says, reflecting, "but more importantly, I have helped shape hundreds of kids." Homoly Construction, founded in 1997, specializes in green construction, and the company does both residential and commercial work. "Green building," Homoly declares, "is a great opportunity to change the world, and I plan to make it happen."
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Ingram's Fastest Growing Companies
NUMBER FIVE:
HOMOLY CONSTRUCTION
1st Year
Gross Revenue:
2009: $6,451,886
2006: $1,496,016
Growth: 331.27%
Full-time employees: 7
Andy Homoly's reputation as a rising force within the Kansas City business community earned him a spot in Ingram's 40 Under Forty earlier this year. Now, the numbers are in that show just how strong a force: A four-year growth rate of better than 331 percent for his Northland construction company. Homoly Construction specializes in the rapidly developing sustainability segment for both residential and light commercial construction, as well as remodeling work. He cites three reasons for the company's success: "Strong core values. Green building. Working on the business, not just in the business," he says. Those core values go back to what he learned as a boy, working on construction sites for his father-who now is part of Andy's staff. Homoly Construction's revenues more than doubled between 2008 and 2009, and all of that was accomplished with a work force of exactly seven.
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