Former NVR Exec Back in the Game

AFTER RESIGNING from NVR's management ranks in early 2007, Drew Holzwarth all but vanished from the Central Virginia scene for two years, waiting for his non-compete to expire. But he's back—with some major league ambitions to boot.

Holzwarth is as unlikely a candidate as any for what many would consider an illustrious 13-year career with home building's primo company, NVR. After all, the guy graduated from Penn State with an education in criminal justice and Spanish. But opportunity knocked. Holzwarth started with NVR in 1994, spending his last seven years with the company as a vice president and division manager of Ryan Homes in Washington, D.C.

By his own testament, he had a good life with the company. Thanks to some friendly market tailwinds and his supervision, the division grew from less than $5 million in profits at the beginning of his management tenure to more than $56 million in profits by 2005.

However, in January 2007, Holzwarth became “the first vice president to resign in 11 years.” “People asked me if I had lost my mind,” he says.

Whether or not Holzwarth is crazy for leaving the best-run company in the business is a matter of perspective, but it's a decision he made after pricing out the risks—and the potential rewards.

The kind of company he's building is a hybrid, a careful crossbreeding of public builder balance-sheet management and operational accountability with private builder attention to detail and flexibility. Holzwarth can talk equally as passionately about a cycle time of 92 days and a cash turn of 5.2 times a year as well as the value of furniture-grade cabinetry and earth-friendly design. And he's doing his darnedest not to commit what his NVR training had taught him as a cardinal sin: buying land.

“If I can just worry about sticks and bricks, I'm better off,” he says.

This balance of big business on a human scale is seemingly winning him a number of champions.

From a strained developer who's willing to parlay the cost of a lot until a home is sold to a banker who's willing to lend him some money to build a few models to manufacturers who are willing to give him competitive pricing on products, he's got supporters in every corner of the business.

But he's still got to sell homes to keep everyone happy. In one particular project, for example, the pressure's already on to ramp up quickly to meet benchmarks for 2010. He's got to sell 24 homes and a model to be in the clear for that project.

It's an aggressive goal, to be sure, especially as fears of a “double U” bounce along the bottom surge. But Holzwarth remains upbeat and confident in his ability to bring a fresh-looking, earth-friendly, and profitable product to market. There's already contemplation of expansion, with an eye on the Northern Virginia market.

“We can do 60 homes a year with our current staff,” he says. —Sarah Yaussi