Corporate, Industry Leadership During Challenging Times

by Patrick Revere

William “Bill” Boor has run the gamut in the corporate world, from homebuilding to mining to wallboard to beer and back. Leading teams and organizations is what drives him. W

“My career has been a series of executive positions in large public companies,” he said.

Boor met former Cavco CEO Joe Stegmayer in 2001 during their time with Centex Corporation in Dallas.

“I joined a year or two after Joe in a corporate strategy role,” Boor said of Centex. “He actually interviewed me for that role, and we worked together and I was learning about the industry from Joe.”

When Cavco spun off from the site-built company and

Stegmayer went with it, the two maintained contact. Boor went on to hold jobs at Eagle Materials, Cliffs Natural

Resources, and Great Lakes Brewing Company.

In 2008, with the manufactured housing industry facing a tremendous lull amid the housing bust, credit crunch, and subsequent recession, Boor was asked to join Cavco’s board of directors.

“That was before the Fleetwood and Palm Harbor acquisitions,” Boor said. “I was able to be on the board for that transition of Cavco from a regional manufacturer into a national leader in the industry through those transactions. Despite the challenging times, Cavco was well-positioned to buy these larger companies that also brought retail and financial services businesses to the portfolio.”

Head of Cavco Industries

In early 2019, Boor had taken on the chairman role and the board was considering options for filling the CEO position vacated by Stegmayer a few months earlier. His fellow directors asked Boor whether he would consider taking on the new challenge.

The decision to take on the CEO role at Cavco was a difficult one for Boor. When the opportunity arose, his family had developed deep roots in Cleveland, Ohio and he had largely settled on retiring in the brewing industry.

“Every time in my career that I think I have it all figured out…,” Boor intoned, “Next thing I know, a new and interesting challenge is a possibility. I had to make a hard choice between two really good opportunities. I have a history with Cavco, and we’d made some real progress together in growing its presence in the industry.

Builders construct new homes in one of Cavco’s Arizona homebuilding facilities.

I knew Cavco had a great foundation as a company, yet the industry still had a lot of room to move and grow.

“That’s where I started thinking about what’s happening in regard to the need for affordable housing, that’s what really sparked my interest,” he said. “My family and I decided to make this work because there aren’t a lot of great places to go where you can enter a stable environment and still understand that there’s a lot of vital work to be done. That’s great to be a part of.”

What Are the Challenges?

Boor wants to see the industry, and Cavco’s part in it, be energetic and innovative through the housing crisis he was brought on to face, as well as in the coronavirus economy he and so many other leaders have had to confront.

Indeed, business has changed and will need to continue to evolve. Housing availability and cost have been a challenge in nearly every part of the country for more than a decade. During a time when everyone has been asked to stay at home, the affordability, availability, and safety of housing carries added importance.

“Different parties need to come together in a unique way,” he said. “One great challenge is the historic mindset and legacy of zoning restrictions that are outdated and need to fall away. And we’re starting to see that. The barriers are falling away for manufactured homes.”

Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs have become acceptable in some of the country’s hardest-hit housing markets. It’s that type of greater vision for builders, developers, planners, zoning officials, and lenders that can make a difference.

“We’re not going to be building and delivering the home that looks like what we’ve delivered historically,” Boor said. “Product innovation is going to be part of responding to the affordability needs of the future.

“I’m very optimistic about the demand side of the opportunity that is already on us,” he added. “What concerns me is the backlog of orders, a certain restraint in the labor markets, and what that means for the industry and its players. We at Cavco, and the industry as a whole, have to learn and understand how to operate with all of these obstacles.”

Boor said he believes the manufactured housing industry is in the best position to meet the housing challenge in any economy. »

“If we don’t, we’re going to have a lot of disruption,” he said. “If we can’t, someone is going to meet those needs. I want it to be Cavco and our industry that solves the affordable housing problem.”

Labor and Distribution

Development of an increasingly robust, dedicated workforce in home building, retail, and delivery is a must, Boor said.

“We’re always doing the math on long-term demand trends and we’re confident that after many years of new home construction lagging household formation, there is a pent-up demand, particularly in the price points we serve. However, competition for labor is a challenge that needs to be solved and the industry needs to make sure we have distribution to get our products in front of homebuyers. Dealers are down approximately 80% from the 2000 timeframe,” Boor said. “These were the challenges in providing housing solutions before the coronavirus response. We’ll face shifting dynamics in the coming months, but the long-term need will remain and we need to keep a long-term perspective on solutions.”

Expansion through acquisition can help in ramping up production, he said. Cavco, for instance, acquired Destiny Homes in August of 2019. But networking on best practices, and developing meaningful partnerships in every corner of the industry

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will create the greatest amount of success for everyone.

“Once someone gets something in their head about an opportunity, resources that might have been missed before seem to pop up all around,” Boor said. “It’s really traditional networking, and you’ll see those second- and third-order people appear who really help fill in pieces of the puzzle. I’ve met people working on a certain aspect of the affordable housing puzzle and the conversation takes off with a lot of new ideas.

“Being out there and being vocal about affordable housing means you capture some of those connections that might just walk by you otherwise,” he said.

Many in the brewing industry have embraced the use of the Triple Bottom Line — measuring success in terms of people, planet, and profit. This has created an extraordinary culture and sense of purposefulness among beer makers, Boor points out. That mission-minded business approach is built into the manufactured housing industry as well, with the existing need for attainable, affordable, healthy, and sustainable housing.

“Getting an organization motivated on that bigger impact is very powerful, which is something I would like to enhance at Cavco and through the rest of the industry,” Boor said. “Staying focused on putting people in homes, that’s special. Our focus is right there.” MHV