Business View Magazine | February 2021

31 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021 GREATER HOUSTON BUI LDERS ASSOC I AT ION (GHBA) Wharton, Galveston, Matagorda, Austin, and Colorado Counties. “Membership tiers are based on whether you’re a builder, developer, remodeler or associate,” explains Casey Morgan, former Executive VP and CEO of the GHBA, “and an associate is a catchall for anyone who is not one of those three types of tradesperson. And then, for each category, it is broken down further based on the number of homes you build. For example, some of the Association’s larger builders, that are called volume builders, are the ones who have more of a national presence and a footprint in other places besides Houston. They would be at the top of that list and then it trickles down to builders who maybe build 25 homes a year – the smaller operations or custom builders. There are fewer distinctions under associates, but it includes everyone from the air conditioning companies, through real estate and marketing, even the mortgage lenders.” Why would companies belong to an association like this? First and foremost, it is about advocacy. The major benefit of joining a trade association like the GHBA is that you are immediately part of a larger group. For that reason, you can advocate for issues and get an audience that might not be possible as an individual. “Think about the start of the year,” Morgan says, “In February and March, when COVID started to become a reality, the GHBA and the state association – the Texas Association of Builders (TAB) – really lobbied hard for the residential construction industry to be deemed essential and permitted to continue operations. Individual companies wouldn’t have been able to do that. In different parts of the country this industry President of the GHBA Board of Directors, Keith Luechtefeld