Builders name leader for tough times

LAKEWOOD RANCH - The Gulf Coast Builders Exchange has turned to a formidable fundraiser and lobbyist to guide the group through the housing downturn while increasing its membership and working to scale back slow-growth initiatives.

Mary Dougherty-Slapp comes from the Home Builders Association of Manatee County, where she served as its executive vice president since 2006.

"While this is a difficult economic time, advocacy on the part of our members is perhaps more important now then ever," Dougherty-Slapp said. "Now is the time when you want to be involved. It's an exciting time."

The builders exchange is looking to 2009 and its new executive director to nearly remake the group and reshape its mission.

The group hopes to expand its 350-member group from Manatee and Sarasota counties to include developers, general contractors, suppliers, architects, engineers, commercial real estate brokers and financial institutions in Charlotte and DeSoto counties as well.

The goal is to add nearly 100 new members (and their annual dues of $500) to the 55-year-old group.

At the same time, Dougherty-Slapp will oversee the creation of a new logo, work with several new board members, create new marketing strategies and oversee a revamped Web site that will offer more information to the members and allow them to do more association business online like pay their dues, check on upcoming events and provide information members need to know.

"It will be a year of change," she said. "These are very serious businessmen who are serious about their advocacy."

Difficult times

Dougherty-Slapp takes the helm at a time when the pace of new home construction and permit issuance in October nationally was the lowest level for any single month on records dating back to 1959.

Overall housing starts declined 4.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 791,000 units in October. Single-family starts declined for a fifth consecutive month, by 3.3 percent to 531,000 units, which was the slowest pace since October of 1981.

She will also have to deal with another one of the fallouts from the credit crunch and shaky economy.

The National Association of Home Builders is reporting that members with outstanding construction loans are saying that they are having to stop work on new housing developments and are losing sales as the result of failed banks and thrifts being taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The exchange will tackle those and other issues on several fronts. One strategy is to team with similar agencies in the region, such as the Manatee and Sarasota home builders groups, when lobbying lawmakers for help.

"There is strength in numbers," Dougherty-Slapp said. "Instead of working with a group with 350 members, you are representing maybe a thousand people, and that voice can be very loud."

New digs

The exchange also is in the process of moving from a small downtown office on Second Street to a more upscale headquarters in the Bank of Commerce building in Lakewood Ranch.

"It's close to the interstate and more convenient for members to do business with the exchange," Dougherty-Slapp said. "It will create a far more professional atmosphere for the exchange."

Like the other builders groups -- and even social networking groups such as Sarasota's Women with Moxie -- the exchange's long-standing practice of members buying and selling to one another is going to be re-emphasized, Dougherty-Slapp said.

"The exchange has a mission of members doing business with members," she said. "And at a time like this, that is especially important."

The exchange's board interviewed three or four people for the executive director's positions, said board chairman Douglas Sutter of Sarasota's Sutter Roofing.

Dougherty-Slapp "really emerged as the strongest candidate from the get-go," Sutter said. "The time is right for us to take our leadership in the building industry to the next level, and with the economy and building situation that is out there right now, I think she will be a great advocate to take on some of the measures that have been put in place in the past few years to slow down growth."

Sutter said the board members called various members of county commissions from Manatee to DeSoto counties -- Dougherty-Slapp was once the deputy county manager in DeSoto -- and asked them about her qualifications.

"When we checked with a few of them about Mary, things were very positive," Sutter said. "Whether she was pro or con on a issue, they said she was respectful and easy to work with."

Dougherty-Slapp's main lobbying efforts will focus on reining in impact fees, loosening density restrictions and changing permitting rules that either slow work down or make it impossible to do in the first place, Sutter said.

"A lot is happening at the exchange," said Dougherty-Slapp, who starts in her new role today. "We have got to get to work."