Building Relationships
Home Builders Association of Iowa leader Jay Iverson named to national roles.
Home Builders Association (HBA) of Iowa Executive Officer, Jay Iverson, is wearing many hats this year, but all of them ultimately serve a single purpose: helping build a strong construction industry.
After several years on the leadership ladder, 2023 marks Iverson’s presidential term with the Executive Officers Council for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). He was also named by Governor Kim Reynolds as Chair of the State Workforce Development Board.
“That’s one of the roles I’m most excited about,” Iverson says. “We’re doing amazing things under Director Townsend’s leadership, which is in line with Governor Reynolds’ vision of a workforce in Iowa that meets the needs of our employers. There are so many great careers available, careers that pay very well and have unlimited opportunities. Most do not require an advanced degree, so the Earn While You Learn, apprenticeship, and certificate programs are the future of workforce development. We have a great board assembled with a great strategic plan in place.”
Finding new ways to draw the next generation of workers into the construction trades has been a priority for the HBA of Iowa. Build My Future is just one example. The program is a hands-on, immersive experience for high school students held in several locations throughout the state. The Des Moines event last year at the Iowa State Fairgrounds hosted 5,400 students The rapid growth of that project is the result of a myriad of relationships that many volunteers within the organization have built over the years.
“Through our strong network of association professionals, we heard about a program in Springfield, Missouri, that introduced high school students to careers in the skilled trades,” Iverson explains. “We got a group together and took a field trip to attend their Build My Future event. They worked with us to get our program going; they were happy to give us all the help we needed. That has since blossomed to several other states as well.”
Iverson has spent his entire professional career working in association management in Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas representing chambers of commerce, the real estate industry, and medical societies before leading the HBA of Iowa. Building relationships is the key to each of those.
“The industries I have served are all very different, but my responsibilities have been similar,” Iverson says. “My role is really to develop and nurture relationships among the members and with regulating agencies.”
It is those relationships that also make it possible for Iverson to serve his constituents effectively. “I spend a lot of time attending association meetings across the state and meeting with like-minded organizations, state agencies, and lawmakers,” he says. “Staying involved in the code, regulatory, and legislative process is a crucial part of serving our membership.”
Those relationships also led to his current involvement at the national level with the NAHB and in meeting with other state workforce development board chairs recently at the National Governors Association Conference in Washington, D.C.
Iverson says that although each of the associations serves a unique membership, they all also address many common goals. His participation enables him to see the big-picture issues facing the construction industry.
Not only did those connections produce Iowa’s multiple Build My Future events, but it led to another skilled trades program serving a different audience. “It was through my association work at the national level that I heard about a program in South Dakota called The Governor’s House, where prisoners are provided with job skills training to build homes,” says Iverson. “That is what led to the Homes for Iowa program based at the Newton Correctional Facility. That program was started by a group of folks representing HBA Iowa, Iowa Prison Industries, state legislators, and the Iowa Association of Councils of Governments.”
Not only has that effort provided affordable housing throughout the state, it has enabled low-risk offenders to obtain new skills so they can enter the workforce upon release. And it’s one more tool in the effort to bridge the skilled trades gap.
“There are half a million open jobs nationwide right now in the construction industry,” he says. “There are also 80,000 jobs of all varieties right here in Iowa. In addition to the need for skilled labor, I’d say the two biggest challenges I’m dealing with right now are costs and government regulation. The costs of materials and land are leading to even higher home prices, and growing government regulation just makes that cost higher. That regulatory burden has added more than 25% to the cost of a new single-family home and over 40% for multifamily homes. As new home prices increase, that also makes the prices of the existing stock rise.”
To help tackle those challenges, Iverson has partnered with local HBAs to hire workforce development specialists like Amy Pearson, who serves eastern Iowa, and Brandon Patterson, who covers Iowa with a variety of programs and a mission of building relationships in order to make programs like Build My Future so successful. Patterson is also working with legislators on a new youth employment opportunity bill, which would allow young people to get involved in the workforce earlier.
Iverson says his leadership of the state HBA may have started during challenging times, but he continues to love his job more than a decade later.
“When I became Executive Director, it was right after the downturn, and we’d lost about half our members by the time I started,” he says. “Now we are a shining star nationally. The volunteerism, awards, accolades, and overall involvement from our incredible people within our 2,000 member companies, who represent nearly 90,000 employees, has kept many of us motivated to keep pushing our efforts to maximum levels.”
That explains why Iowa’s branch of the Home Builders Association continues to set an example for others to follow. And Jay Iverson is helping to lead the way.