Monica Wheaton
Director of Customer Success
ECI Software Solutions
With over 25 years of experience working in management consulting, networking and support for the home building industry, Monica has vast experience in strategic leadership, marketing and customer support. She was recognized by Professional Builder as one of Top 40 Under 40 in 2011.
Currently with ECI Software Solutions, Monica educates homebuilders, trade contractors, and land developers on how the adoption of integrated management software can help them improve their processes, streamline their entire organization, build better quality homes, and ultimately establish a more profitable business.
Previously, Monica was the CEO of Builder Partnerships where she oversaw the direction and development of the organization. She spent 4 years in international development consulting with Deloitte for the Financial Services division and also worked in the Single-Family Accounting Department at Freddie Mac.
Rich Gallagher
CEO
Synergos
As a proud graduate of the University of Arizona, Rich has more than 20 years of experience in the homebuilding community across various markets. His unique background serving in multiple leadership roles, within both the homebuilder and contractor sectors, facilitates strategic and operational decision-making that is solution-minded for the entire industry.
Ralph Baja
National SVP of Customer Engagement + Production
Century Communities
Ralph Baja has focused on delighting customers before and after the sale as a leader within regional and national homebuilding organizations for nearly 18 years.
As the national director of customer relations and process improvement, Ralph has reinvented how Century Communities looks at the customer relationship lifecycle and how they measure and improve the customer experience. Ralph joined Century Communities in August 2017 when the company merged with UCP and its wholly owned subsidiary, Benchmark Communities. At Benchmark, Ralph played a similar role as a national director for four years.
Between 2014 and 2018, Ralph enabled Century and Benchmark to earn 65 Homebuyers’ Choice Awards from customer experience management firm Eliant. Century Communities is in the running for another 10 awards this year, and in 2018, Ralph was selected as Eliant’s first American Customer Experience Leader of the Year. According to Eliant, the award was in recognition of his “extraordinary leadership in consistent delivery of a memorable customer experience” and how “he is shaping the future direction of the industry and culture of customer service excellence.”
Previously, Ralph was vice president of customer relations and process improvement for Pulte Homes, having worked his way up from a community-level position to leader of the Northern California and Nevada region. He was with the company for nearly 11 years.
Prior to entering the homebuilding industry, Ralph served as an officer in the United States Navy. He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy with a bachelor’s in computer science.
Matt Collins
Homebuilding Operations Guru
The Mainspring Group
Matt Collins has served in senior leadership roles for several large regional homebuilders over the last 20 years, with a special focus on operational improvement. Earning his construction knowledge from the ground up as a sales associate and eventual manager at one of the nation’s top five building materials supplier. Matt then worked with large homebuilders in south-central Pennsylvania and then in Virginia as the Vice President of Homebuilding Operations. In early 2017, Matt joined Shinn Consulting, one of the nation’s foremost authority on homebuilding operations. As a Senior Consultant, he worked with builders across the country to streamline operations, strengthen trade relations, improve quality, cycle time, customer satisfaction, and profitability. His engagements included facilitating biannual benchmark meetings, direct consulting opportunities with executives, instructing in educational seminars, and keynote speaking engagements for national conferences.
Prior to joining The Mainspring Group, Matt served as part of the senior leadership team with Elliott Homes in Gulfport, MS. As the Chief Operating Officer, Matt was responsible for successfully leading the development of systems and processes focused on scalability in all areas of operations. Areas of accountability included Marketing, Sales, Design, Permitting, Purchasing, Starts, Production, and Warranty. In addition, Matt served as the interim Controller for the company through 2021. Elliott Homes is the largest homebuilder in Mississippi and is truly one of the nation’s thought-leaders in the industry.
Derrick Tillman
President + CEO
Bridging the Gap Development, LLC
Bridging the Gap Development, LLC (“BTG”), founded in 2006, is a diversified real estate development firm based in Pittsburgh, PA. Derrick leads the company’s mission to rebuild healthy, sustainable communities through residential and commercial development by “bridging the [real estate and opportunity] gap[s]” in a community. BTG develops a variety of projects, including multifamily affordable housing, mixed-income and market rate rental and homeownership properties, community and cultural space as well as commercial real estate. As a board member of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, Tillman continues to work to ensure all Pennsylvanians, especially the most vulnerable, have access to a home within reach. We remain dedicated to tackling blight, homeownership, energy efficiency, affordable housing, and homelessness. BTG has also been able to use its business acumen to innovatively train many unemployed and underemployed individuals with construction and/or weatherization skills.
Teri Slavik-Tsuyuki
Principal
tst ink LLC
Teri has brought to life some of the most valued and recognized brands in resort and community development. During her 10+ years as the Chief Marketing Officer for Newland, Teri was the architect of the Newland brand, and its application in more than 40 communities in 14 states, where she also led new community start-up, and opened 11 new communities in 4 years. Before that, her brand design agency in Canada handled all of Intrawest Corporation’s vacation ownership resort launches in 3 countries.
Today her company, tst ink works with some of the most innovative community developers and entrepreneurs to identify deep customer insights and create places and brands people connect with and experiences that matter.
A fast-thinking, passionate marketing professional, she was named “one of the most influential women in homebuilding” by BUILDER Magazine and was inducted into the William S. Marvin Hall of Fame for Design Excellence, the second woman ever to earn this honor.
Teri currently serves as the co-chair of the Wellness Communities & Real Estate Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute and the assistant chair of the Urban Land Institute’s Residential Neighborhood Development Council.
Ken Pinto
Owner
Kenzai USA
Ken Pinto, author of “How Much Is the Milk?” worked for 19 years as Supply Chain VP at Shea Homes, Pulte Homes, Standard Pacific Homes, and Toll Brothers. 21-years in commercial construction; carpenter, mason, plumber, electrician, steel worker, heavy equipment operator, surveyor, Superintendent, Project Manager. Speaker at several Big Builder conferences. The recent 8 years managing international and domestic supply chain solutions in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Guam, Texas, and Oklahoma. Contributing writer with The Builder’s Daily. Recent speaker at the Urban Land Institute.
Maya Sachdeva
Vice President
Hall-Williams Executive Search
Maya Sachdeva currently focuses on staffing for the real estate and PropTech industries. Prior to HWES, she worked in strategy and operations at Zillow. Her work involved product operations, process development/design, cost-benefit analysis, data projection/forecasting, market sizing, valuing business opportunities, creating operational efficiencies and scaling programs. She is skilled in project management, client relationships, and business development. Before Zillow, Maya was a consultant in the residential real estate industry, where she specialized in launching new communities and providing solutions for existing communities. She has led consulting engagements in the Central region comprised of Texas and the Midwest as well as Atlanta, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She authored a blog, genYration, which details experiences of millennial home buyers. Her research on millennial home owners has been published in the Houston Business Journal. Maya graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a double major in Urban Planning and Political Science.
Jeff Handlin
President
Oread Capital Group
In 2011, Jeff Handlin founded Oread Capital & Development, which acquires, develops, and operates best-in-class residential and mixed-use communities primarily in the Denver and Boulder market areas. Previously, he served in executive roles at recognized national homebuilding and real estate development companies, including Starwood Land Ventures, M.D.C. Holdings and Taylor Woodrow (currently known as Taylor Morrison).
At M.D.C. Holdings, Jeff managed all acquisitions company-wide, representing more than 12,000 residential lots across the U.S. between 2009 and 2011, with acquisition costs over $600 Million. Prior to M.D.C., he was a founding partner in Starwood Land Ventures, based in Bradenton, Florida. There he led more than $100 Million in direct acquisitions in Florida, including the acquisition of substantially all the Florida assets of Tousa-Engle Homes from its bankruptcy estate.
Upon receiving a J.D. from Duke University, and prior to his work as a land development and homebuilding executive, Jeff began his legal career at the law firm of Carlton Fields in Tampa, Florida, where he focused on real estate development, finance, and homeowners association law. He graduated cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Kansas.
Jeff is a member of the ULI’s National Community Development Council and ULI’s Colorado Community Development Council. He strongly supports education — serving as an adjunct professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver and on various boards at the University of Kansas.
Ryan Barry
Vice President of Sales
Stier Supply Company
A former instructor with the US Naval Academy and the US Marine Corp, Ryan has been bringing leadership development, relationship building, operational planning and project management expertise to Stier Supply Company for more than seven years. He spent nearly five years as the director of installed operations in the Raleigh-Durham market before transitioning into general manager and VP of sales roles. Ryan has a Bachelor of Science from the Naval Academy and a Master’s in Leadership Education Development from the University of Maryland.
Betsy Scott
Executive Director, Programs + Engagement
Housing Innovation Alliance
For more than 20 years, Betsy Scott has excelled at helping people think differently by taking complex ideas and concepts, analyzing them from the perspective of others, and translating the results into action.
If you want to meet people bringing innovation to the housing industry, or know what’s new, she’s your ticket. A natural collaborator with a great social sense, she connects the dots between smart people, forward-thinking companies and big ideas. With Betsy in your corner, everyone wins.
That’s why she helms the Housing Innovation Alliance, a passion she’s pursued since 2008 with founding partner IBACOS and now as the Executive Director, Program + Engagement of an independent entity focused on bringing business and technical innovation to housing. Her responsibilities for strategic planning, member and sponsor engagement, and programming speak to her fierce attention to detail, creative mind, and ability to make complex subjects tangible, relevant and actionable. She adds depth to ideas, finds and shares new opportunities, and conveys greater understanding to business issues.
Armed with a degree in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh, Betsy cut her teeth in the agency world and as an independent B2B and B2C marketing consultant before joining IBACOS in 2006. In her off-time, she’s either feeding her farm-to-table foodie jones, working on her century-old house, or spending time with her husband and fur children, Watson and Finnegan, at one of Pittsburgh’s many parks and rivers.
Dennis Steigerwalt
President
Housing Innovation Alliance
Dennis is a catalyst. An expert at driving market transformation programs, he knows people, money and how to get things done.
As president of the Alliance, he leads our strategic vision and smart growth of our community.
Prior to the Alliance, Dennis helped change the face of the housing industry in Saudi Arabia through two key initiatives: the Ministry of Housing’s Building Technology Stimulus Initiative (BTSI) and SABIC’s Home of Innovation™ program.
In BTSI, Dennis helped to create a nationwide program to develop a modular housing industry—modeling 26 strategic initiatives that would jumpstart the creation of a robust construction ecosystem, evaluating 200+ global technology providers, and securing initial approval for $4B in government investment. Within one year, the commitment grew to $40B.
Dennis was also a key player in SABIC’s Home of Innovation program, a $30M+ multi-year market engagement program focused on encouraging collaboration among the housing value chain and ensuring that better construction practices are adopted throughout the region. Together with his team, Dennis established and managed a global ecosystem of more than 1,000 subject matter experts, including 46 leading manufacturer partners. The program resulted in the Middle East’s first LEED platinum home, a pilot community of 1,200 LEED Silver homes and a LEED gold interactive exhibition center, which has become the epicenter for collaboration in the region. As of 2016, the program yielded 40+ business opportunities with more than $200M in new value creation.
Before and after going global, Dennis acted as a consultant to and developer of residential and mixed-use real estate projects in southwestern PA, several of which are considered pioneering examples of placemaking in North America—including Venango Trails, Edgewater and Newbury.
In his spare time, he enjoys big adventures with his wife and sons on the water and in the mountains and supports the efforts of other entrepreneurs—advising and investing in their startup companies.
