PAGE 4 / Sunday, June 17, 2012 Tallahassee Democrat / REAL ESTATE

Charron finds success as local home builder

The College World Series now under way in Oma-ha brings back some fond memories for Tallahassee Builders Association mem-ber Joey Charron of Pow-erhouse Construction Inc., who pitched for Tulane Uni-versity on college baseball’s biggest stage in 2001.

Today, he stars as one of Tallahassee’s best young home builders.

For Charron, who played high school baseball in

Tallahassee for legendary Maclay coach Tim Ashcroft, his freshman year at Tulane was a magical ride.

The 5-foot-8, 158-pound lefthander posted a 9-2 record, won all three games in the Green Wave’s NCAA regional tournament cham-pionship run to earn tourney Most Valuable Player hon-ors. He performed before more than 26,000 fans in Omaha, where Tulane beat Nebraska, but lost to peren-nial powers Stanford and Cal State Fullerton to end the season with a spectacular

56-13 record. “The College World Series

was an experience of a life-time,” said Charron, who went on to become one of Tulane’s career leaders in pitching appearances (125), strikeouts (9.4 per nine innings), saves (28), and opponents’ batting aver-age (.255).

Today, Charron is cre-ating beautiful experienc-es for Tallahassee’s hom-eowners. Building custom and semi-custom homes in such communities as Adri-on Woods, Buckhead, Park Charleston, and Sycamore Ridge, Charron has earned him a reputation for cre-ative designs and quality construction.

He was a big winner in the TBA’s recent Parade of Homes, with a Gold Award in the $174,900-$255,000 price category for a home in Adrion Woods and a cov-eted Realtors Choice Award from the Tallahassee Board of Realtors. In addition, the home received a silver-level Florida Green Home cer-tification from the Florida Green Building Coalition.

“This was my fourth year in the Parade,” Char-ron said. “Each year, we’ve tried to improve our prod-uct and impress the judges. The awards are great, but even more important to us has been the response of the home-buying public. We sold three homes during the Parade and have contracts and prospects for some addi-tional homes. We’re going to work hard to deliver on what we promised our cus-tomers.”

Hard work may in fact be the key to Charron’s success both as a baseball player and a builder. His parents, entre-preneurs Mike and Alice Charron, were sterling role models for Joey’s solid work ethic and strong study hab-

REAL ESTATE / Tallahassee Democrat Sunday, June 17, 2012 / PAGE 5

its. And when Charron began playing baseball at Maclay as a ninth-grader, the vener-able Ashcroft built on what Joey had learned from his parents.

“He (Ashcroft) scared me to death,” Charron recalled. “But he set the bar high. We practiced hard and long, especially on the funda-mentals. And even though we were in the small-school classification, we took on the big boys like Lincoln, Godby and Florida High, and we held our own.”

Coming out of high school, Charron weighed baseball scholarship offers from Flor-ida and Tulane, but picked the New Orleans university in large part for its stellar engineering program and the fact he figured to get plenty of playing time as future NCAA Coach-of-the-Year Rick Jones rebuilt the Green Wave program after

some down years. “It wasn’t easy playing

major college baseball and getting a degree in mechan-ical engineering,” Charron said. “But I was conditioned to do whatever it took to get the job done.”

Just as Charron main-tained his control on the pitching mound, he likes the fact that his home build-ing business is small and hands-on. “I draft my own plans; I’m on the job sites every day; I feel like I’m in touch with what’s going on and with my customers,” says Charron, who markets and sells his homes through Realtor® Tiffany Hamilton at Armour Realty. “I think it helps to be responsive to their needs.”

After a brief stint with minor league affiliates of the Toronto Blue Jays, where he grew dismayed that the concept of a “team” took a backseat to “indi-viduals” trying to make a major league roster, Char-ron entered home building in March 2005 as the build-

ing industry’s boom-years were winding down.

In those good years, Pow-erhouse would build about 20 homes but in today’s slowly recovering economy, he’d be happy with 12 homes a year in the $190,000 to $270,000 price range. “I never want to get really big,” he says. “We’re to the point where I

am hiring a full-time per-son, but in order to keep high quality, my long-term goal is not to be a high-vol-ume builder, but rather to keep customer satisfaction as our priority.”

Being a one-man oper-ation has its challeng-es. Charron draws plans, solves problems, and works

job sites by day and does business-related paperwork until late at night — a bor-derline-workaholic lifestyle that might change now that he and his wife Amanda are enjoying 2-month-old Chris-topher. “Home building is a demanding, almost all-con-suming business,” Charron says. “But balance is impor-tant and I want that quality time with my family.”

Charron’s wife, brother and sister all work in Joey’s parents’ successful fami-ly-owned businesses. But

Joey took the road less trav-eled and he’s never regret-ted it. “In baseball, every game was different and in home building, every home, every customer is differ-ent and unique. There’s an excitement to meeting the challenge… it’s why I love what I do.”

— Paul M. Thompson is the CEO and executive vice president of the Florida

Home Builders Association and executive officer of the Tallahassee Builders Asso-

ciation.

Charron “balance is important and I want that quality time with my family.”