Greg Kozan
Earlier this year, we caught up with George Kazan, president and CEO, Ridgeway Plumbing, Inc., located in Boynton Beach, Fla. Founded 1956, the open shop company with 540 employees—no labor subcontractors—brought $135M in revenue in 2023. Ridgeway, dabbling in all new construction, and all residential—homes and apartments—works for most all of the major national and regional homebuilders and developers. Completing well over 10,000 units last year, the company currently serves seven markets throughout Florida and is continuing to expand its footprint.
MH: During the pandemic, how did Ridgeway fare? How did you navigate that most unusual time?
KOZAN: After a brief (maybe one month) period of extreme uncertainty, residential construction began to explode. Seems like everyone wanted to come to Florida and buy a house. While welcome, those were very stressful and challenging times, given the supply chain and labor shortage issues, as well as significant cost increases. Most of that is in the past now.
MH: In general, most of the country is experiencing a skilled labor shortage. Are you experiencing that in Florida, and what measures does Ridgeway employ to make sure they are hiring the best?
KOZAN: I’d be lying if I told you that onboarding and retention isn’t a huge challenge for us. Most of what’s available for the trades today are entry-level people, and with that comes a high degree of turnover in the early weeks and months. It’s critical for us to get these people up to speed. Besides having around 80 of our guys in apprenticeship classes, we do a lot of classroom and field training, videos produced in-house, and mentorships.
MH: You had mentioned that Ridgeway was all residential plumbing—about 80% homes and townhouses, 20% apartments—how are both those markets in your area, and how do you see them in the short term?
KOZAN: While starts did begin to fall off a bit last year with the interest rate run-up, things are still quite strong on the homebuilding side. Many apartment projects have been getting delayed or cancelled, and it may take a year or so for things to stabilize there. Still, we remain quite bullish on housing in general, and in particular the residential market in Florida. It’s all about demographics.
MH: What are some of your top concerns as the president of a large plumbing company in 2024? How are you handling it?
KOZAN: Housing demand is not going away, so our primary mission is twofold—build our market share to get all the work we can handle, and continue to improve operationally so we can better handle all the work that we get.
MH: What do you feel have been some of your top successes over the past few years?
KOZAN: Actually, ever since the Great Recession we have invested heavily in our technology and information systems. Our entire business operates on a fully integrated operational software package developed by our IT staff in-house. Our proprietary system and apps are designed to address the unique needs of a large volume residential trade contractor – including scheduling, document management, logistics, reporting, quality inspection, as well as payroll and accounting.
Additionally, the major piping systems in every single one of our homes and apartment buildings are computer designed and fabricated, resulting in accuracy, consistency, and timely installation – critical in fast-paced housing construction.
MH: Over the last few years, we’ve been hearing about the Infrastructure Bill. Was Ridgeway able to “tap” into any federal money?
KOZAN: Not directly applicable to our markets, but better roads and infrastructure is always welcome to handle the strong influx of population growth we’re experiencing throughout Florida.
