Rick Morales III, president of Morales Construction, typically works only with subcontractors who are members of the Northeast Florida Builders Association.
It’s one of the requirements for being part of the association’s Pinnacle Builders program.
But, Morales also believes in it. Whether they benefit directly, through participation, or indirectly, through industry training and political advocacy, everyone in construction uses NEFBA.
“We look for trade partners who have the same respect as we do for what other people are doing on their behalf,” he said.
A NEFBA board member for more 25 years, Morales serves as president this year. The group’s strength, he said, lies in its spirit of collaboration.
“What I love about the builders association is all of the major competitors are in the same room together,” he said. “They want you to buy their house instead of the other guys, but they realize if we pull together, we’ll all make more money.”
As president, Morales wants to increase membership, build up the Pinnacle Builders program, and possibly, relocate NEFBA offices closer to an interstate highway.
The association reached 3,000 members during the height of the construction boom. Today, the group is just under 1,000. It’s important to reach out to new businesses that are opening during construction’s recovery, Morales said, and also to re-educate an industry that had lost 40 of its workforce.
In 2014, NEFBA recruited 100 freshmen into builder apprenticeships, doubling the program’s size.
“There is more demand in the marketplace today than there is product,” Morales said. “It’s not like it was back in 2006 — we’re building today at 2001 and 2002 numbers. Still, it’s a whole lot better than it was in 2008.”
Morales’s father and grandfather were builders, so it might seem like a given that he became one too. But in college, Morales studied finance. Upon graduation Morales decided he would work as in general contracting instead of as a banker, though.
“I’m not really a nose to the spreadsheet kind of a guy. I’m more a fly by the seat of my pants guy,” he said.
He benefitted from standing on the shoulders of family before him.
Morales’s father, a Cuban immigrant, left his homeland at age 24 when Fidel Castro nationalized all of the family’s construction businesses.
He landed in Jacksonville, started a commercial construction company, and became known for building mini-warehouses all over the city.
Morales the son would partner in his father’s business. But, he would find his own direction.
At the time he joined the business, his father had begun building his family’s own house. The son finished it.
Other people saw it, including a good friend, Alex Radi. He asked Morales if he would build his house, too.
“I told him, ‘I don’t do residential.’ And he said, ‘Well what do you call this?’” Morales said. “It grew from there, and it’s been very successful.”
Today, 80 percent of the business is residential construction. It has become known as one of the finest custom home builders in the region, Morales said.
The changes didn’t alter the strength of the father-son partnership.
“My father does some things better and I do other things better,” Morales said. “We’re very different, but we’re also very close.”
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