by Michele Newbern-Gillis
Staff Writer
Greg Matovina knows business.
As a certified public accountant he knows money. As a business owner, he knows how to effectively run a business.
Together, he says those skills will help him in his new role as president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association.
Matovina’s goals as president are to carry on the tradition of the last 60 years.
“My goal is to go out and continue to serve the people that we’ve served for the last 60 years,” said Matovina, president of Matovina & Co. “I’ve broken them down into five groups: people in need, our customers, people who buy our homes, particularly first- time home buyers, our associate vendors, and our family and our employees, co-workers and partners. That’s the big thing that we will be focusing on.”
In addition to those goals, Matovina has asked his committee chairs to come up with a two or three year strategic plan for that committee.
“And one or two proactive ideas to carry out that strategic plan,” he said. “I am a very organization type person. I like structure, and so I am trying to introduce a little more structure and formality to the committees and what they do.”
Matovina has been a member of NEFBA for 10 years.
“It was time for me to give back to the industry that has given so much to me,” he said.
Matovina originally took office as secretary. Soon after, the secretary and treasurer positions were combined and one of the chairs was eliminated, cutting a year off his rise to the top.
“Then I got immediately moved up to vice president in three months,” he said. “It came a year faster than I had anticipated.”
Matovina has had a lot of time to prepare for his new role. He spent 21 months as vice president under Denise Wallace of Stokes & Co.
“It gave me time to learn,” he said. “I needed that time to learn. There are a lot of procedural things that you don’t see when you are not involved in the executive board. I’ve learned a lot of procedural things that need to be done. I also learned a little bit about the people in the organization and how to handle groups better.”
In preparation for his new role, Matovina has attended the National Association of Home Builders convention for the past two years. He has been to Tallahassee and Orlando for state meetings, too.
“In general, I have been to almost all of the executive committee and board meetings to prepare and get involved in the committees,” he said. “My focus was codes and standards, so I’ve been very involved in various committees with codes and standards and governmental affairs type issues. All those things kind of brought me to where I am today.”
Matovina & Co., which has been open for 13 years, develops lots and sells them to builders such as Maronda Homes, Mercedes Homes and D.R. Horton.
“I’m primarily responsible for locating new pieces of land,” said Matovina. “I’m very heavily involved in the upfront planning, zoning and engineering. At that point, I pretty much hand it off to the experts.”
Matovina will have to juggle his responsibilities to his company and to the board.
“It’s a struggle, but the time that I’ve spent with NEFBA and charitable organizations that I am involved with has been increasing over the past couple of years. I have sort of been building up to doing this,” he said. “I’m making it work by getting up at 4 a.m. and staying out until 10 p.m. I usually go work out for a couple of hours in the morning and then come in the office about 7 a.m. I have dinners or events to attend in the evenings, so there are a lot of nights that I’m out until 9 or 10 p.m.
“With this year being our 60th anniversary, we will have a lot of special events.”
Matovina graduated from the University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He moved to Jacksonville to become a certified public accountant for five years.
In 1985, one of his clients, Charlie Brown of Summerhomes, offered him a job, so he left accounting for real estate.
“I was originally the vice president of finance and I took care of all of his lending,” he said. “Ultimately, I became the executive vice president and was in charge of all aspects of the company except for the sales and marketing.”
He worked there for five years before opening Matovina & Co.
“My father was a custom homebuilder in Indiana where I grew up, so I actually started working in and around home building when I was 10 years old,” he said.
He has been married to Leslie for seven years. Together, they have four daughters Aubrey, 22; Kate, 18; Katie, 18; Kim, 16. He also has one grandchild, Timmy, 10 months old.
When he is not working, he enjoys playing golf, exercising and spending time with his grandchild.