SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Anessa Andrews: The Lady Builder Boss

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Send us a text and chime in!Anessa Andrews, Director of Founders Building Group, a Fain Signature Group, shares her journey in the construction industry—from building her first home at 27 to leading large-scale projects. She highlights the importance of mentorship, innovation, and community involvement in overcoming industry challenges. Watch to learn how her passion and expertise drive success in construction and development!Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Vanessa Andrews. Hello. Founders Building Group. Yes, sir. FBG. Many people don't know this. You are a general contractor registered with the office. What does the ROC stand for?

Registrar of contractors. Okay. General contractor, a.k.a. Lady Builder boss. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for coming in finally. She's really shy. I am.

Sorry. Lots going on with you for people that don't know. You head up Founders Building Group here in Prescott Valley and you're working on some pretty significant projects. Specifically Legato, we'll kind of focus on that right now. You've been doing this. I don't think people I don't understand how long you've been doing this. You built your first house when? When I was 27. When you were 27, what incentivized you're motivated to you? Most people just go out and buy a house, you decide to build your own. So, you know, I went to school for business and kind of was in government for a while, understood that I needed to make a change. So I went to...

Probably a good thing. Yeah, so I ended up working with a local developer in Prescott and builder. And I fell in love. I fell in love with the process. So I decided that's what I was going to do. And I still enjoy driving by my first house, you know, and seeing it still. Are they keeping it up to your standards? Actually, it looks beautiful still to this day, not going to lie. But yeah, and kind of the rest is history.

I just fell in love with seeing. something go from nothing to something great. So you're starting a business, but you weren't swinging a hammer in the summertime. That's how a lot of people fall into something related. It's very unrelated per se. It's a business for sure. But what would you, what kind of advice would you give somebody? You are now involved with building very large projects.

Right. Homestead, you headed up, won some awards. How many units was that? 214. 214 apartments basically in Preston Valley. Legato is of similar scope. Larger. How would you, some people have, I know a couple of young people that have a hard time starting.

And it sounds me like you just said, I'm doing this. Would that be, you took a leap of face. Nathan, where did you, what made you decide I can do this? It is a big step, you know, the projects and the size that we're, what we're doing right now. I think I had great mentors. I had great relationships at a young age with construction. And I hold a lot of those still through to this day. Who are some of those people?

Many, many moons later. Name one of two mentors. So one of my mentors passed away recently. Okay. But he was phenomenal and dearly missed. But, you know, this morning I dealt with Blackmore equipment. So I've known that group for, do I dare say, you know, probably 25 years. You know, I've been working with them.

I'm so glad she dated herself first. I'm hearing partnerships, mentorships, friendships that allowed you or provided you the support and confidence to help make those moves. Yeah. Because I'm always talking to my daughter and my nephew, for that matter, about, it's not just about your skills, just about the people around you, lean on people who are experts. it's, I just did a phone call today with Danny Pruse of Edward Jones. We're, my wife and I are making some decisions.

And I said, why are we trying to figure this out? It's just call some people we know and trust and lean on. So so much of it sounds like it's about relationships, mentorships, right? Absolutely. I think one of the things I learned early on is you can never know at all. And you have to draw on the people that are the experts. And so that's, you know, that's how I've set myself up. And every time you draw on your team and those experts, you always, your own knowledge grows.

And so make friends with people that know more than you. You know, exactly. Right. Exactly. So you built your first house at 27. What was the next big leap for you that happened professionally? Yeah. So I was involved just within a lot of local projects, local development projects, local land developments of housing communities, commercial parks, large buildings, not multifamily initially.

I mean, so the multifamily has come into play within the last, I'd say, five years or so. So multifamily was a new animal for me when we started locally here in Prescott Valley, with Homestead. And that was a big learning curve because, you know, a little bit apples and oranges. Right. But, you know, fundamentally the same. So the progression just kind of organically grew. And you killed it with Homestead.

Yeah. Was that nerve-wracking for you as a professional taking that leap? You know, a little bit. Once again, I had some great mentors. and learned a lot on that first build that I'm still taking, you know, to our current builds right now. In terms of lessons for maybe younger people, because I'm always trying to, I'm always thinking of my kids or my nephews is how much of your success and progress is knowledge, how much of it is simply, I know how much time you spend working. Is it hard work and just learning? So probably both.

I think you really have to apply yourself. You really have to put in the time to really get to where you want to be. Nothing is easy. But it's very rewarding for me. It's very rewarding for me. And so as you, as we encourage our children, right to break into something that they enjoy you know it doesn't happen overnight no i think they all think that they have to know everything and they're worried to take a start they're worried to make a

start and just go right we're encouraging some young people in our lives just start just start some more you don't it doesn't have to be perfect and eventually make it yours my daughter is at a great place and i said over time you can build your identity in the industry and then then you can go on to another place that is of interest you because now you have that identity, but it's never going to be exactly what you want to start. And you're never going to acquire the knowledge unless you dive in, make some mistakes, learn, right? Absolutely. Because I just look at what you do.

There's so many layers to it, like that book of blueprints that's probably six to eight inches high, different trades. how do you learn it on? I think part of it's just, it must be leaning on the experts that you have around you. Yeah, I think part of, at least for me, I like the orchestration of it all. I enjoy putting the pieces together and understanding where the pieces fit. And I rely on a lot of other people to help me hook it together. Has your view changed?

Like when you started, oh, I'm going to manage all the stuff and it's more about the job. But then you realize as you go on, I know I have recently is it's so much about the people. I think it's almost always about the people. Right. The team is what I strive to maintain the relationships. and, you know, if those relationships don't fit with our ideals, then I politely part ways. Right.

And I think that's important to understand and know and be confident about. All right. Let's shift gears a little bit. Because always like talking about stuff that we can impart on our young people because it's just, it seems like they think they need to have this. perfect education, perfect background, get the perfect job. And really it's about taking years,

working it to really fit into those positions that we want to be. What would be, can you share a moment where there was a mistake and what you learned from? And it can be funny. No, yeah. Well, you know, what's kind of funny is that I remember my first big mistake in the construction industry. Oh, do tell.

Right. And it was a, it was a, probably in the scheme of things, it wasn't huge. But we were putting in a coffered ceiling in a doctor's office. You know, he, he wanted it coffered. And so I, you know, got every. Well, no, so it's just, you know, a little drop down. Okay. So, so the, so the ceiling, you know, has a little bit more dimension. And so I went and, you know, got the extra cost for the framing and the drywall and all. got it all together and the different lighting and I missed fire sprinklers, right? Because when you adjust the roof like that or, you know, the drops, right? I missed it. And so the developer and contractor that I was working for had to eat that. And it was a mistake. And, you know, thankfully, it wasn't like a $100,000 mistake. But it was just one of those mistakes that you learn from and you never make again, right? And so, and that's okay. I think it's okay. I think it's okay to make mistakes. You know, we, um, I think in our office a lot of times, and I know you've heard this guy is that, um, fail, fail, is it fail hard, fail fast? Yep. Right. It's like,

don't do it again. Yeah. Right. You know, so if we're going to fail, let's just, um, you know, get it over with and move on and, um, and grow. I think that's the biggest thing is everybody, nobody's perfect. We just, um, we have to learn and, and grow from our mistakes. But we also have to be, um, We have to have that common sense. I think that's what I really try to teach our daughter is the common sense of it all because it seems to be a little lacking. Yeah, it's sad that we have to have a trend that we're coming back to common sense, right?

Yeah. You'd think that it would always stay, but somewhere it disappeared. Now it's trending back a little bit, hopefully. Hopefully, right? Yeah, agreed. So we're the challenges in building right now. What are the big obstacles? I know there's a lot.

We're in a pretty dynamic time right now. What are you finding in general terms as being the biggest challenges to building housing for folks? It can even be commercial space for that matter. What are your challenges? So I'm just going to say I think probably within the last, I'm going to go to 10 years, you know, that building industry has changed a lot. to 10 years. It's just, it's really revamped. You know, costs, labor, those are two primary ones. Codes are becoming more stringent, which can be a good thing, right? But it's also,

can be very challenging. So it's, it's as a whole, you know, just the industry as a whole has changed. The workforce, we're starting to look at more kind of AI-driven stuff. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit because I heard about some really cool things. Yeah, there's some cool things happening out there and just making sure we're staying relevant and keeping up with the times and the new processes that we're seeing with construction. So on the AI part, because I talked to somebody else, like the framing side. I know there's some new technologies

where it's literally the panels, the walls is being done by basically AI robots. And then that stuff's delivered on site. It's all numbered and organized by computers. And I think those things are done in a controlled environment, so things go faster. Can you talk a little bit about that? about what's coming in?

I think that what was the name of the one company? They're out of the Verdi, right? Yeah, so we're hopeful. Well, so first with Homestead. When we built the Homestead apartments, all of the framing was done offsite. And then they trucked it in and pretty much just tilted up the walls. And we went from there. So that was kind of our first look into having some, not necessarily an AI,

system, but a little different from your traditional... New efficiencies. Yeah. Bring it at on site and cutting the lumber and putting up the sticks. Right. So what we're looking at now is we toured a great facility in Camp Verde, FrameTech, and they do everything on site. And kind of the same. They just bring up the walls and stand them up.

The difference is that it's all, like you were mentioning, AI driven by computers. So lower cost, quicker I'm hearing maybe which saves money. But I'm also hearing like very little or almost zero waste because there's a massive amount of waste when you're building on site because the cuts and everything. But with the computers, they're really measuring this stuff out to minimize or actually completely obliterate waste or there's recycling available on site too, right? So hopefully we'll be able to use that type of system, at least in one of our new projects moving forward. And we're looking into that quite a bit. And then I'll be able to share a little bit more. Okay.

Well, Annessa Andrews, Founders Building Group, a Fane Signature Group company. Fane Signature Group Company. And you've got a couple soups and project manager under you. and your team has grown. So new jobs in the past couple of months. Yeah. Thank you for coming in. You're going to come back and talk about maybe Legato.

Do we see more progress? Maybe. Maybe. Okay. All good. Thank you for coming in.