Jay Westman

President and CEO, Jayman MasterBUILT

It's Jay Westman's belief that if you can dream it, he can build it. Six months into 2005, Jayman MasterBUILT, headed by Westman, has already been issued close to 1,500 home-building permits, pushing the company to its third straight title as Alberta's largest home builder. With developments in Calgary, Edmonton and Denver, Westman has carved out an enviable position in Alberta and enjoys annual revenues of more than $350 million. While president of the Calgary Region Home Builders Association in 2002-2003 and president of the Alberta Home Builders Association in 2003-2004, Westman rallied tirelessly for job-site safety, education, affordable housing and "green" building practices. This go-getter's- understanding of the needs of his industry was instrumental in the February 2004 launch of Alberta Builder Connect, an online job site for skilled workers, as well as conceptualizing Built Green Alberta, a program promoting sustainable building practices to reduce its impact on the environment. Jayman MasterBUILT, in partnership with SAIT, is currently building Calgary's first demonstration EcoHouse, an affordable, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient home.  - DH

The real estate industry is notoriously cyclical and right now it is booming. How do you prepare for the eventual slowdown of the market?  Do you have any predictions about when the boom will end?
My father's company failed in late '79, early 1980, so we have watched how a company fails. Basically, we saw everything stop. Even commerce stopped. You couldn't sell a home unless you lowered the price substantially. We've done risk modelling ever since then on a worst-case scenario, anticipating retail value falling by 33% on everything you have speculatively, along with a certain percentage of even your presales falling. We use risk modelling and we've always used it since the very day we restarted Jayman with only $35,000. That's how you prepare for the eventual slowdown of the market. You just make sure you've got enough cash to cover yourself in the event that commerce grinds to just about a halt. Yes, real estate cycles up and down, but there will always be a continual demand for housing. I believe that we're going to have an extremely strong market for the next five years and possibly 10 years.

Who do you think is the greatest Albertan ever?
Preston Manning. He probably had the biggest influence in getting some common sense back into government. He influenced the country into not running government deficits. All of a sudden, it wasn't in vogue anymore to run deficits. When he first started, he was calculating by the day how far in debt we were getting as citizens. He brought a lot of common sense to that. The government in power at the time started to adopt those policies, politically, trying to take the teeth away from the Reform party. But I think he had probably the single greatest influence on bringing some of what Western Canadians were talking about - spending smartly here and not spending on everything. Being financially responsible.

In 100 years, will you warrant your own chapter in the history books, a footnote to great events or a single Google hit?
I would hope that we did all the right things to influence people. I think one of the keys would be to try to become the standard to be measured to. One of my goals would be to be known as the standard in terms of a brand. But at the end of the day, in a hundred years from today, I think I'll just be a footnote.