Jason Brown Installed as 2025 Home Builders Association Board President
Jason Brown of Ascent Builders, was installed as 2025 HBA Board President at the HBA Annual Meeting on October 24th. Below are his inaugural remarks:
"Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the Homebuilders Association of Metro Denver, and honored guests, it is with incredible gratitude,and a little bit of fear that I stand here today to accept the position of President of this amazing organization for 2025.
My name is Jason Brown, with Ascent Builders, and I’m humbled to be entrusted with this role in this organization that I feel is more important than ever to the ongoing health of our industry.
First, let me thank our outgoing president, Dave Lemnah, of Lokal Homes. Dave has done an amazing job carrying the mantel for the organization for the last year and has been a good friend and mentor to me, and I will do my best to carry on many of the same objectives that we pursued as an organization in 2024.
My involvement in the HBA is not something new. I have been heavily involved with the councils over the years, and was one of the founding members and eventually the chair of the Custom Builders and Remodelers Council which is where I developed an appreciation for making sure that everything we did at the HBA was to benefit the builders and the industry we serve. As chair of the CBRC council, that was my first exposure to the Board of Directors of the HBA where I honestly felt completely overwhelmed with the horsepower of the combined individuals that made up the board. So, you can imagine my surprise 4 years ago with Ted and the leadership team asked me to be part of the leadership team of the HBA.
As a recovering telecommunications geek, I can’t help but have an immense sense of pride for our industry that provides one of the most basic needs for our society, which is shelter. It’s one of the main reasons I left the corporate world 20 years ago to start a fledgling construction company with little more than some sweat equity and a dream to help provide real value to the world that was tangible and try to have fun doing it. Yet, we are met with more and more resistance in performing that role certainly in this market, but around the country as well.
Affordable or attainable housing is a hot topic in our community and across the nation. Having built a lot of this product over the years as a market rate product, I have a good understanding of how this is getting harder and harder to accomplish. We have to lead in this area and bring fresh ideas to the table and make sure our partners in the local municipalities can put some skin in the game as well if they truly want to accomplish this for their cities. We need to work closely with local governments to encourage developments that cater to a diverse range of income levels, making sure that everyone—from teachers to nurses to your friendly neighborhood barista—has a place to call home.
We also need legislative reform to accomplish this that will encourage developers/builders to build more entry level condos and townhomes. Notice I didn’t say we need construction defect reform. I’m stealing a page from Dave Lenmah’s book here and am going to ask everyone in this room to remove that term from their vocabulary and find a different way to describe the legislative reform we need to make this a more lucrative and less risky option for builders.
As an organization, I believe the most valuable role we offer to the industry is advocacy with both state and local governments. Between the HBA staff, our skilled political consultants, and our leaders in this room and elsewhere, we have had good success influencing public policy that affects our industry. Unfortunately, more often than not, this is in a defensive position to keep our rulemakers from putting regulation and policy in place that hinders our ability to do our job well and deliver homes efficiently and cost-effectively. We have some great stories to tell in this regard and have saved our members tens of millions of dollars over the years as a result of these efforts. However, as I mentioned, these are almost always in a defensive position. We have to carve out the time and take our fresh ideas and start to go on offense. I think this can happen both within the regulatory community as well as the general public.
To accomplish this, I feel strongly that we need to further a previous objective of the HBA that has been deemed “storytelling”. Going on the offensive and taking our key objectives and turning them into public relations campaigns can help us win in the court of public opinion and use the public to help apply pressure to our public servants who are putting these policies in place. I’m going to give you a short story where I’ve seen this be effective. Over the last 2.5 years, along with other builders in the room, we have been heavily involved in helping to rebuild the communities that were lost to the Marshall Fire a few years ago in Boulder county. In the early days of this rebuild effort, affected homeowners became acutely aware of some of the policies that had been put in place by their municipal leaders that were driving the costs higher than what they could afford and their insurance carriers were willing to pay. Examples of this include exorbitant permit/impact fees, very aggressive energy code compliance and the public outcry was sufficient to get the municipalities to modify their policies. Imagine if we could do that at a scale around the metro area and bring the public to our side in influencing public policy as it relates to the cost of building a home.
Finally, I want to emphasize that we are all in this together. Every member of this association plays a critical role in shaping the future of housing in Metro Denver. I’ve never seen another industry that works “together” as well as this one does even though many of us are competitors. Your ideas, your passion, and your expertise are what will drive us forward. So let’s roll up our sleeves, put on our PPE and get to work!
In conclusion, I am truly honored to serve as your president. Together, we will tackle the challenges ahead and make significant strides in transforming the way we handle affordable housing, reduce regulations that hinder our progress, and strengthen our community ties. So, let’s get out there, build some amazing homes, share our stories, and, most importantly, let’s have some fun while we're at it!
Thank you!"