December 28, 2023 • 30 mins
Each one of us dreamed of becoming someone when we grow up. We made plans, walked paths toward that dream. Some of us made our dreams come true, some dreams changed along the way. Did you envision your current position, or is it different from what you originally planned? If it's not what you planned for, could you have imagined ending up where you are today?
Let's hear it from Craig Evans, CEO, DBL Family of Companies.
In this episode:
-How Craig built business partnership and personal connections.
-Career changes, Construction, Real estate investing and business ownership.
-Entrepreneurship, business growth, and decision-making.
The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.
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Craig Evans (00:00):
This is The Norris Group's real estate investor
(00:03):
radio show the award-winningshow dedicated to thought
leaders shaping the real estateindustry and local experts
revealing their insider tips tosucceed in an ever -changing
real estate market hosted byauthor, investor, and hard money
lender, Bruce Norris.
Bruce Norris (00:21):
Thank you for joining us. My name is Bruce
Norris and today we have a veryspecial guest Craig Evans. Craig
is the CEO DBL Family ofCompanies. Craig Evans is a
licensed building contractor inthe state of Florida with nearly
3030 years of constructionexperience including
residential, commercial andmunicipal. Third-generation
(00:44):
builder he has worked frontlineactivities through management as
a subcontractor, laborer,foreman superintendent, project
manager, mid level manager andexecutive management, truly
learning the business from theground up. A dynamic leader,
Craig on several companies, thefirst of which is Douglas Brooks
Homes that specializes inworkforce housing in southwest
(01:06):
Florida. He also owns TrinityBuilding and design a full
service site work company. Buthis newest endeavor is a private
equity firm called DouglasBrooks Legacy Capital LLC or DBL
Capital for short. DBL Capitalraises funds through investors
that have a desire to be in thereal estate and investment world
but do not have the time norability to actively manage hard
(01:28):
real estate assets. DBL Capitalraises of funds and employs them
through a diverse blend of realestate assets. The goal is to
create a legacy of generationalwealth for DBL capital
investors. In 2021, DouglasBrooks Homes won Investment
Housing Builder of the Year fromthe American Institute of
Investment housing. In 2022,Douglas Brooke Homes was INC's
(01:52):
5000’s 10ht fastest growingprivate company and this year
2023 Craig Evans was namedConstruction CEO of the Year for
the state of Florida by CEOMonthly. Greg is a devout man,
he and his wife Stephanie havetwo lovely daughters guy use his
time with his family andencourages his employees to do
(02:12):
the same. Craig, welcome.
Craig Evans (02:16):
Thank you, Bruce.
It's good to be here.
Bruce Norris (02:18):
Doesn't seem like we've known each other for like
a lot longer than we have?
Craig Evans (02:23):
It does. It does.
My wife and I were talking aboutthat this past weekend. Just she
and I were spending some timetogether. And that was one of
the things that we're talkingabout is it did it. You know, it
feels like you and Aaron andJoey had been in my life a lot
longer than three years. I mean,it feels like we've been friends
for four decades. But, you know,we've battled some storms in
(02:44):
these last few years.
Bruce Norris (02:47):
Yeah. And I think, you know, I thought about that,
when I thought about openingwith that is, because how we met
was very unusual circumstances.
You know, I had a a contractorthat had, you know, misplaced a
lot of money. And what wascommon to the people as they
were getting their payoff checksat a discounted amount. Thank
(03:07):
God they did, by the way, thatwas very nice of them. Your name
kept coming up, why don't youjust use Craig Evans? And I
thought, yeah, that wouldprobably be a good idea.
Craig Evans (03:22):
You know, Bruce you and I've talked about this a lot
in the aspect that, you know,our relationship as men and
within business started justgetting really to know each
other, because let's face it,both of us were coming to know
each other, from a place ofdistrust you were coming from a
(03:42):
relationship with anotherbuilder that wasn't going well,
that you were literally at theat the meetings with, with your
trade partners trying to, youknow, work through the payment
of them that you were payingother people's bills for them.
And I had just been through withanother builder that for one of
my other companies for Trinity,that had not paid me and so
(04:04):
here's two people coming to knoweach other that was wanting to
know each other from an arm'sdistance because of both coming
through being burned to somedegree, you know, and here we
are today, regardless ofbusiness friends, and that means
the world to me.
Bruce Norris (04:20):
Yeah. And that's, you know, when you want to pick
somebody that will take over theNorris group, my legacy
characters, everything, youknow, because of how we've
treated people. So, you know,during the journey that we've
gotten to know each other, Ithink we both have seen those
(04:43):
moments where, okay, that's nota normal response to that
circumstance, you know.
Craig Evans (04:51):
Exactly.
Bruce Norris (04:52):
Yeah. So that's been a real special start. I
want to go back to yourbeginning when you're young, so
who's who's the first person inyour family that was in
Craig Evans (05:06):
So, it was my grandfather on my mother's side.
So, let's go. Let's say are you18, and you're working for the
construction?
He did large civil projects. Hewas one of the major contractors
on the original sunshine bridgeand up in Tampa. He built the
original causeway going over toSanibel here in southwest
Florida. And then built severallarge airports throughout the
(05:28):
country did a lot of big civilstuff. Then my father, when he
was in his early 20s, got intoconstruction, primarily doing
large commercial things quicklygrew within that to where he was
doing 30 to 50 storey buildingsin larger cities, Chicago, did a
lot of stuff in Cleveland, Ohio,up on the Great Lakes. And
(05:52):
before I was born, they decidedto slow down, if you will, so
they moved to Georgia. I knowyou think this accent is
probably from New York City, butit's not. So when we moved to
Georgia, and my dad got intoresidential construction. So
literally, I was the kid, youknow, going on the weekends, or
(06:16):
the afternoons with my dad intohomes and walking around and
playing on their plans, tablesand getting into trouble and
sweeping floors. And that's whatI grew up with since I was you
know, since I was born, that'swhat I was around.
(06:41):
family business?
Well, so I've got a few collegedegrees, because by partway into
I guess my freshman year in highschool, I kind of was hitting
the point of I didn't want to bein the family business.
Bruce Norris (06:58):
Okay.
Craig Evans (06:58):
My dad was still making me work with him on the
summers and things like that,you know, we had a several
master carpenters and mastercraftsmen that work for this.
And so, you know, one of theearliest projects that we did,
we built a 1800 square foottwo-story workshop out behind my
(07:19):
parents house. That was nonails, just all pigs, all
mortise and tenon. So, you know,you had to know how to put that
together, you know, everythingwas tough with hand tools.
Because they wanted me to knowhow to build something that
would last. And while I enjoyedit, you know, I was ninth grade,
(07:42):
10th grade, I wanted to be outplaying basketball and doing fun
stuff. So, I quickly kind ofsaid, I'm not going to do this.
So you know, or I didn't want togrow up doing that. But I went
to school got a degree inactually in Hotel and Restaurant
Management. And then I went toschool for music as well. But
pretty quickly, I ended upmaking my way back into
(08:03):
construction. I did commercialconstruction when I was younger.
Because again, at that time, mydad was doing residential and
says I'm gonna go play with thebig boys. And so we did
commercial construction. And Iwas very fortunate did some big
projects. We have some, I thinkthe largest project I was on was
about 354,000 square feet as atotal project. So I've had a
(08:28):
fortunate career to do some somefun stuff within the world of
construction.
Bruce Norris (08:33):
But you also got out of the construction world
and started hair salons. Now,what age was that?
Craig Evans (08:41):
Let's see. So that would have been 23, 24 somewhere
around there. I got into thebeauty industry because again, I
was just I think my dad wantedme to be in what he was doing so
much. And I was kind of runningfrom that. And so I just kind of
ran from it all and said, Youknow what, forget it. I'm going
(09:01):
into the beauty industry. And soI was single at the time, and I
realized that hey, I can bearound beautiful women and make
a good living. That was the erafor me. You know, so we had a we
had a really good time. That wasa great career. I did that for
(09:24):
24 years I think it was before Istill owns salons and spas at
the time we've sent sold all ofour, everything that we owned in
that industry. We sold all ofthose businesses but because we
had salons and spas we hadhaircare lines we had makeup and
skincare lines that we sold in18 different countries and so a
(09:48):
we had a lot of stuff that wedid and that but we've sold all
that and started back in 2012back into construction and I
semi retired from that and wastaken some time I'm off and so
we had a good time we startedback into construction. And
(10:08):
actually Bruce, it was funnywhen I first started back, you
know, started the business. Andit was it my truck and a
trailer. And I was actuallystrapping on a tool belt and
going out and physically doingwork again, I had been through
so many portions of life and somany opportunistic, you know,
(10:28):
businesses and situations thatwe generated a lot of revenue
out of, and, and it was one ofthose things, I wanted to get
back to physically buildingsomething and doing something to
see the fruits of your labors.
And so I enjoyed that. That wasfor about the first year it was
just me before I hired my nextset of employees.
Bruce Norris (10:52):
What's interesting when I when I think about you, I
think of the word scale. Okay.
So, you know, you just didn'tcut some hair. You had a chain,
like you said, and product inall different kinds of
countries. And you were cuttingstars hairs, right?
Craig Evans (11:08):
We did, I was the, I did the work for several
celebrities. For some of them, Iwas in that world for about six
years of doing celebrity work.
We did, I did hair for fashionweek in New York for several
years and worked on severalmovies. So we we had a good time
we you know, I played a lot whenI was young.
Bruce Norris (11:36):
Alright, take me to what happened in New Orleans.
There was a, you know, thatgigantic flood and hurricane.
And somehow you got involved inhelping them solve that.
Craig Evans (11:52):
Yeah, we, when Katrina came through, I was
living in Tennessee at the time.
And a friend of mine, we had alarge portfolio there a rental
product, we had, I don't know,1100 doors, I believe it was
right around 1100 doors. And weKatrina hit. And I remember I
(12:13):
was in Ohio that weekend. And hecalled me and said that another
friend of his that did a lot ofwork for us. His lot of his side
equipment was down, that he wasoff, you know, he had a period
of that it was a quick was notgoing to be used for work. So
(12:35):
the friend of mine, he and Iliterally I flew back from Ohio,
we jumped on a plane and flew toLouisiana flew into New Orleans.
I think we were there day threeor day four, I forget right
after Hurricane Katrina hadleft. And we saw several things
that a lot of what was happeningwas that was really one of the
(13:01):
first storms of that magnitudesince Andrews in 91. But But
even with that, I mean the stuffthat was going on in Katrina, it
was pretty devastating. Therewas a lot of stuff that I saw
there that you don't want tosee, you know. And so within
about 48 hours, we collectivelymobilized by 120, I think 128
(13:24):
trucks and equipment and pieceof stuff that we brought in from
Tennessee. And, basicallybecause of the insurance riders
part of what was going on, andpeople were trying to figure it
out through FEMA, how to getwork done. And so much of that
work was getting locked up.
(13:47):
Because in the storm, what wecall the storm chasing world of
it. It's all dependent upon yourinsurance rider and how much
insurance you have. So with thestuff that we were doing, and
with the site work contractorthat was a friend of ours that
we brought in underneath this.
We had a large insurance policythat we were able to put
(14:08):
together. And so we went in as atier one contractor for FEMA.
And, you know, so we get downthere and one of the things that
we realized is where are wegoing to park 128 vehicles and
on all of this equipment. Sothere was a facility there was a
small church that just gottendestroyed, they were trying to
(14:32):
figure out how they were goingto rebuild. We spoke with the
pastor there worked out somescenarios to we would help them
rebuild if they would let us usetheir facilities through
rebuilding so we fenced it upput security there to make sure
nobody was coming in andstealing our equipment or
vandalizing our equipment. Andwe were able to house all of our
(14:52):
equipment there for the entiretime we were there.
Bruce Norris (14:57):
When you say equipment you're talking about
big earthmoving equipment?
Craig Evans (15:02):
Yeah, this was we the biggest thing that they had
was trying to figure out how todemo all the houses because so
much of the stuff was completelycondemned. So we were going in,
and we were demoing houses, wehad five crews that were
demoing, we would demo anyway,each crew was responsible demo
anywhere from three to fourhouses per day. And demo it
(15:24):
remove it, haul it off, that allhad to be water controlled,
because there was so much asbestest in those old houses. So
we had water trucks that cameand we're constantly spraying
equipment and trucks, we had toline the trucks with a liner
between each hauling method, weended up buying houses about 45
(15:45):
minutes away, 15 minutes awayfor all of the workers to be
able to stay. Because we had somany people working and there
was literally there wasn't itwas a full time operation just
trying to keep people working,because there was no food, no
water, no place to stay. So, youknow, we're finding houses that
we could just buy, and therewould be four or five people
(16:07):
living in every room, you know,we bought mattresses and that's
just what we did. You know, now,people made the guys that worked
and worked hard, they made a lotof money out of it, you know,
but it even got to the point towhere we had to start regulating
how much our employees couldwork. Because, you know, it
quickly became past the point ofjust making money and trying to
(16:28):
clean it up to the point of,we've got to make sure that
we're taking care of thesanctity of our employees and
their marriages. And like, youknow, so we forced them every
three weeks, they had to go homefor a week, at a minimum. They
couldn't just stay you know,that was part of it. If they
came on, they had to go homeevery three weeks and spend a
week. We only let them work somany hours a day, we had to you
(16:49):
know, we had to start kind ofmanaging that because the amount
of destruction and devastationthat was there was a it was a
tough process to handle andcomprehend when you've got
entire neighborhoods that arejust gone, you know?
Bruce Norris (17:05):
Yeah.
Craig Evans (17:05):
I never forget the first day that we were there. We
were riding through the LowerNinth Ward. And one of the the
large cemeteries that was therein the Lower Night. We're
looking and it just looks, itlooks strange and kind of up
here. Like it's been a lot ofupheaval. And what I realized I
could see down at the end of thefar end of the cemetery, all of
(17:27):
the caskets had been hadfloated, and they were all at
the other end pushing throughthe fences, and some of them
floated down the street, some ofthem they never found. So there
was a lot of stuff that youjust, you couldn't imagine the
amount of water, you know, we'redriving under an underpass.
Overpass was probably 35 to 40feet tall. There were boats
(17:50):
wedged into the underpinnings ofthe underpass or the overpass.
You know, so when you thinkabout there's 30 or 40 feet of
water rolling through this area.
We lived that just a few yearsago, or last year with Hurricane
Ian, you know, and we had 21feet of water there. You know,
when you're talking about 30 to40 feet of water coming through
a bowl that New Orleans is, thatwas an interesting time.
Bruce Norris (18:16):
Here a tier one for FEMA. Is that a is that hard
to come? Is that hard toachieve? Let's ask that.
Craig Evans (18:26):
It is, it's now becoming a tier one operator for
FEMA is next to impossible. Youyou've you've really you got to
know people, and you gotta havejust hundreds of questions, they
have 10s of millions of dollarsof insurance abilities. Even
(18:46):
then, it was very difficultbecause honestly, other than
Andrew, we really hadn'texperienced storms like that.
And, and so FEMA was reallythrough Katrina, there's a lot
that has gone play taking placefrom storms and how you the
preparedness of storms sinceHurricane Katrina, because
Andrew showed us, we've got tochange how we function, you
(19:08):
know. And so Katrina was a bigwas a big changer of that.
Obviously, Sandy came toHurricane Sandy up in New York
came behind that we, we did workin Sandy. But Katrina was the
biggest one that we put a lot oftime we were we were in New
Orleans for about a year and ahalf.
Bruce Norris (19:26):
Prior to that, you said a pretty large number of
rentals. How did you come aboutowning 1100 rentals none of this
is normal, by the way, right?
Craig Evans (19:41):
But you know what?
My wife laughs at me, to me,this is normal. Because if, if
I'm going to do it, we're gonnado it. I'm not gonna, I'm not
interested in owning two, youknow, if I want to own rentals,
I want to own 1100 rentals. Idon't want them two. If I'm
going to own Companies, I don'twant to own two companies. I
want to own multiples. And, andlike you said, I think it's
(20:04):
interesting that you started outwith a word scale. Yeah, we just
the friend of mine, he and Istarted looking through and
working through with what wewere doing and realized that we
had a knack in that market atthat time for really finding the
deal, so to speak. Let's face itto pull 1100 doors off, you got
(20:27):
to figure out how to how to workthat. We found several apartment
buildings that were distressedunits that we went in that would
have, you know, anywhere from50, I think our largest that we
had was about 127 or 28 doors.
We actually bought some, somesmall 30 to 40 door, motels that
(20:53):
we turned into, you know, reallynice. I mean, they were still,
you know, workforce housing, youknow, we tried to stay in an
affordability rating that peoplecould afford to live. But we
didn't want our stuff torn up.
We truly tried to get qualitytenants. But we just realized we
had the knack to grow that wefigured out how to finance it
(21:14):
and made the right partnershipswithin from funding sources to
start doing that. And we workedhard to keep our debt to income
ratios and a healthy range. Wedidn't want to over leverage. We
really stayed at a healthy pointof leverage when I sold out my
half of that I think we had a47% leverage point on it was
already right. So we're lessthan 50% on that. So it was a
(21:38):
really strong point of wherewe're at our rental rates were
market rates. And that was a funtime.
Bruce Norris (21:50):
So let's go to 2012. That's an interesting year
to get back into the buildingbusiness because you couldn't
build anything. Because the REOswere so cheap. And they were
going to be that cheap forright, next three years.
Craig Evans (22:02):
Right.
Bruce Norris (22:03):
So,what did you do?
Craig Evans (22:05):
So again, I think as a business owner, I was
really, when I opened it up, Ijust wanted to get out and work
right, I needed to again, Icould sit earlier, I wanted to
do something with my hands andjust work. So the first six,
seven months of the of that wasliterally me taking some jobs
stuff for friends, I would go inand do remodels on their homes
(22:28):
and I'll honestly Bruce, I wastaking a lot of that for next to
nothing because I made a lot ofmoney, right? I was very, I was
I've been very fortunate to havegood careers and what I touched.
And I just wanted to get backout and do something, to see the
(22:48):
fruits of my labor, kind ofinstant gratification, you know,
you go in and you put a floordown. And while the homeowner
comes home and the floor isdone, and they're hugging you
and kissing me because theirhouse looks fantastic, you know.
And when I went and got mylicense, actually, you know, I
was thinking, I'm not going tocompete with the big builders.
(23:12):
You know, we're going to do someremodels, we'll maybe do one or
two custom homes here or there.
And that's all we're gonna do. Imean, I was I was thinking I was
gonna start pushing towardsretirement, you know, I mean,
what was at that time? 38 yearsold, I guess are 39 years old,
you know, I'm thinking I'm gonnastart pushing towards
(23:33):
retirement, you know. Andbecause we still own some of the
salons at that time, I hadmanagers who were doing that we
hadn't sold everything outthere. And so I was looking at
it and thinking, you know, let'shave some fun with it. So we
were I was taking some jobs, Iended up getting a few employees
that were helping me do somestuff and started realizing some
of their skill sets that theyhad. That would be beneficial
(23:55):
from a concrete side of things.
So again, as a business owner, Istarted looking at the niches in
the market, where the market wascurrently suffering from what
builders were struggling inproviding services for and where
the speed of builds for themwere at because the one thing I
(24:16):
knew is from it buildersperspective, time is your enemy.
And so if we can solve theproblems of time for the
builders, we can help them bemore profitable. So that's where
we opened up. We started withthe shell construction doing
their concrete in their block.
And clinically, you know, thatturned into us, you know, we
started seeing their nextproblem was their site work and
(24:37):
their dirt and how to managethat because they were waiting
weeks for that to get going andwell I can fix that problem. So
you know, kind of like you andI've talked many times before
you go into solutions mode, youknow, and what's the best
solution to solve theseproblems. So within probably six
weeks, I'd started a shelldivision within the company and
hired employees for that and Allof a sudden, again, from a scale
(25:00):
perspective, you know, I startedtalking to other builders and
growing that and, you know, nowwithin Trinity, our shell
division is actually one of ourlargest, I mean, our site work
division, or there's one of ourlargest divisions. I mean, we,
we do lots of lots of work outof those components of stuff.
(25:20):
But that was really how westarted, you know, we just
started looking at how do wesolve the problems and the
niches of those builders. Andonce I, once I realized is like,
Hey, listen, you know, I'm notdoing this because my dad did
it, or because my grandfatherdid it, I'm doing it because I
want to do it. And this is whereI want to be. I had to be
(25:43):
realistic and say, okay, while Ilove doing the work, that's not
what I'm best at. And where Iknow I'm good at is working on
growing and building a business,and providing good jobs and, and
providing a good product. Sothat the end of 2012, my wife
(26:04):
and I sat down and and startedbrainstorming and putting the
plan together. And we startedworking that plan, you know of
what did we want to start? Whatwas the succession plan of from
from a scalability ofbusinesses. And we knew we
wanted to grow Trinity and thengrow that into owning Douglas
(26:24):
Brooke Homes, to where we buildhomes. And from there, we knew
our end goal was I knew I wantedto own a fund, instead of just
owning a portfolio, which I hadalready done that and been
successful in that I wanted,because I knew the scale on that
would kept me at a certainpoint. I wanted to be able to
scale that even further. And soin that process, you know, as I
(26:50):
started working with friends ofmine that own very large,
successful private equity firms,I mean, some of these guys are
in the billions of dollars, youknow, some of those people. And
in that process of workingthrough that, knowing long term,
that was my ultimate goal.
Because that's going to developmultiple things, that's going to
(27:11):
be; One that's going to developa healthy stream of revenue,
which provides lots of jobs. Ilove being a job creator, I'm
passionate about being a jobcreator. Secondly, I want to be
able to build a product that isaffordable, that our country and
the people that work in ourcountry can afford. And those
(27:32):
are the things that we set outfrom the end of 2012 is kind of
the direction that we wanted tostart pushing through. And so
far we've been hitting thosegoals.
Bruce Norris (27:44):
Absolutely. You very often, you know, you
mentioned you kind of meet withyour wife and discuss things. So
she doesn't have a buildingbackground. So why is that an
important part of how youprocess and make decisions?
Craig Evans (28:05):
You're right, my wife, she doesn't have a
building background. She doesn'thave a financial background. But
two things she is my wife. Andfirst and foremost is my mate. I
respect her. I love her. Icherish her and I believe that
God's given her an intuitionand a wisdom that most often
(28:29):
she's holding me in check tosay, 'are we sure'? And
secondly, Bruce, you know, I'munashamed of this. I'm not a
perfect person, I will makemistakes every day. But I'm
unashamed to the fact that I'm aChristian. And I love Jesus
Christ. So a lot of the time mywife and I spent a lot of time
praying over decisions we'regoing to make and is it the
(28:50):
right timing, and I'm prayingfor peace and wisdom to make
wise decisions. You know, Ithink I said this to you the
other day. And I've said this alot. Sometimes what seems like
the greatest decision is notalways the wisest decision. And
that's, that's typically whatwe're praying for is not to make
the great decisions. I'm tryingto make the wise decisions.
(29:12):
Because now you know, Bruce,we're over 100 employees. We're
growing. We're, you know,January one is a big day within
our family of companies becausewe bring another company on
board. And that means we bringmore employees and there's
there's a responsibility tothem. That means that I have to
make wise decisions to keepsustainability. And so that's a
(29:36):
lot of times my wife and I spenda lot of time just talking
through and praying through forwisdom, praying through that we
make wise decisions.
Joey Romero (29:44):
Thank you for joining us. That's gonna do it
for part one of our interviewwith Craig Evans, CEO of the DBL
family of companies, you're notgoing to want to miss part two.
See you next year.
Narrator (29:57):
For more information on hard money, loans and
upcoming events with The NorrisGroup, check out
thenorrisgroup.com. Forinformation on passive investing
with trust deeds, visittngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris (30:12):
The Norris Group originates and services loans in
California and Florida underCalifornia DRE License 01219911,
Florida Mortgage Lender License1577, and NMLS License 1623669.
For more information on hardmoney lending, go
www.thenorrisgroup.com and clickthe Hard Money tab.
This is The Norris Group's real estate investor
(00:03):
radio show the award-winningshow dedicated to thought
leaders shaping the real estateindustry and local experts
revealing their insider tips tosucceed in an ever -changing
real estate market hosted byauthor, investor, and hard money
lender, Bruce Norris.
Bruce Norris (00:21):
Thank you for joining us. My name is Bruce
Norris and today we have a veryspecial guest Craig Evans. Craig
is the CEO DBL Family ofCompanies. Craig Evans is a
licensed building contractor inthe state of Florida with nearly
3030 years of constructionexperience including
residential, commercial andmunicipal. Third-generation
(00:44):
builder he has worked frontlineactivities through management as
a subcontractor, laborer,foreman superintendent, project
manager, mid level manager andexecutive management, truly
learning the business from theground up. A dynamic leader,
Craig on several companies, thefirst of which is Douglas Brooks
Homes that specializes inworkforce housing in southwest
(01:06):
Florida. He also owns TrinityBuilding and design a full
service site work company. Buthis newest endeavor is a private
equity firm called DouglasBrooks Legacy Capital LLC or DBL
Capital for short. DBL Capitalraises funds through investors
that have a desire to be in thereal estate and investment world
but do not have the time norability to actively manage hard
(01:28):
real estate assets. DBL Capitalraises of funds and employs them
through a diverse blend of realestate assets. The goal is to
create a legacy of generationalwealth for DBL capital
investors. In 2021, DouglasBrooks Homes won Investment
Housing Builder of the Year fromthe American Institute of
Investment housing. In 2022,Douglas Brooke Homes was INC's
(01:52):
5000’s 10ht fastest growingprivate company and this year
2023 Craig Evans was namedConstruction CEO of the Year for
the state of Florida by CEOMonthly. Greg is a devout man,
he and his wife Stephanie havetwo lovely daughters guy use his
time with his family andencourages his employees to do
(02:12):
the same. Craig, welcome.
Craig Evans (02:16):
Thank you, Bruce.
It's good to be here.
Bruce Norris (02:18):
Doesn't seem like we've known each other for like
a lot longer than we have?
Craig Evans (02:23):
It does. It does.
My wife and I were talking aboutthat this past weekend. Just she
and I were spending some timetogether. And that was one of
the things that we're talkingabout is it did it. You know, it
feels like you and Aaron andJoey had been in my life a lot
longer than three years. I mean,it feels like we've been friends
for four decades. But, you know,we've battled some storms in
(02:44):
these last few years.
Bruce Norris (02:47):
Yeah. And I think, you know, I thought about that,
when I thought about openingwith that is, because how we met
was very unusual circumstances.
You know, I had a a contractorthat had, you know, misplaced a
lot of money. And what wascommon to the people as they
were getting their payoff checksat a discounted amount. Thank
(03:07):
God they did, by the way, thatwas very nice of them. Your name
kept coming up, why don't youjust use Craig Evans? And I
thought, yeah, that wouldprobably be a good idea.
Craig Evans (03:22):
You know, Bruce you and I've talked about this a lot
in the aspect that, you know,our relationship as men and
within business started justgetting really to know each
other, because let's face it,both of us were coming to know
each other, from a place ofdistrust you were coming from a
(03:42):
relationship with anotherbuilder that wasn't going well,
that you were literally at theat the meetings with, with your
trade partners trying to, youknow, work through the payment
of them that you were payingother people's bills for them.
And I had just been through withanother builder that for one of
my other companies for Trinity,that had not paid me and so
(04:04):
here's two people coming to knoweach other that was wanting to
know each other from an arm'sdistance because of both coming
through being burned to somedegree, you know, and here we
are today, regardless ofbusiness friends, and that means
the world to me.
Bruce Norris (04:20):
Yeah. And that's, you know, when you want to pick
somebody that will take over theNorris group, my legacy
characters, everything, youknow, because of how we've
treated people. So, you know,during the journey that we've
gotten to know each other, Ithink we both have seen those
(04:43):
moments where, okay, that's nota normal response to that
circumstance, you know.
Craig Evans (04:51):
Exactly.
Bruce Norris (04:52):
Yeah. So that's been a real special start. I
want to go back to yourbeginning when you're young, so
who's who's the first person inyour family that was in
Craig Evans (05:06):
So, it was my grandfather on my mother's side.
So, let's go. Let's say are you18, and you're working for the
construction?
He did large civil projects. Hewas one of the major contractors
on the original sunshine bridgeand up in Tampa. He built the
original causeway going over toSanibel here in southwest
Florida. And then built severallarge airports throughout the
(05:28):
country did a lot of big civilstuff. Then my father, when he
was in his early 20s, got intoconstruction, primarily doing
large commercial things quicklygrew within that to where he was
doing 30 to 50 storey buildingsin larger cities, Chicago, did a
lot of stuff in Cleveland, Ohio,up on the Great Lakes. And
(05:52):
before I was born, they decidedto slow down, if you will, so
they moved to Georgia. I knowyou think this accent is
probably from New York City, butit's not. So when we moved to
Georgia, and my dad got intoresidential construction. So
literally, I was the kid, youknow, going on the weekends, or
(06:16):
the afternoons with my dad intohomes and walking around and
playing on their plans, tablesand getting into trouble and
sweeping floors. And that's whatI grew up with since I was you
know, since I was born, that'swhat I was around.
(06:41):
family business?
Well, so I've got a few collegedegrees, because by partway into
I guess my freshman year in highschool, I kind of was hitting
the point of I didn't want to bein the family business.
Bruce Norris (06:58):
Okay.
Craig Evans (06:58):
My dad was still making me work with him on the
summers and things like that,you know, we had a several
master carpenters and mastercraftsmen that work for this.
And so, you know, one of theearliest projects that we did,
we built a 1800 square foottwo-story workshop out behind my
(07:19):
parents house. That was nonails, just all pigs, all
mortise and tenon. So, you know,you had to know how to put that
together, you know, everythingwas tough with hand tools.
Because they wanted me to knowhow to build something that
would last. And while I enjoyedit, you know, I was ninth grade,
(07:42):
10th grade, I wanted to be outplaying basketball and doing fun
stuff. So, I quickly kind ofsaid, I'm not going to do this.
So you know, or I didn't want togrow up doing that. But I went
to school got a degree inactually in Hotel and Restaurant
Management. And then I went toschool for music as well. But
pretty quickly, I ended upmaking my way back into
(08:03):
construction. I did commercialconstruction when I was younger.
Because again, at that time, mydad was doing residential and
says I'm gonna go play with thebig boys. And so we did
commercial construction. And Iwas very fortunate did some big
projects. We have some, I thinkthe largest project I was on was
about 354,000 square feet as atotal project. So I've had a
(08:28):
fortunate career to do some somefun stuff within the world of
construction.
Bruce Norris (08:33):
But you also got out of the construction world
and started hair salons. Now,what age was that?
Craig Evans (08:41):
Let's see. So that would have been 23, 24 somewhere
around there. I got into thebeauty industry because again, I
was just I think my dad wantedme to be in what he was doing so
much. And I was kind of runningfrom that. And so I just kind of
ran from it all and said, Youknow what, forget it. I'm going
(09:01):
into the beauty industry. And soI was single at the time, and I
realized that hey, I can bearound beautiful women and make
a good living. That was the erafor me. You know, so we had a we
had a really good time. That wasa great career. I did that for
(09:24):
24 years I think it was before Istill owns salons and spas at
the time we've sent sold all ofour, everything that we owned in
that industry. We sold all ofthose businesses but because we
had salons and spas we hadhaircare lines we had makeup and
skincare lines that we sold in18 different countries and so a
(09:48):
we had a lot of stuff that wedid and that but we've sold all
that and started back in 2012back into construction and I
semi retired from that and wastaken some time I'm off and so
we had a good time we startedback into construction. And
(10:08):
actually Bruce, it was funnywhen I first started back, you
know, started the business. Andit was it my truck and a
trailer. And I was actuallystrapping on a tool belt and
going out and physically doingwork again, I had been through
so many portions of life and somany opportunistic, you know,
(10:28):
businesses and situations thatwe generated a lot of revenue
out of, and, and it was one ofthose things, I wanted to get
back to physically buildingsomething and doing something to
see the fruits of your labors.
And so I enjoyed that. That wasfor about the first year it was
just me before I hired my nextset of employees.
Bruce Norris (10:52):
What's interesting when I when I think about you, I
think of the word scale. Okay.
So, you know, you just didn'tcut some hair. You had a chain,
like you said, and product inall different kinds of
countries. And you were cuttingstars hairs, right?
Craig Evans (11:08):
We did, I was the, I did the work for several
celebrities. For some of them, Iwas in that world for about six
years of doing celebrity work.
We did, I did hair for fashionweek in New York for several
years and worked on severalmovies. So we we had a good time
we you know, I played a lot whenI was young.
Bruce Norris (11:36):
Alright, take me to what happened in New Orleans.
There was a, you know, thatgigantic flood and hurricane.
And somehow you got involved inhelping them solve that.
Craig Evans (11:52):
Yeah, we, when Katrina came through, I was
living in Tennessee at the time.
And a friend of mine, we had alarge portfolio there a rental
product, we had, I don't know,1100 doors, I believe it was
right around 1100 doors. And weKatrina hit. And I remember I
(12:13):
was in Ohio that weekend. And hecalled me and said that another
friend of his that did a lot ofwork for us. His lot of his side
equipment was down, that he wasoff, you know, he had a period
of that it was a quick was notgoing to be used for work. So
(12:35):
the friend of mine, he and Iliterally I flew back from Ohio,
we jumped on a plane and flew toLouisiana flew into New Orleans.
I think we were there day threeor day four, I forget right
after Hurricane Katrina hadleft. And we saw several things
that a lot of what was happeningwas that was really one of the
(13:01):
first storms of that magnitudesince Andrews in 91. But But
even with that, I mean the stuffthat was going on in Katrina, it
was pretty devastating. Therewas a lot of stuff that I saw
there that you don't want tosee, you know. And so within
about 48 hours, we collectivelymobilized by 120, I think 128
(13:24):
trucks and equipment and pieceof stuff that we brought in from
Tennessee. And, basicallybecause of the insurance riders
part of what was going on, andpeople were trying to figure it
out through FEMA, how to getwork done. And so much of that
work was getting locked up.
(13:47):
Because in the storm, what wecall the storm chasing world of
it. It's all dependent upon yourinsurance rider and how much
insurance you have. So with thestuff that we were doing, and
with the site work contractorthat was a friend of ours that
we brought in underneath this.
We had a large insurance policythat we were able to put
(14:08):
together. And so we went in as atier one contractor for FEMA.
And, you know, so we get downthere and one of the things that
we realized is where are wegoing to park 128 vehicles and
on all of this equipment. Sothere was a facility there was a
small church that just gottendestroyed, they were trying to
(14:32):
figure out how they were goingto rebuild. We spoke with the
pastor there worked out somescenarios to we would help them
rebuild if they would let us usetheir facilities through
rebuilding so we fenced it upput security there to make sure
nobody was coming in andstealing our equipment or
vandalizing our equipment. Andwe were able to house all of our
(14:52):
equipment there for the entiretime we were there.
Bruce Norris (14:57):
When you say equipment you're talking about
big earthmoving equipment?
Craig Evans (15:02):
Yeah, this was we the biggest thing that they had
was trying to figure out how todemo all the houses because so
much of the stuff was completelycondemned. So we were going in,
and we were demoing houses, wehad five crews that were
demoing, we would demo anyway,each crew was responsible demo
anywhere from three to fourhouses per day. And demo it
(15:24):
remove it, haul it off, that allhad to be water controlled,
because there was so much asbestest in those old houses. So
we had water trucks that cameand we're constantly spraying
equipment and trucks, we had toline the trucks with a liner
between each hauling method, weended up buying houses about 45
(15:45):
minutes away, 15 minutes awayfor all of the workers to be
able to stay. Because we had somany people working and there
was literally there wasn't itwas a full time operation just
trying to keep people working,because there was no food, no
water, no place to stay. So, youknow, we're finding houses that
we could just buy, and therewould be four or five people
(16:07):
living in every room, you know,we bought mattresses and that's
just what we did. You know, now,people made the guys that worked
and worked hard, they made a lotof money out of it, you know,
but it even got to the point towhere we had to start regulating
how much our employees couldwork. Because, you know, it
quickly became past the point ofjust making money and trying to
(16:28):
clean it up to the point of,we've got to make sure that
we're taking care of thesanctity of our employees and
their marriages. And like, youknow, so we forced them every
three weeks, they had to go homefor a week, at a minimum. They
couldn't just stay you know,that was part of it. If they
came on, they had to go homeevery three weeks and spend a
week. We only let them work somany hours a day, we had to you
(16:49):
know, we had to start kind ofmanaging that because the amount
of destruction and devastationthat was there was a it was a
tough process to handle andcomprehend when you've got
entire neighborhoods that arejust gone, you know?
Bruce Norris (17:05):
Yeah.
Craig Evans (17:05):
I never forget the first day that we were there. We
were riding through the LowerNinth Ward. And one of the the
large cemeteries that was therein the Lower Night. We're
looking and it just looks, itlooks strange and kind of up
here. Like it's been a lot ofupheaval. And what I realized I
could see down at the end of thefar end of the cemetery, all of
(17:27):
the caskets had been hadfloated, and they were all at
the other end pushing throughthe fences, and some of them
floated down the street, some ofthem they never found. So there
was a lot of stuff that youjust, you couldn't imagine the
amount of water, you know, we'redriving under an underpass.
Overpass was probably 35 to 40feet tall. There were boats
(17:50):
wedged into the underpinnings ofthe underpass or the overpass.
You know, so when you thinkabout there's 30 or 40 feet of
water rolling through this area.
We lived that just a few yearsago, or last year with Hurricane
Ian, you know, and we had 21feet of water there. You know,
when you're talking about 30 to40 feet of water coming through
a bowl that New Orleans is, thatwas an interesting time.
Bruce Norris (18:16):
Here a tier one for FEMA. Is that a is that hard
to come? Is that hard toachieve? Let's ask that.
Craig Evans (18:26):
It is, it's now becoming a tier one operator for
FEMA is next to impossible. Youyou've you've really you got to
know people, and you gotta havejust hundreds of questions, they
have 10s of millions of dollarsof insurance abilities. Even
(18:46):
then, it was very difficultbecause honestly, other than
Andrew, we really hadn'texperienced storms like that.
And, and so FEMA was reallythrough Katrina, there's a lot
that has gone play taking placefrom storms and how you the
preparedness of storms sinceHurricane Katrina, because
Andrew showed us, we've got tochange how we function, you
(19:08):
know. And so Katrina was a bigwas a big changer of that.
Obviously, Sandy came toHurricane Sandy up in New York
came behind that we, we did workin Sandy. But Katrina was the
biggest one that we put a lot oftime we were we were in New
Orleans for about a year and ahalf.
Bruce Norris (19:26):
Prior to that, you said a pretty large number of
rentals. How did you come aboutowning 1100 rentals none of this
is normal, by the way, right?
Craig Evans (19:41):
But you know what?
My wife laughs at me, to me,this is normal. Because if, if
I'm going to do it, we're gonnado it. I'm not gonna, I'm not
interested in owning two, youknow, if I want to own rentals,
I want to own 1100 rentals. Idon't want them two. If I'm
going to own Companies, I don'twant to own two companies. I
want to own multiples. And, andlike you said, I think it's
(20:04):
interesting that you started outwith a word scale. Yeah, we just
the friend of mine, he and Istarted looking through and
working through with what wewere doing and realized that we
had a knack in that market atthat time for really finding the
deal, so to speak. Let's face itto pull 1100 doors off, you got
(20:27):
to figure out how to how to workthat. We found several apartment
buildings that were distressedunits that we went in that would
have, you know, anywhere from50, I think our largest that we
had was about 127 or 28 doors.
We actually bought some, somesmall 30 to 40 door, motels that
(20:53):
we turned into, you know, reallynice. I mean, they were still,
you know, workforce housing, youknow, we tried to stay in an
affordability rating that peoplecould afford to live. But we
didn't want our stuff torn up.
We truly tried to get qualitytenants. But we just realized we
had the knack to grow that wefigured out how to finance it
(21:14):
and made the right partnershipswithin from funding sources to
start doing that. And we workedhard to keep our debt to income
ratios and a healthy range. Wedidn't want to over leverage. We
really stayed at a healthy pointof leverage when I sold out my
half of that I think we had a47% leverage point on it was
already right. So we're lessthan 50% on that. So it was a
(21:38):
really strong point of wherewe're at our rental rates were
market rates. And that was a funtime.
Bruce Norris (21:50):
So let's go to 2012. That's an interesting year
to get back into the buildingbusiness because you couldn't
build anything. Because the REOswere so cheap. And they were
going to be that cheap forright, next three years.
Craig Evans (22:02):
Right.
Bruce Norris (22:03):
So,what did you do?
Craig Evans (22:05):
So again, I think as a business owner, I was
really, when I opened it up, Ijust wanted to get out and work
right, I needed to again, Icould sit earlier, I wanted to
do something with my hands andjust work. So the first six,
seven months of the of that wasliterally me taking some jobs
stuff for friends, I would go inand do remodels on their homes
(22:28):
and I'll honestly Bruce, I wastaking a lot of that for next to
nothing because I made a lot ofmoney, right? I was very, I was
I've been very fortunate to havegood careers and what I touched.
And I just wanted to get backout and do something, to see the
(22:48):
fruits of my labor, kind ofinstant gratification, you know,
you go in and you put a floordown. And while the homeowner
comes home and the floor isdone, and they're hugging you
and kissing me because theirhouse looks fantastic, you know.
And when I went and got mylicense, actually, you know, I
was thinking, I'm not going tocompete with the big builders.
(23:12):
You know, we're going to do someremodels, we'll maybe do one or
two custom homes here or there.
And that's all we're gonna do. Imean, I was I was thinking I was
gonna start pushing towardsretirement, you know, I mean,
what was at that time? 38 yearsold, I guess are 39 years old,
you know, I'm thinking I'm gonnastart pushing towards
(23:33):
retirement, you know. Andbecause we still own some of the
salons at that time, I hadmanagers who were doing that we
hadn't sold everything outthere. And so I was looking at
it and thinking, you know, let'shave some fun with it. So we
were I was taking some jobs, Iended up getting a few employees
that were helping me do somestuff and started realizing some
of their skill sets that theyhad. That would be beneficial
(23:55):
from a concrete side of things.
So again, as a business owner, Istarted looking at the niches in
the market, where the market wascurrently suffering from what
builders were struggling inproviding services for and where
the speed of builds for themwere at because the one thing I
(24:16):
knew is from it buildersperspective, time is your enemy.
And so if we can solve theproblems of time for the
builders, we can help them bemore profitable. So that's where
we opened up. We started withthe shell construction doing
their concrete in their block.
And clinically, you know, thatturned into us, you know, we
started seeing their nextproblem was their site work and
(24:37):
their dirt and how to managethat because they were waiting
weeks for that to get going andwell I can fix that problem. So
you know, kind of like you andI've talked many times before
you go into solutions mode, youknow, and what's the best
solution to solve theseproblems. So within probably six
weeks, I'd started a shelldivision within the company and
hired employees for that and Allof a sudden, again, from a scale
(25:00):
perspective, you know, I startedtalking to other builders and
growing that and, you know, nowwithin Trinity, our shell
division is actually one of ourlargest, I mean, our site work
division, or there's one of ourlargest divisions. I mean, we,
we do lots of lots of work outof those components of stuff.
(25:20):
But that was really how westarted, you know, we just
started looking at how do wesolve the problems and the
niches of those builders. Andonce I, once I realized is like,
Hey, listen, you know, I'm notdoing this because my dad did
it, or because my grandfatherdid it, I'm doing it because I
want to do it. And this is whereI want to be. I had to be
(25:43):
realistic and say, okay, while Ilove doing the work, that's not
what I'm best at. And where Iknow I'm good at is working on
growing and building a business,and providing good jobs and, and
providing a good product. Sothat the end of 2012, my wife
(26:04):
and I sat down and and startedbrainstorming and putting the
plan together. And we startedworking that plan, you know of
what did we want to start? Whatwas the succession plan of from
from a scalability ofbusinesses. And we knew we
wanted to grow Trinity and thengrow that into owning Douglas
(26:24):
Brooke Homes, to where we buildhomes. And from there, we knew
our end goal was I knew I wantedto own a fund, instead of just
owning a portfolio, which I hadalready done that and been
successful in that I wanted,because I knew the scale on that
would kept me at a certainpoint. I wanted to be able to
scale that even further. And soin that process, you know, as I
(26:50):
started working with friends ofmine that own very large,
successful private equity firms,I mean, some of these guys are
in the billions of dollars, youknow, some of those people. And
in that process of workingthrough that, knowing long term,
that was my ultimate goal.
Because that's going to developmultiple things, that's going to
(27:11):
be; One that's going to developa healthy stream of revenue,
which provides lots of jobs. Ilove being a job creator, I'm
passionate about being a jobcreator. Secondly, I want to be
able to build a product that isaffordable, that our country and
the people that work in ourcountry can afford. And those
(27:32):
are the things that we set outfrom the end of 2012 is kind of
the direction that we wanted tostart pushing through. And so
far we've been hitting thosegoals.
Bruce Norris (27:44):
Absolutely. You very often, you know, you
mentioned you kind of meet withyour wife and discuss things. So
she doesn't have a buildingbackground. So why is that an
important part of how youprocess and make decisions?
Craig Evans (28:05):
You're right, my wife, she doesn't have a
building background. She doesn'thave a financial background. But
two things she is my wife. Andfirst and foremost is my mate. I
respect her. I love her. Icherish her and I believe that
God's given her an intuitionand a wisdom that most often
(28:29):
she's holding me in check tosay, 'are we sure'? And
secondly, Bruce, you know, I'munashamed of this. I'm not a
perfect person, I will makemistakes every day. But I'm
unashamed to the fact that I'm aChristian. And I love Jesus
Christ. So a lot of the time mywife and I spent a lot of time
praying over decisions we'regoing to make and is it the
(28:50):
right timing, and I'm prayingfor peace and wisdom to make
wise decisions. You know, Ithink I said this to you the
other day. And I've said this alot. Sometimes what seems like
the greatest decision is notalways the wisest decision. And
that's, that's typically whatwe're praying for is not to make
the great decisions. I'm tryingto make the wise decisions.
(29:12):
Because now you know, Bruce,we're over 100 employees. We're
growing. We're, you know,January one is a big day within
our family of companies becausewe bring another company on
board. And that means we bringmore employees and there's
there's a responsibility tothem. That means that I have to
make wise decisions to keepsustainability. And so that's a
(29:36):
lot of times my wife and I spenda lot of time just talking
through and praying through forwisdom, praying through that we
make wise decisions.
Joey Romero (29:44):
Thank you for joining us. That's gonna do it
for part one of our interviewwith Craig Evans, CEO of the DBL
family of companies, you're notgoing to want to miss part two.
See you next year.
Narrator (29:57):
For more information on hard money, loans and
upcoming events with The NorrisGroup, check out
thenorrisgroup.com. Forinformation on passive investing
with trust deeds, visittngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris (30:12):
The Norris Group originates and services loans in
California and Florida underCalifornia DRE License 01219911,
Florida Mortgage Lender License1577, and NMLS License 1623669.
For more information on hardmoney lending, go
www.thenorrisgroup.com and clickthe Hard Money tab.
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