Featured Team Member: Meet Ethen!
At Heartland Builders, we’re always thankful for our talented, hardworking, and overall awesome team members who come together to build houses that become homes. Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Ethen, who came to us as an intern back in 2017, and is now one of our Project Managers! He makes sure that the home you design and dream about is built to our quality standards and ends up as beautifully as you planned.
What’s your relationship with Heartland Builders? What do you love most about working here so far?
I am one of the Project Managers at Heartland. I have been here for 4 years. I started out as an intern and slowly began taking on more responsibility.
I love my coworkers, the work culture at Heartland, and the relationships that I have built with our trade partners. I love seeing the quality of homes that we build. I love how it starts with a hole in the ground and we end up with a high-quality product that I can be proud of working on.
What do you wish other people knew about Heartland Builders?
I wish more people were able to see and experience a day in the office at Heartland Builders. We are honestly such a fun group, and it makes working here so enjoyable. We have two company weekly meetings, and they are such a hoot. We get things done, but we remember to have fun while getting there. A day in the Heartland office without laughter simply doesn’t happen.
What inspires you and your work?
I want nothing more than to build a high-quality home for our clients. I am extremely proud at the end of the project when I can look back and say that is the experience we provided. So, I am inspired by the fact that I know I can provide that experience. It feels so good at the end of a project when it is proven that I have.
Where did you grow up? Tell us about your family!
I grew up in Rockford, MI. Go Rams! I grew up with three siblings, two sisters and one brother. My mother has worked at Chase Bank for 40+ years, and a lot of her family lives in the area so we see them quite a bit. All my siblings have moved away from Rockford, however we are still very close. My fiancé and I recently bought a house in Comstock Park, where we live with our cat, Noodles.
How do you spend your free time? What do you do to relax?
I get outside – take a walk through the woods, go for a bicycle ride, play a round of golf, hunt, shoot skeet, camp, and ride my motorcycle to name a few. In the winter, I love to snowshoe and snowboard when I am able.
What would someone be surprised to know about you?
Winter is my favorite season. A lot of people in Michigan experience seasonal depression during the winter, but I am the exact opposite! I am the happiest when it is cold and snowy. Most people think I am crazy for this, but you can’t truly understand how beautiful winter is until you hike a few miles into the woods and relish the extreme silence you experience – there is nothing else quite like it.
Tell us about someone you admire.
This is a tough question because I have been lucky enough to have multiple mentors in my life. I don’t think I can pinpoint only one person to highlight so I will say that I admire all of my family members and close relations that own their own businesses. I have learned a lot from each one of them (whether or not they knew I was watching), and being exposed to successful entrepreneurs has shaped the way that I envision my life.