Ed Brady has been building for 35 years, first homes, now people. Growing up, he listened to his dad talk lumber, real estate, and housing finance at the kitchen table.
“I grew up at the kitchen table talking about real estate and housing, homeownership, lumber, and housing finance.”
After gaining experience in Washington, D.C. politics, Ed returned to his roots in the family construction business, building a regional company that delivered 250 homes in a single year. His industry leadership led him to serve as chairman of the National Association of Home Builders in 2016. In November 2018, he brought that experience and passion to the Home Builders Institute as its President and CEO.
Ed joined HBI at a pivotal moment, with an opportunity to strengthen its financial foundation, diversify its funding, and expand its reach. Under his leadership, HBI has reduced its reliance on a single government contract to less than 55 percent of its funding while doubling its offerings for veterans, people returning from the justice system, and high school students exploring their futures. I ask Ed about the strategy behind that growth and why he sees financial sustainability as essential to a nonprofit’s ability to deliver on its mission.
“Profit for a nonprofit is not a four-letter word.”
A big chunk of this conversation lives in the gap between how many skilled tradespeople this country needs and how many are actually walking through the door. Ed walks me through what happens when someone shows up at HBI wanting to become an electrician and what a nine-week pre-apprenticeship program actually covers day to day.
“Go to our nine-week academy program. It’s an electrical program, pre-apprenticeship. You’ll learn how to wire a three-way, the basics, the fundamentals. You’ll learn safety. Job safety is critical.”
He also makes the case for why that path can get someone earning and building a career quickly, without the time or cost of a four-year degree.
We spend time on why guidance counselors default to pointing capable kids toward a degree and what that’s cost an entire generation now sitting on college debt without a marketable skill.
“We’ve been fighting 30 years of everybody’s gotta go to college, everybody’s gotta get a college degree. Look at how that’s panned out. 60% don’t graduate. They have college debt. They don’t have a marketable skill.”
Ed talks about what it would take to rebalance the money this country puts into education so trades training gets its fair share. A story he tells stays with me: a group of about 14 unhoused veterans went through a nine-week program in Phoenix, and most of them had jobs within days of finishing. There’s also Renee Zentz, a friend of the show, who brings tattooed, tough looking tradespeople into high school classrooms so kids who’ve never pictured a future for themselves can see one standing in front of them.
“I believe wholeheartedly that everybody has potential. Everybody can be who they wanna be if they’re instilled with that belief.”
I bring up a funding model out of Texas that ties a school’s money to whether its graduates actually land jobs, and Ed talks about what it would mean for the trades if that kind of accountability spread more widely. He also lays out why he thinks of the trades as a question of national security as much as housing.
“Our trades are national security. You don’t have enough electricians or plumbers to work on submarines.”
There’s a good stretch on money too. Ed talks about electricians and plumbers he’s known who built real wealth owning their own businesses, the kind of life that starts with a truck and a set of tools rather than a framed diploma.
“They had the boats, the second homes, the nice trucks. I had land as a builder. That was my toy.”
He’s candid about what it felt like watching tradespeople he respected get treated as a fallback option for kids who supposedly couldn’t cut it in a classroom.
Toward the end, I bring up shop class, and Ed tells me what home ec actually taught him that still shows up in his life today.
“I learned how to cook. I actually learned how to sew. I learned how to change a tire.”
We talk about what he’d change if a genie in a hard hat handed him three wishes tied to construction. He also shares why he thinks this country stopped honoring the people who build its roads and bridges, and what it would take to start again.
“I think we as a nation forgot to honor the builders of this country, the industrialists, the ones that built our bridges and our roads and our skyscrapers.”
There’s a Moneyball comparison in there too, and a rapid fire round where Ed doesn’t hold back.
If you’ve got a kid weighing the trades against a degree, or you run a crew and keep wondering where the next generation of workers is going to come from, this conversation is for you.
Ed Brady, President and CEO, Home Builders Institute
Before being appointed President and CEO of Home Builders Institute (HBI) in 2018, Brady led a large regional home building company in Illinois. Following the 2008 financial crisis, he served on the Bipartisan Policy Center Housing Commission, working with other leading experts to advance the nation’s housing policy. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. He has also served on boards for Chicago Federal Home Loan Bank, Enterprise Community Partners, Illinois Habitat for Humanity, as well as on other economic development and housing-related boards.
Brady was the National Association of Home Builders 2016 Chairman. In 2018, he was inducted into the Illinois Home Builders Hall of Fame and in 2023 inducted into the National Housing Hall of Fame. Brady is a sought after thought leader in the housing industry and workforce development space and has been interviewed by Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Pro Builder, Offsite Builder and Politico. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political business from Illinois Wesleyan University.
Home Builders Institute: https://hbi.org/
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