The History of CBMS

In 1979, William C. Schoen founded the residential general contracting company, Bridgewater Construction, Inc. Thru the 1980’s and 1990’s, the company grew to be recognized as the premier Builder of high end residential homes in northwest Ohio. Bridgewater Construction has been recognized nationally with feature stories in Professional Builder (Mid-June 1987) and Custom Builder (September 1997) magazines, and recognition as ‘National Builder of the Month’ in Custom Builder (November 1989). Local awards include the Home Builders Association of Greater Toledo ‘Home of the Year’ (1999 & 2000) and ‘Builder of the Year’ (2001).

In 1997, Bill joined the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Builder 20 Club #11 - ‘The Craftsmen’. These peer groups were designed to allow builders of similar backgrounds to share ideas, and learn from each other ways to improve their operations and increase their bottom lines; however, meeting after meeting continued to focus on the common lack of basic organizational structure and systems, and the chaos inherent with being a Custom Homebuilder. Finally, in 2003, Bill and the NAHB came to a similar conclusion: there really is no ‘school for builders’. The NAHB then requested that Bridgewater Construction put together a template for basic organization and an outline of common systems so that each builder club could follow a similar process in reorganizing their member companies and formalize the approach to learning and sharing ideas within a similar business template.

Nate Schoen (Bill’s eldest son) was tasked with building the system. Calling on his past experience as a US Marine Corps Captain (1996-2001), and reviewing his experience with US Marine Corps Fleet Marine Force Manuals, Nate began to write ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ specifically for a Custom Homebuilder. He has been published in Constructech magazine and Residential Design Build magazine.

The concept was relatively simple, but the task inherently complex; ultimately it became a labor of love combining Bill’s experience (and ‘grey hairs’) with Nate’s organizational skills. The culminating series of outlines, job descriptions, standard operating procedures, forms and templates grew into Custom Builder Management Solutions (CBMS).