Homes For Our Troops Acquires Queensguard Home Site from Atlantic Builders

Homes For Our Troops has just acquired a lot in Atlantic Builders’ Queensguard community in Stafford County, Virginia. Atlantic will be acting as the general contractor for construction of a home for Sgt. Jude Recendez. The home will be similar to the home Atlantic Builders completed for Sgt. Steven Kiernan in June 2010.

Sgt. Jude Recendez suffered the loss of both his legs while deployed to Baghdad, Iraq in October 2006. Sgt. Recendez is an active outdoorsman who enjoys mountain biking, road cycling and kayaking. He is a Fine Arts student who enjoys ceramics and pottery and aspires to own his own workshop and studio upon completing his education.

Homes For Our Troops plans to complete over 30 homes in the US for severely injured veterans and their families in 2010, and as many as 40 in 2011. With the help of Atlantic Builders, Homes For Our Troops plans to complete at least one additional home in Stafford County in 2011 for Sgt. Kenny Lyons. Lyons is currently Sgt. Steven Kiernan’s roommate. According to David Brandon, Land Acquisition Specialist for Homes For Our Troops, “ There are probably over 1,000 severely injured veterans who would qualify for our program.”

Atlantic Builders and our trade partners were able to complete Sgt. Kiernan’s home thanks to the donation of all the labor and materials. “To complete the next two homes here in the Fredericksburg area, we will need other regional trade partners and suppliers to chip in so that we can continue to build the homes as close to 100% donated as possible,” says Gene Brown, Vice President of Production at Atlantic Builders.

If you are a trade partner who wishes to provide labor and/or material, please contact Gene Brown at gbrown@atlanticbuilders.com .

For more information about this project please visit www.homesforourtroops.org/recendez

To make donations of time or funds please call 866-7-TROOPS or email info@homesforourtroops.org.

Adam M. Fried
Chief Executive Officer
Atlantic Builders

Atlantic Builders Welcomes Melanie Edwards Back To The Team!

Atlantic Builders is thrilled to welcome back Melanie Edwards as Design Director. Melanie rejoined our team on August 30^th.

As Atlantic Builders president Tom Schoedel noted, “ It is fantastic to be a part of the modest turnaround in new home sales in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area and to be able to bring back our first full time hire. Everyone – customers, trade partners, and fellow team members – loves working with Melanie”.

Like most of our tight team here at Atlantic Builders, Melanie is a great multi-tasker. While her primary responsibility is to coordinate our design center (now located at the Breckenridge model home), she is involved in almost all facets of our company.

“What I do touches every piece—not just floor plans, brochures, optional features selections, and design selections, but takeoffs, purchasing, and marketing,” Melanie pointed out. “I get the biggest kick out of putting all the little pieces into a gracious living experience,” she enthused.

Melanie manifests a rare combination of talents that includes a great sense of color and design flair, amazing people skills, and tremendous attention to detail that makes her formidable at helping homebuyers make the best design option and color selections for their new homes. And as Atlantic Builders’ sales continue to increase, she will provide superior service to customers in the design center, while allowing our sales team of Michele Gillenwater and Charlie Baity to spend to spend more time with prospective and newer customers.

Melanie has devoted much of her life to helping the disadvantaged, the homeless and the disabled as part of her deep faith. During her short “sabbatical” from Atlantic Builders, she amped up her community service work by helping Hope Tree Family Services to conduct in-depth needs assessments and to create a database about the people with intellectual disabilities who live in that organization’s Fredericksburg area group homes. She has also spent countless hours with the people served by Hope Tree providing TLC.

Melanie has also been heavily involved in helping the over 100 children born in refugee camps in Rwanda/Burundi who have relocated to Fredericksburg in the past few years. She has helped organize day camps and ESL preschool for children mostly from Tanzania, and has worked for years with the Fredericksburg Baptist Church providing spaghetti dinners weekly for the hungry and homeless.

Melanie enthusiastically recommends the book Same Kind of Different As Me (especially page 104) by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, about the authors’ shared experiences in a Ft Worth homeless shelter.

Melanie feels “it is important for us to build relationships and families and not just homes”. A little wistful about becoming an empty nester, Melanie has just seen her daughter off to James Madison University. And she has a lighter side, too: She is a “very heavily weaponed assassin” called Bella Donna in Mafia Wars on Facebook.

Guess that means that working with Melanie is an offer that nobody can refuse!

Adam M. Fried
Chief Executive Officer