Chad Glasser is as busy as a 28-year-old man can get.
During work hours, he’s the owner and general contractor of a growing home building company, as well as a real estate agent. He also makes sure the truck stop diner he and his wife, Brittni, own in east Dickinson runs smoothly. The rest of the time, he’s a husband and father of three children ages 4 and under — the youngest of whom is less than 2 weeks old.
“I try to prioritize the best I can,” Glasser said with a smile. “Obviously family comes first. When my wife is not telling me to come home, I’m typically working.”
As owner of Venture Homes in Dickinson, Glasser is one of the many working furiously to get new homes built in the city and ease the demand for permanent housing.
Venture is building eight homes in and around Dickinson this summer, he said. Five are under construction and three are well into the planning stages.
“Obviously the goal is to make the customer happy,” Glasser said. “That should be the goal in any business.”
Partnership and beyond
Venture Building Co. began in 2009 as a partnership between Glasser and his brotherin-law, Parker Pladson. The Trinity High School alumni had owned Dakota Diner together with Brittni since buying it from Parker and Brittni’s father, Bill Pladson, in 2007.
Glasser shakes his head and said the days before the oil boom, weren’t always the best for the now-bustling diner that specializes in North Dakota-style home cooking.
“We were just scraping by,” for about the first year, he said. “We worked out there. I ate a lot of meals out there. Breakfast, lunch, supper. When we started, there was a lot of hours out there.”
Eventually, business picked up, thanks in part to the boom. Glasser now keeps an eye on the diner, takes care of any major business there and does the bookkeeping from his Venture office in the basement of the Real Estate Co. His mom, Tammy, now manages the diner.
Glasser and Pladson formed the home building company shortly after Glasser got his real estate license. Though the business took some time to get up and running, they started building their first home in March 2011.
“It was a good time to build houses,” Glasser said.
So far, Venture has built 28 homes in Dickinson.
At the beginning of 2014, Glasser and Pladson split the business into two separate entities.
Pladson took Venture Building Co. to Bismarck and Glasser formed Venture Homes in Dickinson. They each use the same 20 customizable floor plans, share a website and Glasser uses a variation of the original company logo.
“The nice thing was, we ended on really good terms,” Pladson said. “We worked together for a long time. I’m glad that now we can just spend time together as a family instead of spending time working together. It’s been a great thing. I can’t speak for him, but it’s been one of the best decisions that we’ve made together.”
‘A beautiful home’
Glasser said the one thing he immediately noticed when he and Pladson began building homes were the “horror stories” customers would tell about poor builders and sketchy sub-contractors doing quick work with questionable materials.
Venture’s goal is to make sure no one says that about them. Both Glasser and Pladson use local sub-contractors, which Glasser said “adds consistency” to the homes and gets its materials from as many local businesses as it can because, he added, “they treat me fair.”
Brittni Glasser even gets involved, too — that is when she’s not taking care of 4-year-old Charlie, 2-year-old Riley and Aubrey, who was born June 26.
“I love picking stuff out and house design,” she said. “That’s one thing I’ve really enjoyed. I get to help out. Any design questions, I get to help Chad out. Or floor plan ideas. That’s where my interests are.
“It’s been really fun to watch them start out not knowing a whole lot, and now they can build a beautiful home.”
Dustin Monke 