Jeff Rutt

Jeff Rutt (born 1958) is the CEO of Keystone Custom Homes, a homebuilding company operating throughout Central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, and the Founder and Chairman of Hope International (HOPE), a Christian, faith-based, non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty through microenterprise development.[1]

Early life and education

Rutt was raised in Fulton Twp, Southern Lancaster County. After graduating from Solanco High School (1976), he began his career as a dairy farmer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania at the age of 20.[1]

Career

After 20 years in dairy farming, Rutt decided to pursue a career as a realtor specializing in working with homebuilders to buy and develop land. He founded Keystone Custom Homes in 1992.[1]

Keystone Custom Homes was ranked one of the top 100 homebuilders in the nation by Builder Magazine and was named America's Best Builder three times by Builder Magazine and the National Association of Home Builders. America's Best Builder is considered the most prestigious award that a home builder can achieve. Keystone Custom Homes now builds over 400 homes each year.[1] The company builds homes in 48 communities throughout Pennsylvania's Lancaster, York, Dauphin, Cumberland, Chester and Lebanon counties, as well as Cecil and Harford counties in Maryland.[2]

Philanthropy

In 1997, Rutt founded Hope International, a global, faith-based, microfinance organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, serving entrepreneurs throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. Operating in a total of 16 countries worldwide, HOPE International offers microloans and savings programs to entrepreneurs in developing countries to help stimulate the economy and alleviate poverty.[3] Rutt's ongoing leadership of HOPE earned him the National Hearthstone Builder Humanitarian Award in 2008.[2][4]

In 1998, Rutt founded Homes for Hope, a non-profit organization and affiliate of Hope International as a response to global poverty. Rutt established the program to invite builders to empower fellow entrepreneurs in developing countries through sustainable solutions to physical and spiritual poverty. Since Homes for Hope’s start in 1998, over 90 homes have been built, generating over $10 million in revenue and leading to tens of thousands of loans issued by HOPE International or like-minded organizations to enable families to break the cycle of poverty. Homes for Hope was incorporated as a distinct 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2007. The organization currently operates in nine states across the United States, typically in affiliation with a local homebuilding association in each area where a Home for Hope is built.[5]

Personal life

Rutt and his wife, Suzanne, live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with their son and two daughters.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Jeff Rutt". Keystone Custom Homes. Keystone Custom Homes. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  2. 1 2 "About Keystone". Keystone Custom Homes. Keystone Custom Homes. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  3. ↑ "HOPE International History". HOPE International. HOPE International. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Stauffer, Heather (22 November 2013). "Jeff Rutt Finds Success Applying Business Principles to Charity". Central Penn Business Journal. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  5. ↑ "History". Homes 4 Hope. Homes for Hope. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
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