Ron Willard, Sr. began The Willard Companies by building
custom homes 30 years ago. Three
golf courses, three master-planned communities, and a shopping complex later, his company
is the largest developer on Smith Mountain Lake. Its Water’s Edge development was
recently named one of the top 50 country-club communities in the nation by Luxury Golf
magazine.
In fact, between building, developing, marketing, and managing country clubs and
running an affiliated building supply, The Willard Companies’ Vice President Ron Willard II doesn’t have time to
play golf on those courses much more than once a month. "I see them, but I don’t
have a lot of time to play," Willard says.
The Willard Companies owns and operates two private courses, The Waterfront and The Water’s Edge, and owns
and operates a semi-private course, The Westlake Golf and Country Club.
In addition, Willard is owner of Smith Mountain Lake’s premier real estate company, Waterfront Properties. Recently, The
Willard Companies acquired Smith Mountain
Building Supply, and now employs more than 250 people within the organization.
A new development keeping the Willards busy is the Westlake Towne Center, a
240,000-square-foot commercial complex with a small-town look and broad-band T-1 Internet
service. The center houses the building supply business, food services, and a variety of
other retail businesses.
"We decided to go with fiber optic cable and do this right from the start,"
Ron Willard II says. "We are our own Internet Service Provider, and we sell our
customers service at a discounted rate — $500 a month for broad-band instead of the
$1,300 they’d pay if they were buying it on their own. No one else on the Lake offers
what we offer."
The Willard Company has been refining its own Internet service with Anderson & Associates for more than two years and
has created a website, www.smithmtnlake.com.
"Our company runs more efficiently since we had A&A set up the Internet
computer system," Willard says. "We can get information out faster and
communicate more effectively. Four years ago, I didn’t have a computer on my desk;
now I don’t know how I’d manage without one."
Willard, who graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree
in business in 1992, began working in the company as a carpenter’s helper when he was
14. "I’d work summers in construction and on the golf courses, and try to learn
all facets of the business," Willard says.
As vice president, Willard deals primarily in marketing, development, and "taking
care of problems." He and his wife, Sara, live in Roanoke and have
three children.
