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John Neal is straight up serious when he talks about following his passion.

That's why Neal is no longer president of John Neal Homes, a luxury homebuilding firm with $30 million in sales in each of the past two years. Neal, instead, runs Neal Land Ventures. That entity is part of Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities, which Neal's father, Pat Neal, co-founded in 1970. Neal Land Ventures handles land acquisition and development and every complicated task that comes with it, from permitting to infrastructure.

John Neal's transition to land development is an advantage to the firm, executives say, in a right-person, right-seat approach. But his shift left a leadership hole at John Neal Homes, now Neal Signature Homes, a Neal Communities' division. Neal Communities had $230.3 million in revenues in 2013, up 65.2% from $139.4 million in 2012.

The leadership gap has been filled by Randy Turkovics, named president of Neal Signature Homes. Turkovics has been in the industry for 25 years. He takes over a demanding division of the prolific homebuilding firm: The average Neal Signature Homes sale price in 2014 is around $800,000.

Here's a glance at Turkovics career and his outlook on the homebuilding industry.

Personal life
Family business: A graduate of Venice High School, where he played football, Turkovics comes from a construction family. His dad worked in commercial building and his uncle was a mason. Turkovics began to carry wood, brick and mortar at worksites from an early age. “You know about military brats,” says Turkovics. “I was a construction brat.”

Other interests: Turkovics nearly went into a similar line of work, architecture. “My desire was to be in architecture because that's where you create something,” he says. His father wanted his son to do something that wasn't blue collar, and the younger Turkovics agreed with that. “I didn't want to be the guy swinging the hammer,” Turkovics says. “I wanted to be the guy telling the guy to swing the hammer.”

Stay outside: Turkovics says he and his family, including a teenage son and a teenage daughter, enjoy outdoor and water sports such as boating and fishing. A University of Florida graduate with a bachelor's in building construction, Turkovics also is a big fan of everything Gators.

Career
Stay local: One of Turkovics' first major leadership posts was from 1990 to 2000, when he was a division president at M. Pete McNabb, which operated an Arthur Rutenberg Homes franchise in Sarasota. He set up the firm's Charlotte County division and ran day-to-day operations. After a dozen years for other firms, Turkovics returned to the Arthur Rutenberg brand in 2012. That's when he was named division president of Monterey Bay Homes, an Arthur Rutenberg builder in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and parts of North Carolina.

National player: Turkovics has also spent some time with national and multinational builders, including Morrison Homes and Canada-based Mattamy Homes. Turkovics ran the Tampa division of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Morrison for four years, during the onset of the homebuilding boom, from 2000 to 2004.
Turkovics held two leadership posts for Mattamy Homes. First he helped a launch a new division for the firm in Ottawa, Canada, that grew from 350 homes to 900 in a year and 200 employees. Next Turkovics was named a vice president of operations for the firm's Charlotte, N.C.-based Carolinas division. He led a rebranding project in that role.

Industry
Big worry: Like many others in homebuilding, Turkovics says the labor shortage is a real issue that impacts the time and cost of a house. “The biggest challenge concerning us is the labors and trades,” Turkovics says. “The growth hit us so fast it's been hard to keep up.”

Regulatory watch: A secondary concern Turkovics has is what governments do or don't do. That goes from federal to local. Like many luxury homebuilding executives, he closely watches the stock market and interest rates.

Trend watching: Two industry trends Turkovics has noticed lately are cash and inventory. On cash, there's a lot: More than half the sales at Neal Signature Homes over the past year have been in that category of payment. But on high-end housing stock, there's not a lot. “The (luxury) market is coming back,” Turkovics says. “There has been no real inventory.”