Ducky Recovery pitches local CMAR services for Hillsborough County CDBG housing repairs

Ducky Recovery presented to the Hillsborough County selection committee as a candidate CMAR for RFP 25‑00378, a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)‑funded single‑family housing repair program, outlining local capacity, compliance controls and its plan to deliver scattered‑site disaster recovery work.

Ethan Kurzine, the county buyer overseeing the procurement, opened the session and set a 60‑minute time frame for the firm’s presentation and the committee’s questions. Danny McCarron, founder and CEO of Ducky, introduced the firm’s core team and said the company was formed after Hurricane Katrina and has completed “over 800 residential projects” in Florida.

Justin Palmer, Ducky’s chief operating officer, said he will be locally based and personally responsible for program delivery. Palmer described the company’s construction philosophy as “lean residential construction,” and said Ducky will prioritize local trades, short payment cycles and repeatable plan sets to scale work across the Tampa Bay region.

The firm listed five differentiators: a Florida‑focused operating model, prior coordination with BDO (the selected implementation vendor), capacity to scale quickly for 50–100 simultaneous homes, specialization in CDBG disaster housing, and local delivery with preexisting trade relationships.

On compliance, Chris Billman (Ducky’s compliance lead) said Ducky embeds compliance into the workflow and uses project‑level checklists, lessons‑learned logs and a dedicated compliance manager. He asserted that these practices have reduced change‑order volume by “approximately 35%” across comparable federally funded programs. The team said the approach will support Davis‑Bacon and Section 3 reporting and align with HUD requirements.

During a 30‑minute Q&A, committee members pressed on several operational issues. On Section 3 and Davis‑Bacon compliance, Ducky said it will partner with local subcontractors, document outreach and hiring efforts, and provide required quarterly reporting to HUD. On outreach, the firm said grassroots tactics combined with visible field work and signage are effective for driving applicant interest. For design, Ducky described a suite of standard 2–4 bedroom plan sets intended to meet roughly 80% of lot conditions and said it would prefer to self‑perform initial prototype builds to standardize execution.

The team answered questions about staffing and small business engagement: Ducky reported 24 staff in the region (including Hillsborough County), said it can ramp hiring as volume increases, and emphasized a payment practice of paying trades biweekly after inspection and invoicing to prevent small contractors from being sidelined by pay‑when‑paid relationships.

Garrett Tillman, the firm’s project manager, noted local permitting constraints—tree mitigation and septic permits in Hillsborough County and City of Tampa—and said Ducky already coordinates with county staff to reduce revisions and avoid delays. The presenters also noted the contract allows up to 25% self‑performance of homes, which they described as a strategic tool for early wins.

The presentation closed with procurement staff scheduling a follow‑up meeting at 03:45 the same day to review shortlisted firms. No formal decision or vote was taken during the session.