Combining over 85 years of experience in the development and building of residential and commercial properties, the partners of Design Construction have formed a cohesive relationship aspiring to create first-class residential and commercial endeavors throughout Northeastern Ohio.  Design Construction started as a local custom home building business in 1988 and has evolved into a well balanced enterprise producing award winning single-family and “maintenance-free lifestyle” residential communities as well as retail and commercial subdivisions.

Since each of the four owners of Design Construction live locally, we fiercely protect and safeguard our Company’s reputation. Unlike an “out-of-town” or “out-of-state” operation, we meet our customers at grocery stores, gas stations, movie theatres, restaurants, church, and ball games. We don’t believe that bigger is better. We believe that better is better. Period. We are entrenched in this area and only in this area. 

In order to claim that your experience will be better, we refer to a lengthy history of hearing this evaluation from many of our customers. We are confident that our commitment to a “way of doing business” - our abilities to plan the finest communities, create systems of communication with our commercial and residential customers, maintain long-term relationships with the area’s finest suppliers and subcontractors and hire the best possible staff members – enables us to predict the quality of our products as well as the experience of our customer. Daily, we manage our expectations that you find Design Construction to be “Better.”

The founder of Design Construction is Don Shultz. In 1983, Don received a degree in Business Management from the University of Akron. Focusing most of his time and energy in the Commercial Division and Development side of residential properties, Don has been recognized for excellence by the industry, the business community and the public. Under his direction Design Construction was awarded “Akron Homebuilder’s Association Builder of the Year” in 1991, was featured in BUILDER MAGAZINE and INC. MAGAZINE in 1993 and served as President of the Homebuilder’s Association in 1994. Don lives in Green where he has served as a school board member and is very active in Green community affairs.

Mike Rankine graduated from the University of Akron in 1983 with a Bachelors degree of Construction Technology and Management. After gaining eight years of experience in home building and remodeling, Mike joined Design Construction in 1991. Mike’s duties include controlling and finance, personnel/human resources, and scheduling, purchasing and contract administration of commercial projects.  He has served the Homebuilder’s Association as President in 2000 and has multiple years of service on the Board of Directors, chairing many committees over the years – Ethics Committee, Parades of Homes Committees, Associate Contractors Committee, and Public Relations Committee. His civic interests involve programs like Habitat for Humanity and Christmas in April.

In 1995, Bob Unruh became part of the Design Construction team to serve in a Marketing, Sales Management and Product Design role. Bob’s focus is on residential communities, where he enjoys the challenges of custom-designing the specific requirements and details and being very “hands on” with individual residential customers. He is a 1979 graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois) with a Bachelor of Science degree. His work experiences include nine years of involvement in residential marketing and sales management in Boca Raton, Florida. Bob has served as a Homebuilder’s Association Board Member, was the Chairperson of the Sales and Marketing Council in 1995 and 1996 and was awarded Sales Manager of the Year in 2005.

Len Huddleston joined the Design Construction team in 1995. He provides the standard of excellence in the areas of field supervision, construction management, quality control, safety programs and customer satisfaction. Len has responsibility for all field operations and supervision, scheduling and purchasing systems for the Residential Division. Over the years, Len has been directly responsible for the construction of over 700 homes in Northeastern Ohio. He has many years of service on the Executive Committee of the Homebuilder’s Association and is currently President of the Association (2007).