Trade Names: Ready Corporation Worldwide

The management team at Ready Corporation Worldwide has traveled to Haiti five times since January to help with housing for earthquake victims.

Matt Duke, senior vice president, sales and construction, and Lucius Cary, vice president, business development, are in Haiti now.

The Hanover County-based company, which sells environmentally friendly sustainable housing, is working with charities that provide housing to victims of disasters.

"The Haiti tragedy took approximately 250,000 lives and displaced 1.25 million Haitians," said William G. Hancock, president and CEO of Ready. "They desperately need hard-structure housing before the hurricane season, which for them is now."

Since January, Ready has sold eight units that will be used in Haiti. The company donated one unit with Double Harvest, a nonprofit that establishes and develops agricultural products in Third World countries. Two other charities, Impact of Hope International and The Fuller Center for Housing, have purchased and donated two Ready buildings (part of the eight sold) in the Croix de Bouquets area of Haiti.

The sustainable homes Ready produces are made of compressed agricultural fiber (either wheat or rice straw) panels and a skeleton of light gauge steel. Prices for shelters and permanent housing range from $2,500 to more than $45,000.

"Our products have one of the lowest carbon footprints for a housing product in the country. For example, the wheat straw is taken off the ground, so it doesn't have to be burned, which helps pollution," Hancock said. "In addition, it takes 25 times more power to make drywall than it does to make our panel. When you're finished with it, you can put it in a wood chipper, and it converts to mulch, which makes it organic."

The light gauge steel is also considered a green component because it can be reused or recycled.

"First, the product has to be functional and affordable," Hancock said. "We offer sustainability as a bonus."

Ready was founded in 2007 in Indianapolis by Richmond-native Charlie Daniel. While working for the Texas plant that produced compressed agricultural fiber panels for commercial use, Daniel heard about the formaldehyde-tainted trailers the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent in as housing after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.

"He wanted to come up with an alternative to the trailers," Hancock said. "He developed a product for residential and disaster-relief use, and was [later] awarded a contract with FEMA."

Ready's management team began to take shape in 2008 when Duke and Cary joined the company.

Hancock and Stephen Storey, senior vice president of finance, came aboard in 2009, when Daniel moved the company to Richmond.

"We had a lot of local and state interest because our product is sustainable," Hancock said.

From 2007 to 2010, Ready sold 100 housing units to the company's dealer that had a contract with FEMA to provide disaster-relief housing.

"We still use our dealer, but we also sell directly to other buyers now," Hancock said.

The company is marketing its products worldwide, pursuing customers in five countries.

Its four product lines are disaster-response housing, military housing for field locations, job-site worker housing and permanent housing.

"We fit the model for Habitat for Humanity Virginia, which has plans in progress to construct one of our units in Northern Virginia. Other Habitat affiliates are interested as well," Hancock said. "We are a quick, easy and affordable build."

Dr. J.L. Williams, board member of Impact of Hope International, a nonprofit organization that provides relief and development in Third World countries, is excited about Ready's products.

"The traditional method of building in Haiti is cement blocks, and that is usually poor quality," he said. "The Haitians are looking for some other alternative for low-income housing. This is something that can be shipped via container and put up in about two days. It has tremendous viability for the people in Haiti."

D.J. Bakken, board member of The Fuller Center for Housing, an ecumenical Christian nonprofit in Georgia, became familiar with Ready Corp. when he was checking building sites in Haiti.

"Ready Corp. was great," he said, adding that the building components had to be airlifted into Haiti because it was difficult to bring in containers after the earthquake. "I liked the simplicity and how the panels go together. We had the slab in place, so the house went up in two days. I'm pretty confident that we will build more."