One of Aurora’s largest employers is “holding its own” despite a slumping economy which has wreaked havoc on the nation’s modular housing construction industry.

Known for most of its 40-year history as BonnaVilla Homes, the company anchored in the Aurora Industrial Park changed its name to Chief Custom Homes this past year and is slowly starting to see the benefit of its revised business strategy.

“We’re not going gangbusters by any means, but we’re holding our own,” said general manager Curt Wilkerson. “We’re doing better than most in the industry, and what’s allowed us to do that is that we’ve gone out to get some projects in that non-traditional market, which is different than what we’ve normally done.”
Wilkerson noted, for example, a recent project which involved 17 units now being utilized in the oil fields of North Dakota. Fifteen of the custom-built units had five separate living quarters, and the other two had mess hall and laundry facilities.
“We worked in conjunction with a construction company in Grand Island and built 17 units, which they’ll have on site there for 18 to 24 months,” he explained. “There is not a lot of housing in that area and they have hundreds of people coming on site to work on the project.”

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