PEOPLE TO KNOW: Kevin Mays, BTI Partners
Kevin Mays, along with being all about building, also is all about family
He married his high-school sweetheart. The couple has three children – two boys and a girl – and they travel as a family. Currently in California now to watch their youngest son compete in the Junior World Golf Championships at Torrey Pines in San Diego.
“I have great kids,” Mays said in an email interview. Faith and family are his two passions in life. When he’s not working as chief operating officer at Fort Lauderdale-based BTI Partners, “I try to find an excuse to make my kids hang out with me.”
Sometimes that’s through travel – they recently took a cruise to Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean. They went to Israel the previous year. “Still planning this year – snow skiing, rafting along the Grand Canyon …”
The kids include the youngest – the golfer – who is 17 and a junior in high school; a daughter, who is 19 and a sophomore in college; and the oldest son, who is a senior in college and is 22 years old.
Mays, who turns 51 this year, leads the integration of BTI’s real estate development efforts throughout Florida. A state licensed general contractor and real estate broker, he has 30 years of experience in all aspects of acquisition, diligence, entitlement, development, and construction.
Prior to joining BTI in 2015, Mays led both public and private companies in community development, homebuilding, resort and fractional ownership, as well as mixed use development.
Career moves with public and private developers and homebuilders prompted the moves in Florida and to Texas, Mays said. The family has lived in Winter Park since 1998.
Mays left homebuilding for BTI because he “loved the challenge ahead, growth opportunities and chance to buy large parcels for master development.”
BTI, best known locally as the owner-developer The Grove Resort & Water Park, specializes in master-planned, mixed-use communities. Mays led the project through the relaunch and is now looking to expand the resort by 100 acres.
BTI is also under contract for the 1,400-acre Edgewater mixed-use district east of Osceola County’s Lake Tohopekaliga. The project is approximately half of the former Edgewater Development of Regional Impact, the largest of the five DRIs in the county’s East Lake Toho Conceptual Master Plan.
Mays, who was born in Detroit and grew up in Palm Beach County, FL., graduated in Building Construction from the University of Florida in 1990 but he thought he was going to do something completely different.
“Thought I was going to be a dentist, hated chemistry,” Mays said. “Loved the idea of building. Years later, you can always go back to a project and see the accomplishment.”