Management Team

As Co-Founder and CEO, Dave is quite simply the visionary and glue that holds DeNova Homes together and the leading force of the strong relationships throughout the homebuilding industry that allow the company to flourish. With over thirty years of experience in land acquisition, planning, finance, operations and vertical construction, Dave is a great mentor and support to the talented management team he has put in place to run the successful day to day operations of DeNova.

As the industry has changed, specifically in California, Dave has become more involved in local and statewide issues in support of homebuilding. He has held numerous leadership positions with both The Building Industry Association of the Bay Area and California Building Industry Association, where he is currently the Chairman. Having a constant finger on the pulse of economic, environmental and political issues are invaluable to the success of DeNova Homes.

Dave’s commitment extends even further into the philanthropic world. He spent over ten years on the Board of Directors of HomeAid Northern California, where he was Chairman for two of those years. In 2018 he and wife Lori founded The Yellow Roof Foundation in an effort provide much needed affordable housing opportunities.

In 2014 Dave was inducted into the California Homebuilding Foundation Hall of Fame.

With a family tradition of homebuilding and over thirty years of experience, Lori is a respected member of the homebuilding industry. A founding member of DeNova Homes, Lori has been involved in nearly every aspect of the business, from operations to sales management. This multitude of experience has served as a solid foundation for her current role as Executive Vice President, where is acts as corporate Broker and is responsible for overseeing the departments of Sales and Marketing and Property Management.

Giving back is important to Lori; she spent eight years on the Board of Directors of HomeAid Northern California and is currently the President of Yellow Roof Foundation, a public charity she and Dave founded with the mission of helping people in need realize better tomorrows by creating affordable housing opportunities.

In 2014 Lori was inducted into the California Homebuilding Foundation Hall of Fame.

Ryan Parlett has over 27 years of experience and is a proven real estate manager, asset and development professional. He is well versed in complex land planning projects from tight infill projects to hillside development. Ryan successfully participated in acquisitions totaling over $3.5 billion in finished value. Ryan has proven to be a dynamic leader with over 100 employees. Ryan has an entrepreneurial spirit with corporate discipline.

Ryan’s career started out building custom homes throughout Marin County and gradually moved into commercial development. Ryan then migrated back to residential development working for a London based public company and a national public builder. Throughout Ryan’s career he has held the following titles: Superintendent, Project Manager, VP of Development, VP of Operations and Division President.

In 2007 Ryan founded Western Skies Development Co. which focused on acquisition, construction, entitlement and development consulting. He also ventured into the wine industry entitling a new Sonoma County winery as well as participating in the management of vineyards spread across Northern California.

Ryan joined DeNova Homes as VP of Development in 2012 and in 2014 was promoted to President. The future of DeNova Homes continues to be bright under Ryan’s leadership.

Dana is an accomplished attorney with more than fifteen years of real estate litigation, transactional and land use experience. She handles all legal work for DeNova, including claims and disputes, drafting of purchase and sale agreements and construction-related documents, and land use applications. Dana is licensed to practice in California and Washington.

Dana is also a member of several national and regional construction and real estate industry organizations. She currently serves on the East Bay CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) Board of Directors, and she is a former member of the Building Industry Association of the Bay Area’s (BIABA) Board of Directors, the HomeAid Northern California Board of Directors, and the BIABA's New Gen committee.

Dana received a J.D. from the University Of San Francisco School Of Law in 2002, and she has a B.A. from the University of California at Davis (1997).

Ann Marie Olson has over 30 years’ experience in the home building industry holding senior level management positions for both large publicly held builders and smaller private builders. Over the years she has worked very closely with Land Acquisition, Forward Planning, architects and product research and development, through operations and construction. Working so closely with these departments has enabled her to build a solid foundation for her current role as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for DeNova Homes.

A third generation homebuilder, Trent is proud to be working with his family and the DeNova Homes team to continue the tradition at DeNova Homes of “building a better community” for years to come.

With a bachelor’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and his Master’s in Business Administration degree from Saint Mary’s College, Trent’s education along with his years of experience in multiple facets of the land development and homebuilding industry provide the perfect foundation for his current role in overseeing land acquisition, entitlements/mapping/CEQA processing, permitting, and forward planning at DeNova Homes. He has built strong relationships and works closely with real estate professionals, land owners, design & engineering professionals, local agencies and his team of talented planners and project managers to insure DeNova Homes is meeting its dedication to honesty, integrity, overall quality, and customer satisfaction to deliver quality communities future residents can be proud to call home.

Joel has over ten years of Real Estate Finance experience across both multifamily and single-family industries. He specializes in the development and implementation of tools and analyses to provide improved business insight by giving management with the information they need to make quick well informed decisions. In addition, he has secured A&D and construction financing on over 30 projects with total commitments and equity placement totaling over $500MM.

After finishing his MBA from Washington State Joel started his career with Essex Property Trust where he headed the residential budgeting process and developed new tools to identify struggling assets before vacancy became a financial loss. He then joined Discovery Builders in 2009 at the heart of the housing downturn where he managed loan pay down obligation alongside operational cash needs to successfully survive the downturn. Joel joined DeNova in 2014 where he has been an invaluable part of growing the number of closings year over year.

Clifton joined DeNova Homes in 2015 and brings over twenty three years of industry experience of which eighteen of these years have been in a leadership capacity.

Clifton has worked both privately owned homebuilders as well as the largest publicly owned homebuilders in the nation. Each of these environments presents high pressure and challenges that require creativity, adaptability and flexibility to the ever changing homebuilding industry. Clifton’s coaching style of leadership has enabled him to build, lead and motivate construction management teams as well as trade partners to achieve the level of quality and integrity DeNova requires for each and every homeowner.

Kerri began her career as an urban planner working for cities working on a wide variety of complex residential, commercial and industrial projects while shepherding them through CEQA reviews, Planning Commission, and City Council public hearings.  She was recruited into the home-building industry and has been fortunate to pursue her passion of developing new communities and providing new homes for over 15 years. 

Kerri began her home-building career in land acquisition for a smaller public company, and added skills in project management, project budgeting, and entitlement working for differently-sized and scaled home-builders from smaller privately-held companies to the largest publicly-traded company in the country.  She has experience negotiating and finalizing acquisitions, including performing feasibility analyses, development of initial schedules and budgets, and soliciting and negotiating loans for acquisition, development, and construction.  She has worked through all federal and state resource agencies obtaining permits for large, master-planned communities.  She has spearheaded the development of multi-phased and multi-year-development of residential communities of over 1000 homes and managed project budgets of well over $100M.  Her public sector experience aids in developing constructive relationships with agency staff and identifying and developing strategies to mitigate processing risks to achieve approval of a community with the highest possible value.  

Kerri joined DeNova Homes in March 2020 as Director of Entitlements and, with the DeNova team, has entitled over 10 new single-family and multi-family communities totaling over 600 homes.  Additionally, Kerri also directs the DRE process for all of DeNova’s new home communities. 

Alec Tappin is a 7th-generation Californian that has been working in Project Management for the home building industry for over 12 years.  His career was inspired by his father’s experience as a Civil Engineer and his grandfathers’ 35 years at PG&E. Over the years, Alec, has completed several educational courses following his collegiate career at Saint Mary’s College of CA and early professional career to expand upon his local knowledge as well as volunteering on the Town of Danville’s Parks, Recreation, and Arts Commission.   

Alec has worked in over 30 cities throughout California and continues to maintain close relationships with everyone he encounters.  He joined DeNova Homes in March of 2022 as Senior Project Manager and is the responsible party for SWPPP compliance on all DeNova Homes developments in addition to day-to-day management of multiple projects of varying densities.

Pete joined our team in 2015, starting from the ground up as an assistant superintendent getting hands-on experience managing the construction process and quickly finding his way into a project management role in our Forward Planning Department. Pete also brings along five years of experience working for an environmental consulting firm after graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in Forestry and Natural Resource Management. His unique background, coupled with his field experience allows Pete to wear multiple hats within our organization, and is now crossing over into our Multi-Family Purchasing and Operations Division as we grow our multi-family reach. Since joining our team Pete has been involved in the successful implementation and close out of over a dozen single family, multi-family, and commercial mixed-use developments.