Jennifer Dorsey doesn’t put on airs. When she talks about rising through the ranks at Pratt Home Builders to become its president, she doesn’t mention titles or accolades. Instead, she talks about drafting boards, framing lumber and floor plans sketched in her head.
She talks about walking neighborhoods as a teenager, studying houses the way most children her age studied pop stars.
Even now, seated at a conference table with a pad of white lined paper in front of her, Dorsey mimics sketching floor plans as she explains how she learned drafting in high school. In her right hand is a mechanical pencil, wedged between her pointer and middle fingers, braced by her thumb. As she speaks, her hands move expressively, shaping the air to match her meaning. But the pencil never moves. It remains rigid, as though it’s an extension of her – a fixed part of her architecture.
As Dorsey reflects on her past, it’s clear her path to the top of one of Chattanooga’s largest homebuilders began far from the table at which she’s sitting.
Forest trails to floor plans
“When I was 5, my family moved to Camden, Arkansas,” Dorsey says. “It was a small town of about 15,000 people – not close to anything. We were in the woods – literally.”
It was in this quiet, remote place that Dorsey first noticed construction.
“There were duplexes being built one street over from where I lived. That’s my first memory of being interested in home building. I remember the slabs on the ground and, as a curious 7-year-old riding by on my bike, I could hop off and walk around.”
Even then, Dorsey had an intuitive understanding of space and layout.
“I remember having an immediate sense of what the house would feel like and what everything was going to be based on the slab and the plumbing that was coming up. Later, I loved watching the homes be framed and then seeing the cabinets and carpet go in. From that point, home building fascinated me.”
Dorsey’s interest became a full-blown obsession during a trip to Plano, Texas, when she was 13. “Dallas was booming, and our friends lived in a neighborhood where every home was brand-new. They were open, so you could just walk in and stroll through. I had more fun doing that than going to Six Flags.”
Dorsey’s parents tried to steer her toward traditional attractions, but she had other plans.
“I was dragging everyone around these different houses and saying, ‘Let’s go to the next one. It’s just two doors down.’ Even at 13, I was walking those floor plans and thinking about what they did right or wrong.”
Dorsey returned home from that trip and started sketching.
“I convinced my mother to buy some floor plan magazines and I went through them, making little notes and critiques — even though I didn’t really know what I was doing. The interest was definitely there.”
That early fascination eventually led Dorsey to a pivotal place: a drafting class in her rural high school.
“The man who taught it was in his mid to late 60s, and I don’t think he’d ever seen a computer,” she recalls. “On the first day, he looked at me and said, ‘Sweetie, is your boyfriend in here? Why are you in this class?’”
Driven by a strong desire to learn the craft, Dorsey stayed in the class and poured as much time and effort into her drafting assignments as she did into her calculus, chemistry and physics homework. Most afternoons, she walked a mile home from school carrying a heavy drafting board so she could continue to work on her projects. That class became a turning point, pulling her even deeper into the world of sketching home plans and exploring home design.
While Dorsey’s passion for home design never wavered, her parents – mindful of the sky-high mortgage rates of the 1980s – had concerns. Her mother, in particular, worried about her ability to build a stable career in an unpredictable industry. Her father, an engineer, encouraged her to follow a path like his.
Taking their advice to heart, Dorsey enrolled at Auburn University after high school – a place woven into her family’s history. Her father had gone there, as had his parents before him. Her grandmother’s three brothers were all alumni.
She began in engineering but soon realized it wasn’t a good fit for her.
“I was capable in certain areas but I didn’t have a passion for it. Then I found the Building Science curriculum – classes in scheduling, estimating, materials, methods, drafting – and said, ‘This is what I should be doing.’”
The switch made all the difference.
“Suddenly, the classes were easier and more intuitive. I didn’t have to study as hard for the finals because I understood the information better. It was a great fit.”
Dorsey also began to understand her “intangible skills” – the gifts she hadn’t been taught.
“I can picture myself walking through a space, how it feels, how it functions, and whether or not it’s proportionately correct. That’s not something that was necessarily trained into me. I think it’s an intangible skill I have.”
Finding her footing
After college, Dorsey married and relocated to West Lafayette, Indiana, where her husband was attending graduate school. There, a local homebuilder hired her as an estimator and eventually gave her the chance to design her first house.
“I ended up designing a house plan that could compete with the big production builders when they came to town. I also designed two or three plans before I left and actually got to see them built. It was an amazing feeling.”
Her 13-year-old self would have approved, she says.
“I don’t think she would’ve been surprised because it was in me. The path to get there was unclear, but I found it.”
In 2002, Dorsey’s husband accepted a job in Chattanooga They relocated to a city where she had no connections and no clear career path. She spent the next year getting her bearings, driving around town with a paper map, learning the layout of the city, scouting neighborhoods and trying to figure out who the builders were and where the growth was happening.
Dorsey also began drafting houses purely for herself – without compensation and with no goal beyond self-improvement.
“Instead of sitting around watching daytime television, I drafted some houses,” she says.
Eventually, Dorsey sent resumes to a dozen or more builders, highlighting not just her design and estimating skills but also her focus on improving margins – an uncommon detail that caught the attention of James Pratt, co-founder of Pratt Home Builders.
She went to work for $13 an hour – a modest wage considering she held a degree and already had experience in the industry. At the time, Pratt was building only about 12 houses a year, so she wasn’t even sure it was a viable company. Still, she took the leap, determined to make the most of the opportunity.
Dorsey started at the bottom, doing whatever needed to be done and learning everything she could from anyone willing to teach her. Over time, she took on roles in estimating, drafting, design and even field supervision – steadily building both her skills and her reputation. Then one day, she showed Win a house she’d drawn. His response was immediate: “Can you draw more?”
Dorsey designed floor plans with function in mind – especially for families like hers.
“I started being able to design things in a very intuitive manner – and from a female point of view. What do I want as a mom or as someone who will live in this house all the time?”
To date, Dorsey has designed more than 150 homes built by Pratt, with about 100 more still on paper. Her passion for home design didn’t fade as she explored other tasks – it matured. She now approaches each plan with sharper focus, shaped by lot constraints and buyer needs. The spark that first drew her to sketch floor plans as a teenager still burns but is now fueled by experience and purpose.
Stepping into leadership
Dorsey became president of Pratt Home Builders in 2020.
“The leadership was sitting around this table and said, ‘We’d like to make you president.’ I was in a state of shock because I did not have this on my radar.”
Her learning curve was steep. “I didn’t know what it meant to be president. I thought, ‘What do I do differently all day?’ Because it was a big role and I couldn’t let the parts of the business I’d overseen fail.”
It took multiple people to fill the role Dorsey had occupied before becoming president – a testament to how much ground she covered and how deeply embedded she was in many aspects of the business. Transitioning into the presidency didn’t mean stepping away from that work entirely – it meant learning to let go of pieces of it, a process that didn’t come easily.
“A lot of times as women, we struggle to delegate,” she admits.
Dorsey had spent so long as a working manager – rolling up her sleeves, solving problems firsthand, tracking details others might overlook – that shifting into a higher-level leadership role required a fundamental change in mindset.
Even now, she describes herself as a “working president,” someone who remains involved in the nuts and bolts of the business not out of necessity, but because she still finds value and purpose in the work itself.
Dorsey says the most challenging part of the job wasn’t accounting or business planning, though both were new to her and pushed her to learn new skills. What proved most demanding was managing people.
Moving into the role of president shifted the dynamic between Dorsey and many of her longtime co-workers. She’d worked closely with many of them for years, building strong, collaborative relationships. She wasn’t a distant manager; she was one of them.
But as president, the nature of those relationships changed. Managing people became a central part of her role. Now, she had a direct hand in decisions about compensation, performance and organizational structure. She was no longer just a peer or a team leader – she was the one ultimately responsible for guiding the direction of the company and the well-being of its people.
That shift required a new level of sensitivity and leadership, especially with colleagues who’d once been side-by-side with her in the day-to-day work.
Dorsey says she aims to lead with care. “They know I care about them as a person and I care about what’s going on in their lives.”
Navigating market pressures
In 2024, Pratt Home Builders closed 198 homes – an achievement that highlights how far the company has come since the early 2000s, when it was building only a dozen homes annually.
Dorsey considers 220 to 250 homes a potential “sweet spot” for Pratt – but it’s a cautious aspiration tempered by strategic foresight. Her mind is on sustaining success rather than chasing numbers.
“If we blow through 250 homes this year,” she asks, “do we have enough lots for next year and the year after that?”
That foresight is more critical now than ever. Hamilton County’s builders – Pratt included – face mounting headwinds. The National Association of Home Builders reports that high interest rates remain the top challenge, while nearly two-thirds of builders point to the cost and scarcity of developed lots as a serious concern.
In Chattanooga, rising home prices – up 68% since 2019 – coupled with mounting competition and dwindling land supply are squeezing margins and testing resilience, a National League of Cities article (tinyurl.com/hchnlc) published in May reports.
Legislative efforts like Plan Hamilton highlight the pressure: Local leaders and developers are locked in debates over zoning, density and infrastructure, fearing that unchecked growth could hinder future construction while elevated costs for lots and fees continue to bite, notes an article on Citizen Portal published in June (tinyurl.com/hchcp).
Within that complex landscape, Dorsey continues to walk home sites, refine floor plans and review designs guided by a planning lens that’s both cautious and forward-looking.
“Even now, I like to look at the homes we’re about to build. I want to be sure we have windows in the right places and are taking advantage of a site’s unique features.”
Against this backdrop of mounting challenges, James Pratt expresses unwavering confidence in Dorsey’s leadership.
“Jennifer is one of the smartest, most dedicated people I know,” he says. “One of the smartest decisions Win and Nerren [Pratt] made was to appoint her president of our company.”
Under her leadership, Pratt says, the company has assembled its strongest team, improved its processes and maintained consistent growth.
“We look forward to many more years of her great leadership.”
Beyond the blueprint
Untold numbers of Chattanooga-area residents live in spaces that first took shape in Dorsey’s mind. Her own family resides in a house she designed more than two decades ago. But even that home, shaped by her early vision, doesn’t entirely escape her critical eye.
“There are definitely things that make me think, ‘I should have done this differently,’” she laughs.
Dorsey has now been married for 26 years and is the proud mother of an 11-year-old son who, like many his age, enjoys playing video games. Dorsey sees a bit of herself in him – she spends plenty of time at her own screen for work – which makes her especially interested in discovering what drives her son beyond the digital world.
“I’ve been trying to find his intangibles,” she says. One trait has been constant since he was small: storytelling.
“He’d watch different shows, and then when I’d try to put him to bed at night, he’d start telling stories.”
It’s a gift Dorsey continues to watch closely, curious to see how it might shape his future.
Outside of work and parenting, Dorsey makes time for the other things she loves – especially college football. A devoted Auburn University alumna and former member of the school’s marching band, she treasures the electric game-day atmosphere and the memories tied to it. She now shares that tradition with her son and father, attending games together as a family.
“That’s a special experience,” she says. “When the three of us started going together a few years ago, I realized it had been about 100 years since my grandmother’s oldest brother started attending Auburn.”
Dorsey’s downtime also includes quieter pleasures: wine tasting, enjoying good meals and boating on the lake. She doesn’t own a boat, she adds with a laugh, but “loves anybody else’s boat.”
Dorsey dreams of one day retiring and spending six months to a year living in different parts of the world.
“I’d like to maybe ‘home base’ out of London for six months, then perhaps ‘home base’ in Australia. I’d enjoy the restaurants and shops, and find out what becomes my breakfast place and where I stop on my daily walk.”
Dorsey also hopes to someday be part of solving the affordable housing crisis.
“It’s frustrating that the average couple, even when they both have jobs, struggle to be in new housing. That’s going to continue to be an issue. But not everyone needs a big single-family house with a yard. So how can we incorporate new solutions into a community like Chattanooga?”
Asked if she’s ever encountered resistance in her career, Dorsey nods.
“There have been times when people said something or looked at me funny when they realized, ‘Oh, you’re the boss.’ But I don’t spend time focusing on that reaction. I spend time on being smarter and better than they are.”
She credits her mother’s generation for opening doors. “They made it more acceptable for women to come into work in various roles. I just had to take advantage of the opportunity in front of me.”
And that’s exactly what Dorsey continues to do – pencil in hand, thoughtfully shaping the future she envisions, one line at a time.