Career
Rutt was raised in Fulton Twp, Southern Lancaster County. After graduating from Solanco High School (1976), he began his career as a dairy farmer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania at the age of 20. After 20 years in dairy farming, Rutt decided to pursue a career as a realtor specializing in working with homebuilders to buy and develop land.
He founded Keystone Custom Homes in 1992.
Keystone Custom Homes was ranked one of the top 100 homebuilders in the nation by Builder Magazine and was named America"s Best Builder three times by Builder Magazine and the National Association of Home Builders. Keystone Custom Homes now builds over 400 homes each year.
The company builds homes in 48 communities throughout Pennsylvania"s Lancaster, York, Dauphin, Cumberland, Chester and Lebanon counties, as well as Cecil and Harford counties in Maryland. In 1997, Rutt founded Hope International, a global, faith-based, microfinance organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, serving entrepreneurs throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
Operating in a total of 16 countries worldwide, Health Opportunities for People Everywhere International offers microloans and savings programs to entrepreneurs in developing countries to help stimulate the economy and alleviate poverty.
In 1998, Rutt founded Homes for Hope, a non-profit organization and affiliate of Hope International as a response to global poverty. Rutt established the program to invite builders to empower fellow entrepreneurs in developing countries through sustainable solutions to physical and spiritual poverty. Since Homes for Hope’s start in 1998, over 90 homes have been built, generating over $10 million in revenue and leading to tens of thousands of loans issued by Health Opportunities for People Everywhere International or like-minded organizations to enable families to break the cycle of poverty.
Homes for Hope was incorporated as a distinct 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2007.
The organization currently operates in nine states across the United States, typically in affiliation with a local homebuilding association in each area where a Home for Hope is built.
