Striving for Excellence 

Looking back over 50 years of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), ASHI Founder Ron Passaro is pleased. “I’m proud it’s made it for 50 years—not all organizations make it. It was formed with good intentions, and I’m proud to be part of it,” he said. 

In 1976, Passaro helped to put home inspections on the map in a huge way when he founded ASHI. Then a builder, he recalls a time when family members would call him to look at a house before buying. At the time, there was no expectation for anything called a home inspection. There were no standards. “It was crazy. The largest investment people make in their lives was being made after an opinion from someone’s uncle.”

At the time, most people didn’t know much about a house before they bought it. “They probably knew more about the washing machine they were going to buy than the house they were going to buy,” Passaro said.

Building a Community 

After a clear need for home inspectors emerged, Passaro and his team from his contractor’s office in Stamford, Connecticut, started to search for others doing similar work. “I think we found one or two,” he said, recalling meeting John Heyn (ASHI Member #5) out of Baltimore, as well as the late Norman Becker (ASHI Member #7). Passaro invited a small group to meet at his office, but not everyone was there for the right reasons. “A couple showed up who I wanted to show the door immediately. They were just there trying to gain business, not to make business cleaner. This meeting was to make business cleaner,” Passaro said. He was in his 20s at the time.

But many people did share Passaro’s more altruistic vision, and so a small group had a few meetings in Stamford before moving to rent a larger space to meet in a White Plains, New York, hotel. “It was obvious that more people wanted to get in on this,” Passaro said. They invited anyone they could find to meet in White Plains, but it wasn’t easy; there wasn’t even a listing in the telephone book for home inspectors back then. 

How It Grew 

Eventually, Passaro and his fellow inspectors heard about another group, from Rutgers University, that was trying to form a group of home inspectors. They decided to join forces. The early ASHI group met Joe McNeil and Ken Austin, of HouseMaster, one of the first home inspection companies. McNeil was a professor at Rutgers at the time, giving the group an “in” with a space to have a larger organizational meeting at Rutgers School of Engineering. “The lecture hall would only hold 100 people, and it was a full house at the first meeting. It was outstanding,” Passaro said. “Here were 100 people who did the same thing I did for a living, and I’d never met them before. That was the beginning of the American Society of Home Inspectors.”

Then, excited inspectors took on various roles, forming committees and developing standards. Passaro served as national president for three years, and Becker was chair of the Standards Committee, Passaro recalled. “Everybody had a job. There was plenty that had to be done,” he said, as no rules or guidance formally existed before ASHI. The founder members were committed. “They all wanted it to happen. They were all waiting for an organization like this.” 

From there, ASHI grew on its own, Passaro said. “It just exploded. The need throughout the nation was there, no matter where we went.” National newspapers all over the country began reaching out to interview ASHI’s founding members, wanting to know more about the new profession. Their mission was even covered by Good Morning America and NBC’s Dateline. 

Important Education 

Passaro advises new home inspectors to learn from those who’ve been in the industry awhile. “If you’re just starting out, get as close as you can to an experienced home inspector,” he says. “You really have to know everything about a house, from the minute they dig the hole in the ground to the minute they give a key to the owner.” 

Home inspectors have to know a lot about a lot, he said. “To do the job right, you have to have some knowledge of all the trades that go into it. I’m not an electrician, I couldn’t wire a house, but when I open a panel, I can tell if it’s done right or not. Same with the framing, same with the plumbing. You better know how all of that works.” 

Passaro has spent many years as an educator himself, both in Connecticut and nationally for home inspectors and real estate agents alike. As a long-time teacher, he said ASHI continues to keep inspectors up-to-date, and he is always learning still. “As much as I thought I knew, and as much as I taught, every time I went to a class myself I learned something new. That still exists today. That’s what ASHI brought to the profession—a spreading of knowledge that was across the land, but that no one had ever collected in one place before.” 

The Future 

Today, most people understand the utmost need for thorough home inspections. The industry, too, is evolving, as more women have joined the field. Technology advances have led many inspectors to offer ancillary services, too. 

“I’m glad for the way it developed,” Passaro said. “It’s a professional organization that is respected by the real estate community and the legal community, too.” 

At this point Passaro has done it all—as a builder, as a real estate agent, as the first Chairman of the Home Inspector License Board, as an expert witness, and more. Today he owns Res-I-Tec home inspection company in Connecticut and continues to serve as President. He hopes to pass the business on to his stepson, who’s also a builder and home inspector. 

“We made our mark,” he said of ASHI. “Not many organizations stay together that long with the strict standards we’ve held. I give a lot of credit to the organization. The people who run ASHI have kept it at those high standards. I’m proud of that.”