IT'S been a long and often bumpy ride to the top for Udo Jattke, but there's little he says he would change.

From the apprentice carpenter twice laid off and who eventually paid his own way through the final year of trade school, Mr Jattke has piloted his companies Glenwood Homes and Glencorp through good times and bad to become the state's biggest home builder.

And it has also earned him a place on the list of the state's richest 100 people.

With a wealth of $300 million, Mr Jattke is placed in the 37th spot.

But the wealth and its trappings - fast cars, motorbikes and old cars - are not something he set out to achieve nor build on.

"I haven't got a goal to accumulate more wealth and assets," Mr Jattke said.

"I could have done that years ago if I had wanted to.

"I enjoy what I do.

"I enjoy coming to work.

"I have my fitness and my health and you could say the business is my life."

He says his future is based on two plans: not to be driven by a desire to become bigger and better but to take opportunities as they arise and to have some fun and enjoy what he does.

"I have structured the business so it is not wrapped around me," he said.

"If I want to take two or three months off and go on holiday, I have the people who can run the show without me there."

His business is built on affordable housing projects - something that has given rise to critics.

At the moment he has 600 units under construction in Cairns and a further 300-400 on the go in Townsville.

Then there is the big one - the 500 plus unit complex, Waterside Residential, to be built on the former drive-in theatre site at Woree.

"Time will tell," he says about his massive projects and the criticism that has been levelled at some of them.

"The buyers love them. The investors and owners love them.

"And most of those who criticised them have never even been inside them - never walked through them," he said.

Three other Cairns identities are also included on the list.

Developer and pub baron Tom Hedley makes the cut as do the Chapman family while Port Hinchinbrook developer Keith Williams' fortune of $178 million ranks him at No. 76.

Top of the list is iron ore mining magnate Clive Palmer.

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