Page 253 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

SUSTAINABLE BROKERAGE 231

I got my start in real estate by taking a real estate course at Savannah Technical
College while teaching in the local public school system. I was so enamored with the
course that I resigned my teaching job, discontinued my graduate studies, and went into
real estate full time. During my early years, I specialized in the sale of historic build-
ings, including the Manger Hotel, one of the first major office renovations in
Savannah’s historic district. In the late 1980s I brokered my first large scale land assem-
blage deal—a 250-acre office park. The asset manager on the deal, who had a proven
track record in developing successful office parks, believed that by preserving green
space and creating an attractive and pleasant workplace, the value of the asset would
gain more than the typical sprawling developments of the day. No one was calling it
sustainable development back then. No one thought of it as what scientist and author
E. O. Wilson later termed biophilia, humankind’s natural affinity for the natural world. 1
But that asset manager was right, and his message stuck with me over the years. The
message was one I grew up with, really. My grandfather, who was a farmer in the
small community of Starr, South Carolina, preserved old growth forests, used land
conservation practices, and was an active outdoor adventurer. He and my grand-
mother, who took me on long walks and taught me to fish, raised eight children and
still found time to be active community players, participating in their church and on a
number of civic boards and organizations. My grandfather was self-educated and
determined that his children would all get a college education—and they all did. As a
school board member, my grandfather was so dissatisfied with the quality of the
minority schools that he funded a better school for African-American kids, who
weren’t allowed into the white schools in the late 1940s. I feel I inherited my sense of
what’s right from my grandparents and my Uncle John Rhett, who carried on my
grandfather’s community service traditions and love for the outdoors.
I have operated as a professional commercial real estate broker in and around the
Savannah area for over three decades. And I’m as typical a broker as you will ever see.
I’m friendly and outgoing. I love the independent nature of brokerage work, love the
fact that you set your own hours and live or die financially and professionally not by
coming in and punching a time clock but by making things happen. I’m definitely
most at home when I’m out on my own, setting my own course of action, determin-
ing my own destiny.
But I’m also deeply plugged into the community, into deals and potential deals and
deals that will carry over from initial assignments. I’ve run my own brokerage com-
pany for a number of years, overseen a local office of a big regional brokerage opera-
tion, and been involved in a number of large land assemblages. I do civic involvement
not just for the business contacts, but because I believe in giving back. I am the past
president and have been a Million Dollar Club Member of the Savannah Board of
Realtors, have served as a director and local president of the National Association
of Realtors, and am often asked to provide an overview of the real estate market at the
Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting.
Maybe it seems a bit corny and old-fashioned these days, but I’ve always been trou-
bled by the notion of a broker being closely associated with a slick salesmanship, get-