new challenges along down the road

Bob, Matt and I spent our first working hour together in the Trust for Urban Land's corporate offices in a tower in downtown Atlanta. For what seemed like the thousandth time I told the story: For years now, as Atlanta's economy boomed and jobs were plentiful developers had bought river fronts, hill tops and other desirable locations and made plans to build huge numbers of houses there. An army of investors and community banks had sprung up to profit from and cater to these developers and home builders. Add historically low mortgage rates and no natural boundaries to confine it, the city of Atlanta and its suburbs sprawled like no other. Then the Sub-prime mortgage problems began to infest the larger banks, which led to a full blown credit crisis that all but stopped the economic growth of this, and most other regions - the interdependent banking and home building industry machine that had evolved here began to creak then seize up completely. By January 2009, finance and housing, especially in Georgia were in a state of economic depression. I believed that this confluence of historic events created an unprecedented opportunity to build a company organized to take back the river fronts and hill tops from the development industry and conserve them for posterity. And, it just so happened that the Georgia legislator had passed a law in late 2008 giving tax credits for those who purposefully conserved natural resources - especially water shed maintenance oriented projects as a persistent drought and uncontained growth had added a water crisis to the list of problems with which the region grappled. We imagined that such tax incentives would inspire investors, who were not in the finance or home building businesses to beat a path to our door. All we had to do was perfect a mechanism to identify the development land that had legitimate conservation opportunities and which were owned by investors or banks in the most distress and we should be able to have the wind at our backs to be that change agent. We were boldly proposing to use the circumstances we found ourselves in to build a business, out of whole cloth that would change our corner of the world. Bob Kookenbach was mesmerized. What's more, he was capable of helping us. His company had worked to conserve places like Golden Gate Park and the Okefenokee Swamp and while we didn't anticipate conservation opportunities quite as unique, he easily got the vision that we could turn Atlanta into a model of conservation and perhaps even smart growth. He was delighted by the prospects. I also saw something in the gleam in his eye that I hadn't anticipated. I saw an entrepreneurial spirit in this liberal, tree hugging, environmental bureaucrat. We could use this guy and his experience to give legitimate weight to our process and he could use us to promote their environmental agenda. In the following weeks, I met with Bob, often by myself a half dozen times to pick his brain and to build an interpersonal relationship. In no time, we had collaborated on how to reliably save Belmont Downs and the handful of others that we were now beginning to identify. The credibility of the Trust for Urban Land gave me confidence and I sensed that we were now beginning to get some meaningful traction.

To the office here we go

Having rationalized that an office might be the thing to put our efforts over the top, I packed a small box of essential office gear, i.e. a box of pens and 2 legal pads left over from the bank, my I-Pod docking station and the most effective Christmas present that I'd gotten this year, a new Rolodex. I know that sounds silly but over the last couple of years I had collected hundreds of business cards from people with whom I (we) had interfaced. These cards had been kept bound by rubber bands in no particular order and I'd gotten inspiration many times perusing these names/resources when we'd had a problem. Well, Jill recognized how I valued this "network" and sought to enable me to organize it by getting me an old fashioned Rolodex file as a Christmas present. As it turned out I need 2 of them to hold my professional universe of contacts in orbit and armed with both I bravely moved into the office. Two things occurred in the first hour that depressed me even further. Matt has a friend that seems to me to be nice but wholly unsuccessful professionally, personally etc but who "knew" computers, so he got him to come assess our technology needs. Needs that would have been effortlessly resolved in the office complex that I'd researched. Seeing this stumble bum coming in to work with us, if only on this project reminded me just how far we had to go. And, Matt - who had moved into the "nicer" of the two small offices and promptly began to argue with his estranged wife with over the telephone took an afternoon off to tend still more personal affairs. All alone in the dreary space I drifted into the office that he was beginning to assemble and I saw his pitifully small stack of business cards. Where I had the organized contact information of 500 regional professionals that I counted on, he couldn't have had more than 30, and of these he had cards from automobile mechanics, a plastic surgeon and several duplicates of ones that I had of human resources that I counted as friends of mine. In that moment I fully processed that getting this business out into the marketplace, a market run exclusively by human beings, I was going to have to be exclusively responsible for the penultimate aspect of our effort, that of marshaling the specific network necessary to build a business around. I resented that burden and for a pathetic moment, again wished for the institutionalized network that orbited me at the bank. But given the hugely valuable self reliance lessons that had been imposed on me over the previous 6 months, in that moment I accepted that responsibility (still knowing full well that I was going to have to share the credit for success, if there ever was any) and I returned to my desk and forced myself to began making calls.

I absolutely loath to admit this but not more than a day or two later, I began to sense that we were getting traction that we could possibly have gotten living and working in entirely separate spaces. While we had phone now, though no one knew the number we also had work spaces, windows from which to look at the busy street below for inspiration and wall to bounce stress balls off of and brainstorm our next moves. These are silly thing on which to rely but they offered creature comfort and I begin to be able to visualize a fully functional business. Still, Belmont Downs was our only realistic client and though I felt very good about the progress that we'd made strengthening our relationship with them we had no contract. Painfully aware that we were holding ourselves out as experts in a field in which we had only related knowledge I redoubled my efforts to systematically reach out to genuine authorities. An important one was Don Kookenbach from the nationally recognized, Trust for Urban Land. Don had been referred to me by the appraiser of Belmont Downs and he was impressive. he managed a staff of 20 people in a downtown office building and had a remarkable resume of environmental accomplishments. Over the years, the Atlanta office of this 50 year old, national land trust had raised hundreds of millions of dollars to conserve river fronts, historical places and ecologically sensitive tracts. He was going to be an important guy to us.

Have you ever seen the rain?

I never had the clearest of ideas how Rick S. ought to be involved in this initiative but being associated with someone of his reputation and intellectual horsepower seemed like a good idea. For his part, Rick S. seemed happy to meet every 10 days or so and be brought up to speed while he mulled his options. He was, after all a real estate developer and this was a real estate oriented endeavor. My long time partner, Mark - who had by now gotten on board this train was consistently wary of Rick S. as he wasn't sure enough of his motives to suit him. I suppose down deep, I was still resisting the notion of going out on our own without the financial backing of some institution or at least and institutionally sized individual. I had enough cash to keep body and soul together for 6 months, I estimated and I had not, as of yet committed myself financially to this wholeheartedly. The cold hard truth was, it was approaching Thanksgiving, we'd been at it virtually full time for 60 days now and I still couldn't see how I or any of the rest of us was going to get paid.

Dallas , Mark and I were meeting at least once a week at a Starbucks on Lake Lanier, as that was roughly central for each of us. When I met Dallas, he was considering buying a 100 stall barn in Acworth, Georgia due north of Atlanta. Part of my first impressions were formed in the enormity of a barn that size. having little frame of reference in the equestrian world, I'll just say that one could easily park a 747 Jumbo jet in it! Well, as that purchase had fallen through and Chuck's admonishment to look for a failed subdivision instead of a farm, we began to ponder our land options toward the lake and closer to Atlanta's equestrian heart, an area call Birmingham Highway, in Alpharetta. In another of what seemed like Providential intrusions, one day I was wandering back from our Starbucks, looking for a scenic route back to town and I stumbled onto Birmingham Highway. As I had time on my hands, I drove north until I came to The Canton Highway (Ga. 20) and randomly turned toward home. In just a minute or two I came over a hill and there stood "Belmont Downs." Truth is stranger than fiction.

4 years ago, I was with a bank client who was trying to market a development called Belmont Downs. I remember it because my hometown was Belmont, NC. Here it was right in front of me and it was beautiful. There was about 2000 feet of frontage on Canton Highway that was lined with 4 rail, black creosote fencing, just like the modern farms in Kentucky are fenced. behind the fence was 30 acres of bluegrass and then a sweep of pine trees that ran over the hill and out of sight. The gate of the now derelict subdivision was locked but a faded sign had the developers name and phone number. Believing that I might just have found, or been pushed toward the exact site we needed, I called the number and got the developer, Tim Rice on the phone and made an appointment for Dallas, mark and me to see the property.

Someone told me long ago, there's a calm before the storm,
I know, Its been comin' for sometime
When its over, so they say, it'll rain a sunny day
I know, shinin' down like a water

And I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain - John Fogerty of CCR