The Beginning of an incredible partnership…

I first met Les at a restaurant called the Jolly Roger in El Segundo, a local coffee shop on PCH. Les’ background was in door-to-door sales of brushes and brooms, so he knew every hole in the wall joint. They were Les’ go-to mobile offices! He was very nice, an older guy from my 26-year-old perspective (he was 67), and the consummate gentleman. I must have been what he was looking for because he offered me a job, a salary half of what I was currently making, and the opportunity to invest in real estate.

On my first day, I met Les at what would be my office – a brand-new single wide mobile home in Del Amo Mobilehome Park in Long Beach. The only time I had been in a mobile home before was on a surf trip to Baja, so I was impressed with the size and quality of the “office.” I didn’t have a job description, but through trial and error found ways to help Les and the operations of our parks.

We’d meet somewhere, I’d park my car, and off we’d go in his Les’ huge ’79 Buick to visit parks all over the state. During those trips we solve a multitude of complex challenges each community operations faced. After about 100 stops at pay phones where Les would make a call to someone we were meeting with, I suggested that we look into buying one of the new “cell phones.” He said, ‘No. People will call and bother us!’ He added that if we were going to get something, it should be one of those new CD player things! That was life with Les.

Around 1991, Les added doing the books to my responsibilities and suggested that I set up an office nearby and find a bookkeeper. I rented a small office in Hermosa Beach, bought a D.O.S. computer and dot-matrix printer, and hired two people – one bookkeeper and one “jack of all trades” assistant. I used cinder blocks to hold up wood planks, and that was the desk for the computer. Needless to say, it was a day-to-day learning experience!

I worked with Les’ attorney and personal accountant and over the course of the next few years established a way that Les could sell me small percentages of the company. He stood by me all the way, helped me meet people in the industry, and I was able to grow the company with his support. In 1990, we managed 10 communities. Today, we run close to 50, including 5,000 spaces, and I still have the incredible opportunity to run five of Les’ parks for his daughter, an amazing business woman with a lot of passion for our industry and the mobilehome park way of life. Plus, I get to work with a large team of the best employees I could ever hope for!