AKA "Einstein"
Early Background: I was born the second to last day of the year, 1956 at "Stanford University" in Palo Alto CA . Born the first of five children by my father a retired naval carrier pilot working in the real estate industry and my mother a mortgage company office manager.
During my childhood we lived in numerous housing subdivisions my family was involved with and this was my early exposure to business and real estate. Until my fathers death in 1976 I worked remodeling residential income homes and doing market research for "Allstate Realtors" in Campbell CA under my fathers division. In 1977 while studying real estate at "De Anza" College in Cupertino CA I completed the California real estate licensing requirements and passed the test at age 20
Post 1977: My formal employment began at age 13 in Sunnyvale CA at "Pete's Smoke and Magazine Shop" through high school I learned to manage the inventory and control purchasing. I gained experience in retail sales, payable processing and generally everything involving a small smoke and magazine retail operation.
The fringe benefit of this employment was unlimited access to periodicals of all types over a ten year period creating my insatiable appetite for reading material, which consumes me to this day.
Post 1979: In late 1979 the combination of record highs in inflation, high marginal tax rates and the continued tight regulation of banks and S& L's made for a dramatic increase in a previously small financing element; hard money secondary lenders. (Mrs. Wellencamp lawsuit against "Bank of America" making all federally chartered bank's "due on sale clauses" void fueled the boom) One such company created to take advantage of these conditions was "Bay Funding Inc." of San Mateo CA. I became associated with this startup company as a loan agent and within two years was the primary source of investor funding for the hard money junior instruments we provided. At this time a great number of low interest existing loans were being assumed "subject to" during this high appreciation period. Purchase money junior liens added on at APR's of 20% plus, were still averaging borrowers lower costs than new conventional financing. With low after-tax yields the bank's and S/L's instruments fell far short of keeping pace with inflation and many previously content bank depositors were seeking alternatives. It was a wild, circus like environment and I learned a great deal, most importantly that I wanted to gain a greater formalized understanding of finance and business, which I found, fascinated me.
Post 1981: In the fall of 1981 I left the mortgage business and began my undergrad business program at "De Anza" College in Cupertino CA with a marketing concentration and advertising minor. Upon completion of my lower division I transferred to "San Jose State University" at San Jose CA.
While attending "SJSU" I began running out of money. Inventory control work involving physical cycle counting and general parts control provided a means to generate funds while attend school full-time through graveyard employment. My six-month employment at "Hewlett-Packard's Corporate Parts Center" in Mountain View CA was one such job. It exposed me to the HP 3000 series MRP computer inventories control system and tempted me with a full-time permanent job offer.
"HP" in '83 lead to a my flexible "System Manager" position reorganizing for the new ownership a medium sized, out of-control, stocking distributor of electrical components (working initially while in escrow and under the general management of the new purchaser, William Cornett). "Cornett Electronics Inc." had been manually based and badly mismanaged by the previous ownership, the 8500 different parts with a cost base of two million plus needed to be organized and converted to an on-line fully integrated order entry /inventory management system. Mr. Cornett purchased an "Alpha Micro 1042E" computer with it's Digital "DEC" VMS clone operating system based on the existing accounting environment used by the failed prior management. A third party "McCullogh" management package was purchased to automate the inventory process to finalize the purchase price and control order entry in the future.
I became involved a few weeks prior to the beginning of the new school year as a temporary data entry person. I immediately realized the input into this computer system from what I believed to be a flawed inventory count overstated inventory by duplicate entries and simple mistakes. Working backwards from the highest gross item extensions I researched individual entrees against actual and downgraded the total inventory capitalization by $250,000 the first week. These mistakes were completely unknown to Mr. Cornett as were the general system operation and even to the bank "Canadian Commercial". Which was holding the bad paper on the previous "USI International" was rolling over to a new fresh debt with additional collateral of Mr. Connett. At 40 points of book value on the inventory, $250,000 of overstatement corrected in one week saved Mr. Cornett a great deal more than my $7 per hour had cost him. I was offered a job revolving around my full-time school schedule, which I accepted. The new management concurrently required a complete overhaul of the chart of accounts, accounts receivable / payable processing and a change from remote accounting to in-house on-line system. With the completion of the application and the training of the operating personnel I left the company to work in the resale residential brokerage market.
Post 1985: Still attending "SJSU" part-time during my senior year of study I placed my real estate license with the brokerage firm of "Cornish & Carey Inc." of Palo Alto CA and began working full-time for William Murphy's Los Gatos CA office. This general brokerage office in the affluent community of old town Los Gatos serviced a market of $250,000 to $3,000,000 and above single family detached homes and condominiums. I struggled to gain a foothold in a hard to break area. Slowly I achieved some success representing a few buyers and sellers.
During my association with "C& C" I began researching personal computers and their related application software having been exposed to mainframe in inventory management applications. It resulted in my first outside consulting with business productivity enhancement processes. This continued my expansion from minis and IBM PC environments into the Apple Macintosh products.
Post 1986: In March of 1986 I began conversations with several development companies with the intention of making a transition from resale residential sales into management & development of commercial and residential income projects. JJ of "Development Properties Inc." of Huntington Beach CA. had formed a business relationship with MS of "Merit Financial inc." of Beverly Hills CA, a private syndication of office projects. Her association required a change to a full-service property management and support organization capable of transforming and developing numerous problem projects per year purchased through "Merit Financial Inc." My task was to automate and organize the property management function as well as manage the existing and future office complexes. Additionally I reorganized the internal operation of both parties.
On March 31, 1986 I started with "Devel-Prop" in a full-time position and assigned my listings in progress with "Cornish & Carey Inc." through the broker William Murphy.
I personally trained the principals and the sales staff concurrently with remaining office personnel in computer related operations. I implemented a variety of graphics and project planning software products during this period and various financial models were developed for use by internal "Devel-Prop" personnel and well as "Merit Financial inc." principal MS.
During mid 1986 I was loaned out to "American Medical International's" group health division of Beverly Hills CA. The purpose of which was to research and design a financial model capable of comparing the large, field office leasing requirements under consideration with regard to variable expense items, differing rent schedules, time values and budget considerations. "AMI's" group heath division" was the major client of "Devel-Prop's" principal JJ.
As of March 31,1987 upon completion of my one year agreement with "Devel-Prop" I resigned due to personal conflicts with owner JJs. The company's overall health, the capability of the office personnel and my implemented procedures had provided the expected performance. My operational duties where now handled by other in-house office personnel and my year-end accounting having been completed I terminated my commitment. I started full-time consulting immediately thereafter, being with Merit Financial.