Following Dan Shoevlin’s recent appointment as a partner at UCR, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with him and Mickey Ashmore, the company’s president and CEO. What makes the move especially interesting is that Shoevlin was Ashmore’s first hire at Hopkins Shafer Co. back in the mid-1980s. At the time, Ashmore had been in his new role—and in the commercial real estate industry—for just about a month. The former schoolteacher jokes that he “didn’t even know what square foot meant.”
Founded in 1983, Hopkins Shafter Co. had a somewhat brief but glorious run. It was dissolved in 1991, with partners Mike Hopkins forming Hopkins Commercial Real Estate and Steve Shafer launching Shafer Property Co. Ashmore joined UCR as president, going on to take ownership of the firm in 1997. Shoevlin, meantime, joined Henry S. Miller Cos. to lead its commercial retail group. He moved over to UCR in 2009.
Shoevlin and Ashmore both count Hopkins and Shafer as critical mentors in their careers, so we brought them into the conversation as well. It was a lively discussion—at times raucous—as the four close friends reminisced about their time together in the business and the changes they’ve seen over the years.
D REAL ESTATE DAILY: So Mickey, I know from the profile we did on you in D CEO that you started your real estate career when you joined Hopkins Shafer in the mid-1980s.
MICKEY ASHMORE: That’s right. Mike and Steve hired me to be their sales manager, and the first guy I hired was Dan. I liked him because he was blue collar. He grew up in Chicago, not Highland Park. That’s the East Dallas mentality—we always had a chip on our shoulders. (The first of many rounds of group laughter breaks out.)
DRED: So Mike and Steve, how did the two of you start working together?
STEVE SHAFER: I worked at Henry S. Miller Co. with Mike. We were neighbors, meaning our offices were next to each other. Mike was in charge of all of retail development with Mr. Miller. I was a retail broker. I made a lot of leases and filled up a lot of centers the company owned.
MIKE HOPKINS: He leased more than anyone else, like 90 percent. He blew everyone out of the tub.
DRED: What was your secret to success?
SHAFER: I loved what I was doing. I absolutely loved it, and still do.
HOPKINS: And he worked his butt off. He’d show space at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning, if that’s what the client wanted.
SHAFER: Both of us worked hard and both of us were there all the time, and we became close friends. I started at Miller in the beginning of 1972. Mike started in 1970.
ASHMORE: He’s the oldest guy in the room, but we’re not far behind.
DRED: When did you guys leave Miller?
SHAFER: I was there for just under 10 years. Mike and I both kind of left at the same time and formed our own firm, Hopkins Shafer Co., in 1983. We had 10 to 15 deals going together by the time we left, so the timing was good. Not long after we left, the market just caught fire.
DRED: Did you keep your same roles in the new firm?
SHAFER: Mike primarily handled development; he has a developer’s mentality. I brokered stuff. Mike didn’t really care about brokering deals; he either wanted to own something or didn’t want to own it. So we started out as a brokerage company, and we were a darn good one. We had 15 to 20 brokers at one point and we were pretty much dominating. But we decided to shift the focus to our own properties, and got out of the (third-party) brokerage business.
DRED: And how did it happen that you brought —a guy with zero real estate experience—into the fold?
SHAFER: Well, we were doing well, but Mike’s a perfectionist, and always wanted us to do better. He kept saying, “We need to find someone who knows sales. Like IBM-quality sales.” He wanted to improve our processes. Mickey and I were fraternity brothers at the University of Arkansas, and he’d call me from time to time. He was interested in Casa Linda—he loved East Dallas, and we’d have lunch and talk. He was very outgoing—he had been the rush chairman of our fraternity—and was an extremely sharp dresser. He was so interested in Casa Linda—I thought maybe I could do a lease with him.
ASHMORE: It all comes out now!
SHAFER: So, we kept getting together, and I started seeing his potential, and what I remembered of his management skills as rush chairman. So one day I said, “Mike, you’ve got to meet this guy. I think he might be what you’re looking for.” At the time, Mickey was a school teacher. But we made him the head guy—the sales manager!
DRED: What made you decide to do that?
HOPKINS: He came cheap!
ASHMORE: That’s true!
HOPKINS: Besides that, Mickey was an obvious salesman. He was very enthusiastic, and I thought that enthusiasm would rub off on some of the younger brokers we had, and that’s exactly what happened.
MAKING REAL ESTATE A PROFESSION
ASHMORE: One thing that impressed me about you guys was … you made real estate a profession. Mike was a perfectionist, and he and Steve didn’t want to do anything unless it was the very best quality, from their company’s office to the buildings they built … the persona and aura they created—and the advertising in D Magazine; no one else had done anything like that.
SHAFER: Mike said, if we’re going to advertise, we’re either going to be on the back cover or inside front cover a far-forward, right-hand-read in D Magazine.
ASHMORE: But why D Magazine? To me, that’s the interesting part. Everyone else was buying space in real estate rags. You were focusing on the (end) market.
HOPKINS: Well, when we first started, we were competing with four or five other real estate developers. Most people in our business knew Steve or me or both of us, but the public didn’t know us. That’s why we bought space in D Magazine and the Dallas Morning News. We spent about $1 million on advertising that first 18 months or first year.
SHAFER: We tried to co-brand with names like Norman Brinker and Chili’s and Sound Warehouse, companies that chose Hopkins Shafer Co.—clients and tenants of ours. And it worked.
ASHMORE: The lasting impression it had on me, personally, was I saw how effective they were. People in the market really looked up to Hopkins Shafer Co., everything we did, even down to the holiday parties held by the company. And it resonated with the people in the firm. For me, it helped shape what I wanted to try to create at my own company. I believed in what they were doing and how they thought about things. It created a sense of pride, and we had a blast.
HOPKINS: Our first Christmas party was at the Mansion on Turtle Creek.
ASHMORE: The other thing I’ll say about these guys, is they were amazing, amazing jokesters. They had a lot of fun, and often at my expense. But they also had the ability to motivate us. We would try very hard to do anything for them. When I look back on things I was able to do, it’s because Steve and Mike were such great motivators.
DRED: So, Mickey, you were there for about five years or so. And, Dan, you were Mickey’s first hire? How did you get into the business?
DAN SHOEVLIN: I went to TCU and stayed here after college. I had some friends who were in real estate, and they were doing well. At the time here in Dallas, there were three big companies: Henry S. Miller, Trammell Crow Co., and Lincoln Property, and a bunch of boutique companies. Of the boutique firms, Mike and Steve’s company, because of the advertising and the people they worked with and the projects they did, I felt was the most revered. Mike came from Henry S. Miller and handled their development business; Steve was their top broker for years, and Mickey—he was by far the best salesman I had ever met, and that holds true to this day. Just to be able to be around these three guys and be a sponge, it was a great opportunity. And the office was just hopping all the time. You could just smell the deals, and you wanted to be a part of it.
ASHMORE: A lot of guys at UCR have been influenced by these two men. Dan and I and Jack Breard (president and partner of UCR Urban) got our start at Hopkins Shafer Co., and others worked with Mike and Steve at Miller, like Thurston Witt and Jack Gosnell. There are a lot of little things we all do that go back to those days. Dan, just the other day, said something Steve always used to say: “Don’t dilly dally with a deli deal.” And Mike, he could intimidate you with just a look, and scare the hell out of you.
SHOEVLIN: Oh, yeah.
ASHMORE: But you loved them and they meant the world to you, and you didn’t want it to end. Market forces change, and things happen. But the legacy carries on all over.
SHOEVLIN: We’d do things after hours, too; we’d go to the State Fair every year. We became a big family.
SURVIVING THE REAL ESTATE CRASH
ASHMORE: The thing I don’t know is coming across as we sit here, is how good Mike and Steve were at what they did. We all know what happened when the real estate market crashed and the world came to an end. But these two guys fought hard to keep all their properties and keep everything intact. It was always about doing the right thing, and it was admirable to watch the way they handled it.
SHOEVLIN: In retrospect, it was a good time to learn the business. I was just out of college and didn’t need a lot to live on.
ASHMORE: When we started leasing, we didn’t know enough to know how bad it was. We just cold-called, going door to door. We would sit for hours and go through any kind of use we could think for certain spaces, then we’d go through phone books.
SHAFER: That’s where Mickey made it a science. Instead of just answering the phone, he’d identify different uses and users and go after them.
ASHMORE: We studied every strip center of 15,000 square feet or less, and every use in them. We tried to think it through logically, instead taking of shotgun approach. And one thing we learned—Steve used to beat it into us—is sign calls were like gold. I think it’s one of the biggest expenses a brokerage company had back then. If you don’t treat the sign calls like gold, there’s something wrong with you.
I learned so much from these two guys. Steve’s the most infectious salesperson I’ve ever been around, and I’ve picked up many of Mike’s habits—good and bad! He always knew how to cut to it, and he knew how to make a point when he had to. He wasn’t afraid to say what was on his mind. That’s a lost art. People today are too afraid to say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Mike wasn’t.
‘WHEELBARROWS OF MONEY’
ASHMORE: It’s also interesting to look back at some of the guys that came out of their shop—people like Chris Maguire, who Mike and Steve hired out of college and who went on to build Staubach Retail. I’m quite convinced it was the combination of the two personalities of Mike and Steve that so positively influenced so many others. You don’t often get the chance to work for two of the best in the business, with such different skill sets, at such high levels.
DRED: Steve and Mike, what led each of you to get into the real estate business in the first place?
SHAFER: I didn’t know what I wanted to do, at all. I had no idea. Someone introduced me to Henry S. Miller and I went down there and took a bunch of tests. I wanted a salaried job, I did not want a commission job. That was the last thing I wanted. Herb Weitzman, who was at Henry S. Miller at the time, talked me into being a broker. He told me I had a chance to “make wheelbarrows of money.” I was just out of college, had just gotten married, and that sounded good to me. I saw something good that I liked. The company had an excellent program, and Henry S. Miller Co. was getting pretty big. The more I learned about it, I just loved leasing. You get to go meet people and make leases and get paid. It was fun.
ASHMORE: Here’s another thing they always used to say: “Make a deal, get a check.”
HOPKINS: When I got out of school, I wanted to be in the industrial development business. My dad was in the title business, and I had been around real estate people my whole life. Wayne Swearingen was a family friend. I knew I wanted to build and develop warehouses. But no one would hire me. So I started talking to brokerage companies. After my first meeting with Henry S. Miller, they hired me. I was thinking I was going to go into industrial real estate, but there wasn’t a cubicle available in the industrial area. I asked about office, but they didn’t have any cubicles in there either. So they put me in retail, and that’s all I’ve ever done. But retail real estate has been very good to me.
ASHMORE: How many shopping centers did you develop at Miller?
HOPKINS: Probably about 100 at Miller, grocery-anchored shopping centers, 7-Eleven-anchored centers, and everything in-between. And 100 more since then.
DRED: What have some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry over the years?
SHAFER: It’s getting harder. Lately, more people are coming in to Dallas from out of town. It’s making it harder and harder to get properties.
ASHMORE: The business you guys have evolved into, if you’re not a REIT or a large institution, even on strip centers it’s hard. And on value-add, there are many, many more players today.
SHAFER: There’s so much money pouring into Dallas through the oil business. That’s what’s helping to keep Dallas so strong, unlike other markets, like Detroit and Cleveland. Dallas and Houston and Austin are doing great.
DRED: So, Mickey, let’s talk about Dan’s new role as partner at UCR.
ASHMORE: Well, Dan has been here for about six years now. We always talked about getting back together, but Dan had some clients that had conflicts with ours for a while. For years, we did Blockbuster video.
SHOEVLIN: And I was doing all of Hollywood Video sites.
ASHMORE: But once we got back together … UCR started building our institutional portfolio through the management company, and Dan got on a couple of those accounts, and I realized how much he had learned and grown. Today, there is nobody better at institutional-quality leasing than Dan. He understands the clients’ perspectives, gets the deals done, bundles it, packages it, knows how to qualify everything. A lot of our clients, the Prudentials, the RREEFs, they want Dan on their projects. It got to the point that whenever we’d go out and pitch new business, I would immediately go to Dan. He didn’t even know if he would get the listing, he wasn’t getting paid a salary. But he jumped in. Dan and I spoke the same language, and it all goes back to our time with Mike and Steve.
Well, years ago, UCR created the Jean Smith Award, in honor of Jean Smith, my partner here. If you know Jean, you know he is the most selfless person you’ll ever meet. He will give and give and give and give. Last year, in our partner meeting, we decided that Dan should receive the Jean Smith Award. And then we talked about how we needed to make him a partner in the business. He certainly deserved it. It was a long time coming for him in his career.
SHAFER: Dan is a recognized professional; everyone in the industry knows him and has tremendous respect for him.
SHOEVLIN: Well, my three mentors are all here in this room.
ASHMORE: What’s interesting is Mike and Steve understood the value of creating a company’s culture before “culture” became a buzzword in business. We did things like dove hunting in Mexico. We spent time together. They were about culture from day one, to the point where we had to wear white shirts and ties and dark suits. And, by the way, I wore a white shirt in your honor today.
HOPKINS: We had a lot of fun.
ASHMORE: Let me ask you both a question. We’re talking about mentors: How did Mr. Miller (Henry S. Miller Jr.) influence you and your careers?
SHAFER: He was a wonderful man. And he paid attention to everyone individually. He was like an icon. I remember one time I wrote a business letter that apparently didn’t sound very good, because he sent me a book with a note telling me to read it, and it was something like Letter Writing for the Businessman. He watched over us and always gave us great leads—unbelievable leads. He wanted everyone who worked for him to be successful.
HOPKINS: He was a fine gentleman. He pretty much let me do anything I wanted to do. He turned me loose at a real young age. The Miller family and I did very well together and made a lot of money. To this day, I have very warm relationships with the Miller family.
SHAFER: We used to go with Mr. Miller to international shopping center conventions. He had contacts all around the world. And just think of the people who worked for him … Roger Staubach, Gabriel Barbier-Mueller, the list is endless. It was amazing the company Henry S. Miller Jr. built.
HOPKINS: He was the first to encourage people to develop industry specialties and divide real estate services into groups—industrial, retail, office, residential investments, etc. When he started it, that trend was just beginning. He was the first to do it in Dallas, having people become experts in various specialties. This was in the late 1960s early 1970s, when I first got into the business.
SHAFER: He would have Trammell Crow come in and talk to us. The next week it would be John Eulich, then Bobby Folsom, Hank Dickerson … it was unbelievable.
ASHMORE: When you look at real estate in Dallas right now, national leaders for global firms live in Dallas. You’ve got Mike Lafitte at CBRE (chief operating officer) and you’ve got John Gates at JLL (president). And just think about how many people in executive roles around the country have come out of Dallas. It’s such a deep market for sophisticated commercial real estate talent, and it has always been that way.
SHOEVLIN: Well, when you’ve been in the business as long as we have, and are still in business, that means we’ve one something right. And we must still love it.
ASHMORE. That we do!
