ATLANTA (Dec. 28, 2011) - Like most boys who grew up in the 1970s, I collected baseball and football cards. My prized possession was a mint-condition Ernie Banks rookie card. My complete set of the Super Bowl-winning 1982 Redskins team was cool, too.
Now I collect commercial real estate (business) cards. And I have some very cool ones.
As a reporter covering CRE for more than a dozen years, I got to meet and interview several industry legends including Sam Zell, Julien J. Studley, Edward S. Gordon and Roger Staubach.
I'll start with Staubach. I hated him for several years for ruining many Sundays at the Wilbert household in Silver Spring, Md. But when I got the opportunity to interview him in 1997, I jumped at it. Just before autographing a Redskins hat for me, Staubach said he got into commercial real estate because he needed to supplement his NFL salary.
“They weren’t paying football players the way they do today,” Staubach told me in a 1997 interview for Atlanta Business Chronicle. “So, I decided I had better work during the off-season.”
Being in Dallas – home to commercial real estate legends Trammell Crow, Henry S. Miller, Mack Pogue and others – Staubach naturally was drawn to commercial real estate. He began his career at Henry S. Miller Co.
Commercial real estate soon got into Staubach’s blood. “I liked it and stuck with it,” he said.
CRE got into my blood, too, so I hold onto a lot of business cards. More cards and star-sighting stories to come, so check back soon.
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