When one purchases a company with a legacy of service spanning more than half a century, how does one continue the tradition? By putting together a team up to the task.
Formed in 1953, Walldorf Property Management arose out of the need to provide property management services to customers of the sister brokerage company, Herman Walldorf & Company, established in 1926. For nearly 30 years, the company’s portfolio consisted mainly of Chattanooga houses, duplexes, and other small properties. When George Kangles assumed management of the company in 1982, he streamlined and computerized its operations to allow it to take on larger and more diverse properties.
In 1988, Kangles hired Kirk Kent to manage the firm’s properties. When Kangles passed away in 2011, Kent became the de facto leader of the company. Earlier this year, he made it official when he purchased the company from Rudy and Charlie Walldorf and Kangles’s widow, Ismahen. Work hasn’t felt the same to him since.
“I’m still coming to work every day and doing the same things,” he says. “But it’s exciting knowing I’m now the one making the decisions, rightly or wrongly.”
Kent was born in Dalton, Ga., took business classes in college, and then “got into property management by accident” when an opportunity at Walldorf Property opened up. “I tried advertising and printing, but I wasn’t good at those things,” he says. “I came here, met George, and immediately felt like I was home.”
Although Kent is the sole owner of what’s now called Kent Property Management, he’s not alone in the office. Rather, he’s assembled a team with a wide range of business and property management experience.
One of the first things Kent did as owner of the company was hire Robert Hilton as his director of property services. A Chattanooga native who’s worked across the U.S., Hilton has experience in every phase of commercial and residential real estate. He’s also an experienced businessman, having owned his own property management and mortgage companies, with a broad background in real estate law and investor properties.
Hilton says his long history of networking throughout the Chattanooga area and beyond will help him to grow Kent’s portfolio. “I’ve been in this business a long time, and through that, you make a lot of friends,” he says. “I still have a lot of the great relationships I’ve developed over the years.”
Hilton has also had his eye on the many changes Chattanooga has undergone in recent years, and is thrilled to see new faces coming to town and new projects breaking ground. To reach out to these people and developments, he’s not only been hitting the streets but has also become adept at utilizing social media. “Growing our business is a challenge, but it’s a fun challenge,” he says.
Joining Kent and Hilton is Alan Carmichael, the company’s chief financial officer. Like Hilton, Carmichael grew up in Chattanooga, but unlike his colleague, he didn’t initially pursue a business career. Rather, after graduating from Baylor School, he played professional baseball in the minor leagues for the New York Mets for six years. When he retired from sports, he earned an accounting degree and spent several years working in that field before leaving it to build homes. As the housing market dipped, he dusted off his accounting license and went to work for Kent.
That was a year-and-a-half ago. Since then, Carmichael has improved Kent Property’s services by implementing new accounting procedures and installing new software. “The software has really helped us,” he says. “For example, we’re making our distributions to our property owners quicker.”
Kent credits not the software, but Carmichael, for having a positive impact on the company. “In this business, you need a strong back office,” he says. “That’s why I brought Alan on. Since he’s been here, we’ve been getting fewer and fewer calls from clients about their accounts.”
Rounding out the top four at Kent Property is Cullon Hooks, director of homeowner association (HOA) management and commercial property management. Hooks originally hails from Lynchburg, Va., making him the only member of the team to have been reared outside of Chattanooga. He took his time getting to the Scenic City, too, as he went to college in North Carolina and then worked in South Carolina before moving to Georgia. During his migratory years, Hooks gained experience buying and restoring houses (he has a master’s degree in historic preservation), doing apartment-to-condo conversions, establishing HOAs, managing shopping centers, leasing commercial space, and working with nonprofits.
Hooks was running a flooring installation company in Savannah, Ga., when he and his wife chose to move to Chattanooga. “We were looking for a place with more mountains and four seasons,” he says.
Before coming to Kent Property, Hooks worked himself out of a job by filling his employer’s commercial space with tenants.
Kent is currently servicing 16 HOAs, including Museum Bluffs, a condominium development in downtown Chattanooga, and the Hampton Creek and Hampton Cove neighborhoods in Ooltewah. He likes the variety. “We have everything from highrise condos to two-hundred-plus lot neighborhoods,” he says. “Running each one is like running a small business. Some of them have big budgets; some of them have small budgets.”
Kent says his company has become more competitive in the HOA space since Hooks came on board. “Kangles started off with Signal View on Mountain Creek Road, and he did a phenomenal job of turning that project into what it is today,” he says. “So we learned from him how to manage those, and then Cullon raised the bar.”
Kent, who’s president of his company in addition to its owner, says the team he’s assembled is “phenomenal.”
“When you own a small business, everyone has to do their job, and when someone is out, someone else has to step into that role,” he says. “I have a good team that’s doing just that.”
Hooks says hiring three men who have spent the bulk of their career working for themselves was a risk, but credits Kent’s forward-thinking tactics and effective leadership with making it work. “It was a good move. We all have the entrepreneurial spirit,” he says. “We’ve been there, and we know what running a small business takes.”
With the right team in place, Kent is confident his clients will reap the benefits. “These guys know what it takes to be successful: hard work,” he says. “We’re just like Waffle House. We’re always open.”