Walter J. Conn
Title: Chairman and Chief Executive
Born: Cleveland; 1934
Company: Charles Dunn Co.
Education: B.A. in history, University of Santa Clara, 1955
Career Turning Point: Receiving
property management assignment in 1978 from Weingart Foundation, which included 4,000 hotel rooms and 12,000 apartments
Most Influential People: Brother Paul Conn; the late Harry Hamm, who persuaded him to take a Dale Carnegie class; Sol Price, who assigned the Weingart properties to him
Personal: Lives in San Marino with wife Donna. Children are Walter F. Conn, 42; Patrick Conn, 40; Eileen Conn, 36 – all of whom work at the company
Hobbies: Travel, good restaurants and investing
For real estate veteran Walter J. Conn, going to work each day is a family affair. Owner of real estate services firm Charles Dunn Co. of downtown Los Angeles, Conn works alongside his three children and older brother Paul, who got him into the business in 1963. Conn bought the company from the Dunn family in 1995 in part because he wanted a place for his children to work together. Dunn long ran the property management division of the company before he acquired it. His focus on family stretches back to his childhood. When growing up in the Pasadena area, he worked odd jobs to help support his parents. He later attended Santa Clara University and then served in the Army, including a three-year stint in Germany. Conn, 75, said he plans to wind down his career, but still enjoys working five days a week out of Charles Dunn’s downtown headquarters. The company has about 300 employees in 10 offices in the Western U.S, and has brokerage, management, finance and construction services departments. When he isn’t working, the San Marino resident travels and plays tennis on his backyard court. From an expansive office with a view of the downtown L.A. street scene, Conn discussed his decision to buy Charles Dunn, his time in the Army and his love of travel.
Question: You work with your three children. You must enjoy that.
Answer: I have my children working here, and I joke about it, but I say when I pay them, they mind me better than when I was just their father. It’s good and also it’s helping them. When you look back at your life, what’s important? Certainly your wife and your family and the friends you have. Here I am helping to train them to have something. They can see what I do – wrong and right. They are a big help. They have their opinions, and they say, “Dad, you didn’t do this right.”
They gang up on you?
It’s not ganging up; they just tell me I’m wrong. My middle son Patrick runs the property management; my son Walter works in lending and in business development; and my daughter, Eileen, runs the L.A. office.
Does it ever get tricky?
I think it’s better to be a good father than a good boss to your children. I see times that I may say, “That’s not the way I’d do it,” but I let them know and I say, “You make the decision.” That way they will grow. Otherwise, they are going to be weak people.
You’ve been with the company for decades. How did you get your start?
I started out with the firm in 1963 when I was 28. I had gotten out of the Army. I had been overseas in Germany. I was in the Army for seven years as an officer, and when I decided to get out my next assignment would have been to Vietnam. I had a brother – Paul, he is still working here – he was in the sales department. So I joined the company and they asked me to set up the property management (department).
What was that like?
Initially they had no property management, so they subsidized me. I put up (for-lease and for-sale) signs and they gave me $100 a month for doing that. Initially it was difficult, talking to people, getting them to do things. I got mostly smaller clients and built it up that way. My brother had purchased a few properties, all apartment buildings. I bought some ownership into it. I would go in and paint some of the apartments myself and hire people. So I learned the plumbing and other things like that. So I knew how buildings were being run, what it took to do it and what it cost.
How did you branch out?
Paul helped me go to night school and take property management courses and legal courses – principals of real estate, lending, things like that – to give me knowledge to help me better do my job. That helped me a great deal.
Were you always interested in real estate?
No. My major in college was history, and so I was originally going to be a teacher. (But) I was thinking when I got out of the service to either go into real estate, because my brother was in it, or to go into the stock brokerage business. And I decided on real estate because I had some help there.
Tell me more about your college days.
I was at Santa Clara on a football scholarship and what happened was our school dropped football after my sophomore year. I had a few scholarship offers at some other colleges, but I decided to stay at Santa Clara. To stay in shape and work out, I boxed. I boxed light heavyweight and heavyweight. The heavyweight people weren’t as heavy as they are today. I was about 185, 195 pounds. I was there in 1951 through 1955.
Was the scholarship important to you?
We came out to California in 1941. I was 7 years old. My father was in the typewriter business back in Cleveland and at the start of the war he wasn’t able to get the parts, so he decided to just leave. In our family there are six children, and my mother and father got a station wagon and we came out to California and we lived in different places as we grew up. Mostly we were in the Pasadena area – South Pasadena, San Marino. My father wasn’t in too good of health when we came out here so as kids we were doing different things.
Like what?
I remember at 11 years old I had a job in one of the drugstores washing dishes on a Saturday morning, but that only lasted three weeks until they found out how old I was. I also set pins at a bowling alley, delivered newspapers; when I was in high school, I delivered big bundles on corners for people to sell.
Did you join the Army right after college?
I took ROTC and two months after I was out I got orders to enter the Army. I went through officers’ basic course at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Then I went to a guided-missile school for 10 months. and I learned about electronics and everything else and I enjoyed that very much. From there I was assigned to San Francisco; I became the missile officer in San Francisco. That was 1958, 1959. I was married and I got orders to Germany, so my wife, Donna, and I decided to go to Germany. It was interesting duty there.
What was it like?
We traveled around Germany, saw a lot. My wife is very good at languages; she speaks Spanish, German, French and she became the general’s wife’s translator. That helped me a great deal. He had me play football over there. It was interesting. I also went to some NATO meetings and they gave me radar to test, and we would test it at night to see cars and people walking. I was stationed at a town called Baumholder, near Frankfurt.
Have you applied lessons learned from the Army to the real estate business?
I remember going through some of the courses and one of the officers told us, he was a Marine, and he said, “Look, as an officer it’s 10 percent giving commands and 90 percent following through to make sure they did what you told them to do.” That’s what you learn. You’ve got to keep checking. And also chain of command helped you as an officer; you associated with enlisted people but you didn’t go out drinking with them.
Tell me about some of the lessons you’ve learned.
Once, I was trying to buy a property for a client. This person said we were a commission apart, which meant if I did it, I’d get no money out of it. So the guy said to me, “I’ll give you a commission, but I want you to take my course.” It was the Dale Carnegie (management training course). This person had the West Coast division for Dale Carnegie. It was about $300 and my commission was about $800, so I said, “I’ll take your course.” That course helped me a great deal. I took the course and (it makes) you think in terms of the other person: You don’t try shoving something down their throat. What you do is you find out what they want and help them to do that.
You became a partner at Charles Dunn in 1978. How did that come about?
That was because of the property management. We had some big accounts. One was the Weingart Foundation. Sol Price decided to hire us to run the property management for Weingart. At that time, we took over 4,000 hotel rooms and approximately 12,000 apartment units.
Did you long plan to buy the company?
It was an opportunity. Actually what happened was the Koll Co. made an offer for the Dunn Co. We were over in Berlin for a meeting and Joe Dunn said to me, “Walter, how would you like to retire?” This was in 1994. I said, “I am not interested in doing that.” And he said, “Well we got an offer from the Koll Co.” And I said, “Can I match that offer?” That’s how it came about.
What did you assume would happen if someone else bought it?
I realized I would not have a job with the Koll Co. if they bought this company. And I controlled the property management. So I had the question: Do I take the property management and clients and move someplace else, which there would probably be lawsuits over, or do I stay with the company? And I decided to stay and make this thing work and not have any problems with the Dunns or the clients.
Did you have to dig deep to pay for it?
I bought the company on a little bit of an earn-out. I didn’t have to pay the full price in cash. I paid part down and paid over several years. I had some money; I was able to do that without too much trouble.
How did you feel to go from an employee to an owner?
Somebody asked me, “How do you feel being over all these people?” I said, “Wait a second, my problem is I have to keep these people. So I really work for them in making sure they stay with the company and we are going to accomplish what we should accomplish.” I don’t look at myself as being the general; I look at myself coming in as an adviser, like a coach on a team.
How did you change the company?
They are working Saturdays, Sundays now. No, I am joking. I didn’t change it that much. Except what I did do was try to get people working together more. Because the way a lot of companies work, the sales and leasing is one side and the property management is the other side, and some of the other things are separated also. What I tried doing was mix them.
You personally invest in real estate. Any new projects?
We are developing an industrial building out in the City of Industry. We’ve done part of it already and we are finishing up on the last portion. The total thing will be about 300,000 square feet. We buy real estate so we stay in contact with what is going on in the market. There is no question the economy has slowed.
Has the company had to cut back?
In the sales and leasing it has been more difficult, no question about it. We closed the Long Beach office. It was not doing well and we felt we were better off not having that.
You are an avid traveler. You must have some great stories.
I travel a lot. We first went to China in 1979; I had a brother who lived over there in Taiwan and learned to speak Chinese. We went over there and when Donna came back she went to UCLA and studied Chinese and learned to write Chinese and speak Chinese.
What about big family vacations?
We try doing that once a year. One year we went down to South Africa, and that was interesting. I remember, this was about 10 years ago, you are driving in these cars (on safari), and this tiger jumps up – and my daughter was sitting there – and she almost went through the ceiling.
What’s your next big trip?
I am going over to Austria and Germany in May.
Do you have any hobbies that don’t involve getting on a plane?
I live close to Caltech and I work out there in the mornings. And also tennis, I have a tennis court, that’s something I played a lot of growing up.
Are you planning to slow down?
Yes. I see my children taking over more responsibility. I will be involved I hope for some time – I’m not a golfer and I like what I am doing – to help with the bigger decisions. There is no question you’ve got to slow down. I’m not going to be involved in things like “this wall should be green.”
