COVER FEATURE: 2005 NAR President

BY STACEY MONCRIEFF

How to do it all
A man in full
Growing the business
Essential Mansell

Family Man
Al Mansell believes in the value of hard work—and stopping to smell the roses.

Of all the titles that Al Mansell has achieved—CEO of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage of Utah, president of the Utah State Senate, and now president of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®—none is more important to him than those of husband and father.

In Mansell’s estimation, it’s a strong family that makes the rest possible. That’s why the 2005 NAR president has embarked on a campaign that effectively expands the association’s mission. NAR has always made members’ business success its core reason for being. Now with a new “FamilyTime” DVD introduced at the REALTORS® Conference & Expo in November, the association is focused on helping its members—and their customers—succeed in their personal lives, too. The program, created in the 1970s by an insurance industry group, was recently updated with the help of NAR and is now available for REALTORS® to buy for their own use or as gifts to clients and customers.

At the REALTORS® Conference, Mansell officially took the reins of NAR, the world’s largest professional organization with more than 1 million members. Not surprisingly, his inaugural was attended by a large family contingent—his wife, five siblings and their spouses, eight children and their spouses, and all 22 grandchildren. Mansell has many goals over the coming year, particularly on long-standing legislative and regulatory issues, such as the drive to keep large banking conglomerates out of real estate. But helping members bring their family life into harmony has a special meaning for him. “Each of us has the power to be successful personally and professionally—but I believe we all have to start with a strong foundation,” Mansell says.

It’s something he learned in his youth: If you don’t win at home, you don’t win. “I believe it’s the right time to share this message with our members,” he says. “The real estate business has had record years, just incredible success. It’s nice if you’ve made lots of money in the business, but is your life better?”

If the answer is no, that’s what “FamilyTime” aims to remedy, with ideas for bringing family life back into focus. The program isn’t just for those in traditional families. “I realize a lot of people in our society don’t fit into that category today,” Mansell says. Rather, it’s for all those who want to strengthen their personal support network.

There’s a business benefit, too, he says, recalling one top producer at his company whose production suffered after his family life disintegrated. “I strongly believe if things are working for you at home, you’ll be better in your business,” he says.

How to do it all
There’s more than a little paradox in Al Mansell. He cherishes family but admits he’s not the sentimental sort. He’s soft-spoken but not soft; in a confrontation, he’ll say exactly what’s on his mind. Still, he respects others’ opinions. “In the end, issues are just issues; people matter more,” he says. Above all, he has the ability to put business first when necessary. Margurite, his wife of nearly 40 years, say he was always driven to succeed. “It was one of the things that attracted me to him—his work ethic.”

That work ethic was shaped early. Mansell was one of six children raised in a middle-class Salt Lake City neighborhood. His father, part owner of a paint business, had a serious heart attack at age 50. Mansell was 12 years old. “At that point, my dad began teaching me how to take care of the house—feed the coal furnace, make repairs,” he recalls. Just before Mansell turned 15, his father died. His mother still had five children at home. From that point on, Mansell supported himself, working at the paint store after school and painting on the side.

In 1963, after he’d graduated from high school, Mansell left Salt Lake City on a church mission to Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Contrary to conventional wisdom, mission work isn’t required of members of Mansell’s Mormon faith, but it was something he’d long wanted to do. “It was one of the most fulfilling times of my life,” he says. “I saw lives changed.”

Meanwhile, his older brother had joined the paint business. So when Mansell returned to Salt Lake City in 1965, he went to work in the business and enrolled in the University of Utah. Three months later, he married Margurite, his high school sweetheart.

Mansell’s goal was to get a degree in business administration that he could put to use in the paint business. But sales weren’t exactly robust in Salt Lake City’s West Valley, a not-yet developed area where Mansell was trying to establish a new branch. It was time to move in a new direction, so he decided to give real estate sales a try. His knack for getting deals done made him a natural. “Some people are turned off by negotiation. I like it,” he says. In the first month, Mansell doubled what he’d made in the paint business. He was on his way.

In the early years, Mansell continued to paint in the evenings with his brothers, Kent and Dave. He remembers painting one 88-unit apartment building, often going until 2 a.m. to complete the work. What drove him? “When I returned from my mission, I had zero money,” he says. What he did have was a new wife and a growing family to support. “There was no one in my life I could call and say, ‘Can I borrow a couple thou?’ So I had a real need to ensure the financial security of my family.”

His only regret: He was never able to finish his degree. There’s some consolation, he says, in the fact that all eight of his children have completed college, three on sports scholarships.

Despite his long work hours, his children remember him being around a lot—“but often on the phone,” says youngest daughter, Kara—and being the parent who most enjoyed cooking. Margurite says he was always there when she needed him and always willing to participate in household chores.

The secret to Mansell’s ability to do it all is that he doesn’t try to do it all himself. “I’m not afraid to delegate responsibility,” he says. “I’m willing to let people make mistakes; I’m also willing to let them pay the consequences. That’s my leadership style. I was not one of the bosses who met with the manager every week to find out what the sales numbers were. I hired people and I said, ‘Get this job done.’”

Case in point: Mansell realizes he’ll have very little time during his NAR presidency to promote the “FamilyTime” DVD. He’ll call on state and local leaders to help spread the word. Meanwhile, he’ll devote his energy to what he does best—working through issues. There are two in particular that have his attention this year.

First, he wants to bring a successful end to the campaign to keep big banking conglomerates out of real estate. It’s an issue that’s been boiling since late 2000 when the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve first floated their proposal to allow large national banks into real estate brokerage and management. Mansell says he’s “extremely frustrated” over the prolonged battle. “It’s critical that we maintain the first point of contact in the transaction,” he says. “If we lose the battle, we’ll lose that position.”

Second, for precisely the same reason, he wants to shine a spotlight on the issue of data ownership. Brokers need to recognize that data is precious, their stock-in-trade, he says. Non–real estate companies that seek to wrest control of that data—whether by displaying listing information online or building prospective customer lists to sell—also challenge practitioners’ position as the first point of contact. “If you allow someone else to attract your customers, only to sell those customers back to you for a fee, you need to think long and hard about whether that’s in your best interest,” he says.

In working through these and other issues, Mansell says he’ll be cognizant of one overriding factor: Consumers come first. “If a policy hurts competition,” he says, “if it’s consumer unfriendly, it’s a bad decision.”

Also on his plate: He’ll appoint the committee to select a replacement for NAR’s retiring executive vice president and CEO, Terry McDermott, who led the association through more than seven years of unprecedented growth and prosperity.

A man in full
NAR’s new president is a man of uncommon influence, having served in the Utah State Senate for 10-and-a-half years and presided over that body as Senate president for four. Mansell is a man who can call a member of Congress, or even the White House, and get a call back. He served on the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and knows the committee’s CEO (now Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney as a personal friend. Sitting in his Utah Senate office one day in late summer, Mansell got a call from state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Shurtleff, who was running for re-election (a contest he won), sought Mansell’s advice before giving an interview to local reporters. Mansell asked a lot of questions, offered an opinion, and returned to an interview of his own.

Mansell’s foray into politics wasn’t by his own design. “My life isn’t planned,” he chuckles. “But I do look for and take advantage of opportunities.”

Others often seem to put those opportunities in his path. In 1990 Mansell served as president of the Utah Association of REALTORS® and subsequently chaired the state association’s Legislative Committee, getting to know many Utah legislators. In 1993 Utah’s Senate President Arnold Christensen confided to Mansell that he’d be leaving office at the end of his term in 1994. Would Mansell run? Mansell said he had no intention of running for public office. He didn’t have to; Christensen retired before his term expired and the governor appointed Mansell to the open seat. Re-election in 1994 was a breeze; he ran with little competition in his largely Republican district.

The Utah Senate convenes only 45 days during the year, but the job of Senate President is never done. There are committee meetings, public appearances, and “10 decisions a day,” Mansell says. Although he’ll keep his Senate seat throughout his NAR presidency, Mansell officially stepped down as Senate president on Dec. 31. Among the Senate’s 22 Republicans and seven Democrats, he’ll be remembered as a unifier. “Al is a man of great integrity and great leadership,” says Utah Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich. “His word is his bond.”

Growing the business
If Mansell’s political instincts are good, his business instincts are pure gold. Yet he’s amused by the suggestion that he’s particularly gifted at business management. “I’m still not sure I know how to run a profitable business,” he laughs. But the fact remains that he and younger brother Dave built Mansell & Associates into the largest independent real estate brokerage in the state—with more than 600 sales associates—before selling it to NRT Incorporated in July 2001. That’s when the name was changed to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

Selling the business wasn’t easy. The name change was hardest of all. “It was like losing my baby,” he says. But with his Senate duties continuing, the NAR presidency looming, and real estate prices soaring, Mansell realized the time was right.

The picture wasn’t always so rosy for Mansell. Back in 1975, when Mansell & Associates was incorporated, 80 percent of the company’s business was with builders. But with inflation running 15 percent, builders were losing their shirts and Mansell realized he needed to expand his resale business. He became a Realty World franchisee and grew the business to more than 70 associates.

By 1979, he was running one of the largest brokerages in Salt Lake City. But that’s when interest rates began their precipitous climb. The federal funds rate, the borrowing cost for banks, climbed more than three percentage points in 1979. By 1981 the rate was 16.39 percent, and lenders were charging 19 percent mortgage interest rates. He remembers going home one night in the early 1980s and telling Margurite there might not be a paycheck that month.

He did manage to bring home a check, but in 1982 he cut ties with Realty World, which was draining too much profit, and restructured the business. He took the sales force from 70 to 40 and consolidated three offices into one. He also rebranded the company. The new upscale image enabled him to survive and thrive through nearly a decade of high rates. Throughout those years, Mansell stayed in residential real estate. But he started a separate commercial company with two partners—Russell Booth, who went on to serve as NAR’s 1997 president, and Doug Richards, who served as 2000 president of the Council of Residential Specialists, an NAR affiliate. The commercial company was also bought by NRT in 2001.

Mansell’s brother Dave, who entered real estate in 1970 and bought into the business in 1978, is now president and chief operating officer of the NRT-owned company, overseeing 16 offices around the state and more than 1,200 sales associates. Al Mansell’s oldest son, Jeff, runs a title company. Another son, Darren, followed Mansell into residential sales and was recently named Salesperson of the Year by the Salt Lake Board of REALTORS®.

With the company in good hands, Mansell has few day-to-day responsibilities with the business. But he’s hardly slowed down. He remains an active citizen of his community, raising funds for Salt Lake Community College and chairing the Utah Sports Commission, which brings professional and amateur sporting events to the state. He’s also a trustee of Intermountain Health Care, the largest provider in the state. And his Senate term continues until Dec. 31, 2006.

After that, Mansell says, his plans are unclear. All he knows for sure is that he’ll have more time for his favorite leisure-time activities—golf, cooking, gardening, and of course, spending time with his grandchildren. It takes him a while, but Mansell can name them all.

Essential Mansell

L. Alma Mansell, CRB®, was born Jan. 23, 1944, in Salt Lake City.

Business
Mansell, a REALTOR® since 1969, is CEO of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Salt Lake City. He’s also a member of the Utah State Senate.

His Heroes
“There’s not really one person but many,” he says. “I admire people who didn’t come to success through privileged status but had to work hard and maybe got kicked around a few times.”

Key roles in the REALTOR®organization
2003 NAR first vice president; 2001 NAR vice president and liaison to committees. Has also served on the Finance and Executive committees and was the 1998 chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and 1992 regional vice president for Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Mansell has been an NAR director for 16 years. He was 1990 president of the Utah Association of REALTORS® and 1983 president of the Salt Lake Board of REALTORS®.

Honors
1985 Utah REALTOR® of the Year; 1987 Salt Lake City REALTOR® of the Year. 1992 President’s Award, Utah Association of REALTORS®. 2004 Leadership Award, Real Estate Advocacy Group for States. Honorary doctorate, Salt Lake Community College. Mansell has also been named legislator of the year by various groups and, this year, received the Distinguished Service Award from the Utah association.

MR. SENATOR
NAR President Al Mansell also serves as a state senator in Utah and was president of the Utah Senate before stepping down Dec. 31 to assume his NAR duties.