Suncoast Business Forum; Fred Fisher

Oh. I. Only use a special presentation of W.E. do you Tampa-St. Petersburg Sarasota. What does it take to be the biggest and the best in business. Well for starters what if your parents divorce when you're five years old. At age 8 to help make ends meet. You begin working after school. Then and age 12 you're forced out of your home by foreclosure. At age 17. You drop out of school and get a job unloading box cars. Doesn't sound like a recipe for just success does it. But it was. Find out who went from childhood adversity to become the biggest home builder in America. Up next on the Suncoast business form. In the late 1960s homebuilding was pretty much a local business. That is until a

small group of Tampa Bay businessmen decided to buy up homebuilders around the US and merge them into one big company. That's how U.S. homes were started and quickly became the largest home builder in America. Well one of those men was Fred Fisher a local accountant who became the financial engineer who helped grow U.S. homes from 20 million dollars in revenues to more than one billion in a little over 10 years. Fred welcome to the Suncoast business forum. Thank you. Glad to be here. Now let's go back to those days in the 1980s you were a CPA working here in Pinellas County with a young family and a couple of your clients who were home builders got together and you put together us home small company. How did this all come about. Well like many things it was sort of fortuitous but one of my clients art Rutten Berg went to a home show in Dallas and met a young man by the name of Bob Winterman who really had the vision of taking

what has been an up and down business in many you know urban communities in the nation and put a lot of them together. And perhaps that would take some of the volatility out of the industry and keep in mind that at that point there were not any large builders the largest builder in the in the country was Levit in Levittown doing about 90 million dollars. So Artie came back and said you know this guy women have made a good story. Maybe you ought to go visit is his business which I got in an airplane went to Freehold New Jersey came back and subsequently we went back up there with their investment banker shook hands in July of 68 968. And proceeded then to go into a registration and a merger we added Charlie Rittenberg Art's brother. So at that point it was our Charlie Bob women and I left public accounting and on February 18th 1969 we want effective. And it was then U.S. home corporation. Prior to that Bob had a little company called us home and Development Corporation.

So you all took a leap of faith. Yeah but it you know when we were young enough and we didn't think it was too big a leap. And now over the next 12 years you went from 20 million dollars in revenues all the way up to a billion dollars. You were involved in dozens of mergers and acquisitions. Seven something like that. And you working with Wall Street on a regular basis doing financing and and stock offerings and so forth. What did that period say about Fred Fisher then and what Fred Fisher was to become. Well there was a period of a lot of learning and of course we had we were able to assemble the wonderful board of directors which you know were sort of mentors in that sense like I had enjoyed much of my life some good mentors. You know we had the chairman of the board of Electrolux we had the former chairman of General Motors. We had an investment banker from a very national investment banking firm so I wasn't alone in the financial affairs of that company.

But having set out this strategic plan of acquiring companies doing like a hundred maybe a hundred fifty homes when those were large then and then cut and capitalizing them so that we could grow them to maybe 500 or a thousand homes. You had to go into regular urban areas with a substantial population. And we set out to do that in 19. We went effective in 69 in 1971. We were the second largest offer of equity securities in the nation because we did two different offerings that year six acquisitions each time. So it was an exciting very busy time very little time off but learning and a wonderful opportunity when you think. Coming from Clearwater Florida to be exposed to that opportunity and you are creating an industry that that is large Now the home building industry you are creating that scale. Well that's right and 71 when we went on I think with July the 10th or something on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange but the first hundred shares we were suddenly doing 300 million and

we're the largest Actually at that point I think there was another one or two close to us and it was it was a new industry you know with historically there wasn't any public companies in in housing and so we had an advantage and an opportunity because you know we created things that had never been done on secured. Credit for a home builder was and heard of prior to that. But if you're building sixteen thousand homes you don't want to have every draw inspection you know so it's obvious that we had an opportunity we did our own self-insurance private captive mortgage backed bonds and a lot of fun. Let's back up and let's go back to youthen and let's discuss how your youth and your upbringing may have laid the foundation for the challenges that you were to meet in the years to come. You grew up in Illinois am I right. Julie I don't I you know. Let's talk about growing up in Joliet and your family. Well I didn't have a lot of family but my mom and I from the time I was 5 were together I had an older brother who when they divorced went to live with my dad.

I had next door probably a real asset I had an aunt and uncle and that was sort of it. But he was a good mentor for me and spent some time in and then I had the real advantage of not having a lot so I could go to work. I was a big kid and I went to work cross out I was Ripper stand across the street kitty corner from our house and I had a lank and it was that I just became a real mentor and dear friend later he lived been here and done even he and saidI and I used to take him to dinner and thank him for being part of my life I waited cards got tips got 25 cents an hour. How old were you when you started. Eight years old and then you worked at where Otto's opened in the spring and I helped him set up the signs before we opened a this was a drive and back in those days you know Mariners and takes in the beef pork the hogs sodas and he made his own root beer. I was root beer and it was wonderful it's lasted what four or five years until we you know lost the house and moved on to Chicago.

Anyway I just look back and say I probably would have been taken from my mother if it were two thousand and six. But as it turned out it didn't seem to hurt me and I certainly wasn't abused. You are an idiot but you are a child working at the age of 8 and with a Social Security card and yeah the whole thing goes I had a checking account at 12 so I mean it was I was blessed to be able to do that on many ways you were the man of the house right. Yeah I was a little ma'am. Yeah well you continued to work all throughout your years at school you continue to have a job to my right. Oh yes I learned a lot about. Well of course when I was in Joliet I said I was an intrapreneur you know I raised chickens and sold them in the neighborhood and had a vegetable garden which in 1041 became a victory garden in the war you know where everybody had a victory garden and I would you know sell the vegetables and kill the chickens and put them in and subways been inclined to be busy.

And when we moved to Chicago I I made beds and ran the switchboard in and they. While I can remember the name of the hotel but was on the lake shore. And you know what worked in drug stores I pluck chickens up there too because there was a there and ducks even month holiday. There was a little place down the street there are pay sometimes was getting the duck or a chicken and some vegetables that was the that was the payday but yeah I always had a lot of a lot of fun working. Now your mother lost a home and you know we have to foreclosure. Yeah that was the where I grew up but you know back then they did mortgages that all came to it once and when it came due and she was making like $20 a week and mine didn't count. You know. They wouldn't. No one would would give her a mortgage so we lost the House move to Chicago it was a three story walk up on a block north of Wrigley Field which was another great thing because I could you know I became a crazy dyed in the wool Chicago Cubs fan and we've been waiting

since 1945 for Chyna but I got to know a lot of the Cub players and Charlie Grimm was a man I can give you the whole lineup of for nineteen forty five. Your mother went to Chicago and start all over again. Oh yes she went to work in a bank in doing public relations work. And I was still in school and working. When you are always always work a life you know. Did you have other family around in Chicago where we had my grandmother. And one amp that was a dram at Ruth's who every year until I was very independent would send me a birthday card with a dollar bill later in life she encountered some problems there with one of them a greatest things that I was able to seriously help her out and I told her I'd saved my dollars and they had grown and vested them when they grew. And that's how I was able to give her that help and she was very independent that's the only way she would take it. You know she was a wonderful at that I loved her dearly and she was a lot of fun.

Just you know full of full of mischief you know. And your grandmother was an independent lady as well. At 65 years old she worked in a defense plant more high heels and you know I mean yeah I come from some interesting genes and that's and she was also. She could buy a gross of stockings back and when the family had money years ago and give them away I mean she was just a very charitable lady. Now 1048 you actually quit high school before you graduated. Yeah that was luck too I guess in many respects. I had an English teacher I would go into that was trying to get out of high school in 3 years so I got to summer school and then I got selected go to Boise State in Springfield Illinois which was a minor the only two kids out of the Lake View High School. And so I left early and didn't take the final in English and I needed that English because if I was going to graduate the next semester I couldn't take two courses of English so. The teacher flunked me. And I didn't really worry about it because Alice winter

was the principal and I knew when I got back with He'd fix that somehow. But then he died in the summer so. You know and keep in mind I was 17 and knew everything almost 18. And so I quit and went to Colorado Springs and three four days after I got there I got a job at Weller Lumber Company and. Unloading box cars of 4 by 12 bridge timbers and. Then and after about 6 months of that I. I figured that was not. I was in great shape by then but not the thing to do the rest of my life. And. Then I had an opportunity because my dad whom I had really never known was keeping books and selling insurance and stuff in Joliet So I drove back to Joliet and actually went to work for my dad. You had this little practice and and we worked at it made it work I remember going to work for forty dollars a week you know and and by the time I got drafted which was I guess five years later we had we did substantially better but during that time. I took my weekends and evenings we built a

house really and I dug the foundation and put the plumbing in the wiring back then was galvanized pipe you know you had to thread it. I learned a lot about building. It was ironical the only house I've really ever built was myself was that one but I I mean I back then you didn't have trusses either you know you had a rigid board. And you know planted 10 acres in soybeans even and and had a red Jeep and plowed it and planted it narrowed it. But yeah always busy. Now you were in Joliet for a number of years and then from forty nine till 15 til I got drafted you know drafted you could draft in the early 1950s Right right. Well tell us about your experience in the military. Well that was another wonderful thing. I went to basic training and Fort Leonard Wood and in April May June July and then Clark type of school when there was only like 110 degrees. But I did well there and they sent me to a city Secretarial School in Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana and I was

there with 38 other guys that had all of the graduated or been to college and they were nice people. They were interesting people. And I worked hard and I got graduated number one in my class. And it really built my self esteem. And I said well you know I can compete I might not be as inept as I thought I might have you know we all have those insecurities and I'm not any different. So then of course I got one opportunity to work for. They sent me the number one job they sent me to work for Anthony McAuliffe. That was the general that said nuts at the Battle of the boat so I was in Heidelberg Germany. You know we had the good life there is an enlisted men. And I took a GED course and from the University of Maryland when I was in Heidelberg. And then started writing to universities that when I got out I was going to go back to college and that's changed my life totally in the military was a wonderful thing for me. So as I travel in 23 countries when I was in Europe and had a lot of fun over there too. So you got to see the world. Absolutely got your high school degree while you were serving in the

military. And then you came home. He didn't come home you came to Tampa Florida to go to school on my right. I did I got out early. The earliest I could get out is I found the university that would get me out the night that I was suffering but I wanted to come home for Christmas and by getting out early I got home for Christmas and I started at the University of Tampa. I lived on South Melville Avenue here. About three months to three months after I got back. The lady that I had met Donna right before we went to Europe on a vacation in Naples. We'd had three four five dates and she called and we ended up getting married in April of that same year so I was two months in school. And but after about a year and a half I ran out of accounting professors at Tampa because they were only two and transferred to the University of Florida and spent a year and a half there so I was in and out of school in three years but by that time I had two children. So I went to work with the with Darby Darby in Oldham which was the local accounting firm.

Still one of the partners has passed away the other two. I'm still in touch with. Him after a year I've got fortunate I guess I took the CPA exam in May of 59 and got the high grades in that pool I guess people to think of maybe I knew more than I did so that I was a partner there after about a year and a half. And and had a wonderful learning experience. And then 66. For whatever reason you know I guess they thought I was worth more than I was earning in my partnership so I said I would leave January 3rd of 66. So I left a couple of the other partners called me later that night and they left too. So we formed another partnership called Fisher Morris and company and and that's what I was where I was practicing when I met the opportunity with Bob and through Arthur Rosenberg and started us on 69.

Well you had sort of been an entrepreneur all your all your life growing up. You'd gone to work first for a CPA firm in Tampa. He then became a partner and then shortly thereafter went out on your own. How is it now as an adult with the responsibility of growing client base to to be on your own as as as an entrepreneur or did did you anticipate that it would go on to become something. It's a very substantial over time. I've always been surprised with the good things that have happened but keep in mind I was I was raising chickens when I was eight so I mean I've kind of had that been through but no if to be honest when I left the University of Florida I can remember as a boy if I could ever just make ten thousand dollars a year I'd be in high cotton. You know I went to work for $80 a week. Sixty nine which is what you know five thousand a year. And we live that two kids course I taught at the University of Tampa also at that time for a couple of years a couple dance tax course and something to make a little extra gain. But it always worked out

better than I thought. And I wish I could say I had the master plan the only thing I really knew is that I wanted to be a CPA. And that was because I met a CPA that I admired when I was keeping books there in Joliet Illinois. And then there weren't many CPA is around. You know I have certificate number twelve hundred and ten or something like that. And when I went to work for Darby dar you know to me each of those partners had certificates in the low for hundreds. So it was not unlike the later US own was a young industry the county was a young professional at that. But it was only a short number of years that you had your own accounting firm and then various U.S. homes opportunity developed and you change gears completely. Three years a little over three years. Do you have trepidation about giving up this career that you train yourself for and all of a sudden now or in the homebuilding business. Yeah I did because I had considered that with with the regular brothers actually over a year or so earlier they wanted me to come to work with them. And I almost agree but I couldn't do it. So then when this

opportunity presented itself it was difficult. I like the profession. I still do. Now U.S. homes as we've discussed you built it up into a billion dollar business and at the height of its success in 1900 you left. How did you decide at this point a billion dollar a year company. It was time to go. Well. I never really had always said to myself You gotta ask and somebody told me this is nothing by the way whatever. Nothing original with me I copy everybody. But they said you got to ask yourself every once in while how much is enough. And I asked myself how much was enough and 1980 and. And I had enough and. Money. And so I said I really need to do what I've always wanted to do and that is to buy a boat and go boating. So in December thirty first of 80 I left you. By then we had moved the company to Euston and we do that in 79 I agreed to stay that last one year.

I did that and I bought a big boat and then spent about 18 months living on it in the islands. After a while you know you know only fish and snorkel and boat so much and I mean a personality. So. I sold the boat and went looking for something to do. And since then you've been involved in a number of enterprises. If I if I were to ask you what it what is your vocation What would you say. What do you do for a living. Well you know if somebody asked me that recently so I kept track for a week but. But if I enjoy helping people. All right. But yet you know you've got a talent I'm able to somehow make things happen so when a few of these business opportunities presented themselves and I've been involved in three business and since I quit they were all bankrupt situation and spent six to nine months with each of them and all of them

became turned into a lot of money but I did not keep any of it I've donated it all to my favorite charities but it's all gone to charity. So I guess that's what I do to help people and the best I can and as long as I've got that ability I think I have an obligation. I've heard you on occasion say that if you were to describe yourself you'd say you're a banker. Well yeah I like that term because it's an attention getter and it's always parallel that with the I've been a good friend and I started a drug rehabilitation program 15 years ago where we deal with about 200 and 80 kids who would otherwise be in prison and we have had remarkable success with that. So when I want to talk about my drug rehabilitation. Bent charity I always say It's my drug deal. Well when I say my drug deal boy gets attention or when I say I'm a beggar it gets attention. You know I would say well I've got that organ grinder you know where the monkey

human. But it's try to have a little fun put people at ease. And I hate to ask for money. I really do. I think everybody does. But it's like I share with my friends and my children you have to do some things in life you don't like in order to properly invest and pay for all of that wonderful 90 percent of the time good things that happen to you. Well you hate to ask for money yet your alma mater University of Florida asked you to head up the capital campaign the goal was 200 million dollars and you raised we raised 400. That was interesting because one of these bankrupt things had been worked out to provide about seven million dollars and I know they had asked me for a three million dollar donation and I after I picked myself up off the floor I said if I gave you three million dollars I would have to go back to work in. But this opportunity presented itself and I took on this bankruptcy situation in a development of

seven million dollars and so I gave it to the university which was more than it asked for. But the president blame the school of accountancy after. Yeah. You know a marshal cries or was the president and he called me into his office one day and he says we the public universities in the state of Florida never had a capital campaign. We're going to have one and you're going to be the chair. I said No no he says No yes he says if you if you don't take the chairmanship of this capital campaign I won't take the money. I like to tell the story. So we always we argued and we fought and we compromised I took the job he took the money. But it worked out well if we got a lot of people worked on that campaign Don't get me wrong but I traveled the country and visited with a lot of I met a lot of wonderful people and and they gave us a lot of dollars lot about Rs 400 million. And that changed the giving culture in the state of Florida. The public universities I believe because heretofore had been sort of thought of was a tax base taxpayer base. But if you're going to become a preeminent university and as Marshall used to say. Florida should have

several preeminent universities. But first we must have one and we have made that the University of Florida at this point got a couple minutes left. You have several guiding principles that direct or direct you and they you share with other people one of one of the one of your ideas is the 85 15 rule. Explain that. Well that you know there's a little card my kids gave me my sixty fifth birthday and it's got a bunch of things but the 85 15 is again something that I learned elsewhere but assume when you meet someone they have 100 things in their persona. If you find someone that you like 60 of their things and don't like 40 you can become friends. If you find someone that you like 85 of their things and don't like 15 you can fall in love and get married but there's three important things. Remember that you have 15 Things to. That they don't like. So concentrate on the 85 things you do and

put the 15 in a box on the shelf and if the box ever falls off put it back on the shelf quickly. Concentrate on the 85 and if you third thing if you believe this theory. Find someone to marry that agrees with you in the stick and it does you know I have lot of fun when we disagree on something or I don't like I say that's when you're 15 or now you've got 16. You know we joke about it and I think that's. Works in life you know because you'll never meet anyone that you like everything or you'll never do anything that you like everything about it. And that's sorta like asking for money that's one of the 15 things I don't like. You know but that's mighty 515 and I think it works. Well Fred I'm afraid RAF time has passed quickly. It does and it's been great and we could go all out long and I want to thank you for being our guests. And I'd like to thank you for joining us on the Suncoast business farm.