A reminder that life is short

Maybe it’s fitting to post this on September 11.

Sorrowfully, we’ve had a couple great clients pass away this year. We’ve managed property for Sainsbury Strack & his wife for over twenty years. He would call from time to time, almost always when there was a problem. His respectful, yet terse, comments always made us feel like we wanted to show him we could do better. His demeanor and way of speaking to each of us made picking up his phone call a pleasure. And, the way he and his wife treated residents in their spectacular buildings was consistent with the way he always acted–respectfully. The story told at his service about him showing up as a Boeing Manager in the 60’s on a warm summer day in a coat, tie, knee high socks, dress shoes, and shorts–as worn in his home country of New Zealand–was precious. He’ll be missed and we learned a lot from Sainsbury–thank you.

Dave Keyser was the same way. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the pleasure of working with him for as long as Sainsbury. Always a morning person who answered the phone “Keyser here”, he had a marvelous way of finding what seemed to be fair and reasonable ground with the commercial tenants in his building. As much as anybody, he understood the value of a phone call or in-person meeting and had a great way of making other people feel valued.

We LOVE working with people like this–our business is based on the people we work with. We learn from them and strive to do better through these learnings–they’ll be missed.