Vol 1 Issue 4 May 2007
Bard Center Alumni Association - The Entrepreneurship Council
Hosts Guest Speaker Chad McWhinney and Panel Discussion Event
|
| |
|
When you picture one of the most successful real estate developers in northern Colorado, you might expect someone with a little gray in their hair. Think again with Chad McWhinney. At the ripe old age of 34 he has transformed the landscape of Larimer and Weld Counties with his signature residential and commercial property developments.
Chad spoke to a packed house at the February 21st meeting of the Bard Center Entrepreneurship Council. He had plenty to talk about, from managing the nearly half-million square feet of restaurant, retail, and entertainment space at his flagship Centerra development to residential projects at Van de Water and Eagle Ridge.
Instead, Chad chose to speak about the indispensable role that vision plays in entrepreneurship. It was a fitting topic; even though his presentation overlapped with the Bard Center’s Real Estate for the Entrepreneur class, much of the audience was there simply to hear about how a strawberry salesman from Southern California came to be one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in Colorado.
“I started my strawberry business in 1990, straight out of high school,” Chad began, “and two years later, in the midst of a bad recession, I was $120,000 in debt.” Faced with financial ruin, Chad took his father up on an offer to take over a piece of land the family owned in Loveland.
“My dad had one condition before he sold the land to me – that I stay in northern Colorado and become part of the community.”
This wasn’t just any piece of land, mind you. This was the intersection of Highway 34 and I-25, which is now straddled by several McWhinney projects – Centerra and the Promenade Shops (with the million-square foot Grand Station at Centerra due to break ground any day). In the early 1990s it was just another I-25 exit surrounded by farmland. To Chad, it reminded him of Southern California in the '70s.
“It looked like some of the country I knew as a kid in California, land that would later sell at a premium once residential and commercial development reached it.” Colorado was still shaking off a recession and the savings and loan fiasco of the late 1980s, but when the good times inevitably returned to the Front Range, Chad knew he would have some valuable real estate. He and his brother Troy began to quietly purchase more lots around the intersection until they owned most of what would become Centerra.
Troy and COO Doug Hill handle most of the company’s day-to-day operations, whereas Chad prefers to focus on the big picture. An avid reader, he brought copies of his favorite leadership literature to the presentation, among them Good to Great, Jim Collins’ runaway bestseller on company management. Employing everything from JFK quotes to kinetic energy equations, McWhinney emphasized that “alignment is everything – aligning your goals to your vision and your people to your goals.”
Chad’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? It’s all summed up in his company logo – the infinity sign. “Bring your dream,” Chad advised the crowd, “and anything is possible.”
Alumni Association Holds its first Panel/Networking Event
The Bard Center Entrepreneurship Council (the Bard Center Alumni Organization) held their first ever panel discussion/networking event, The Business Survival Series. The tremendously successful event took place April 4th at the Denver Athletic Club. Mark McIntosh of 9 News and Colorado and Co. and six amazing panelists gave inspiring personal accounts relating to the evening’s topic,
 |
Building Momentum in Year 2. The Panelists: Kate Craigmile, Event Sponsor and Partner at Bennington Johnson Law, Michael Godart, VP of Operations, Extended Presence, Dave O'Brien, Entrepreneur in Residence, Bard Center for Entrepreneurship, Shawn Hansson, Founder & CEO, Logic Integration, Will Matthews, Founder & CEO, Second Wind Performance, Sue E. Goodin, CEO, Progressive Health Center. For more information about The Bard Center Entrepreneurship Council or to stay apprised of our second in the Business Survival Series Fall 2007 visit denverentrepreneurs.com.