WHAT YOU MISSED!
Blog Posting # 651 @ 13 August 2021: EducateMHC
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing!’
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INTRODUCTION: ‘What You Missed’ at the final Networking Roundtable & Retirement Celebration; ‘What to Expect In Days Ahead’; and, White Supremacy – a description, are three informative and thought-provoking topics for you in this week’s blog posting. Enjoy!
I.
WHAT YOU MISSED!
Well, I can’t tell you everything you missed, because I’m penning this week’s blog before the final Networking Roundtable & Retirement Celebration begins. But there are two things I know for sure (assuming we all make it to Nashville, TN. Intact on the 12th of August. Ha!):
The first is that everyone in attendance received a copy of my autobiography, released just this week! It’s titled ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’. The two hundred page book shares My Adventure of a Lifetime, from childhood, through romance with Carolyn, to a 13 month combat tour in Vietnam, into and through a 50 year business career. Chock full, too, of interesting photographs, of family, locations, and in two instances – examples of the destructive capability of the soccer ball-sized Atomic Demolitions Munition (‘ADM’) I was trained to carry into North Vietnam.
The other certainty is the ‘kinda farewell’ talk I shared during the evening banquet, where more than a half dozen RV/MH Hall of Fame members wore their bright green blazers. Titled, ‘Its’ Been A Very Good Run…’ it follows here:
IT’S BEEN A VERY GOOD RUN…
Last time I gave an impromptu ‘Good-bye talk’ was to my lumberyard outdoor truck loading crew at Ridge Homes in Conshohocken, PA., more than 50 years ago.
20 or so guys escorted me into our tool shed, where a case of beer and soul food waited. Soul food that had been heating all day while sitting atop fork lift engine blocks.
My remarks were brief as I was uncomfortable, as boss, having a case of beer on company property at quitting time. But boy was that soul food ever good!
Central to my remarks was the observation that, as their leader, I’d never had to severely discipline, or even get into an overt verbal or physical altercation with anyone on my crew.
Everyone laughed. I was perplexed and asked, why? The shop steward responded: “Hell Allen, given your rep and the blade you carry, no one’s gonna mess with you!”
Well, we all carried large jack knives in holsters on our belts, to cut the many ropes we used to secure truck loads. But this ‘rep’ (‘reputation’) thing made no sense to me.
So I asked, “What rep?” to which the steward said, “Frankie told us how he saw you ‘off’ (‘kill’) a gook with a bayonet in Vietnam, so no one’s gonna mess with you! You’re blooded!”
Well, the story wasn’t true, but Frankie had created it to bolster his rep, by association, so I didn’t say anything. Read the whole story, ‘Got Rep?’ in ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’.
What’s unique about tonight’s Good-bye’? Well, 150 friends, business associates and family members are here, and I have something to say to each one!
Let’s begin with me telling you how it’s been a ‘very good run in manufactured housing and land lease communities’ these past 40+ years!
Most of you don’t know I started off, in 1970, in factory-bu8ilt housing fabrication, as a wall panel and roof truss plants, and mill shop supervisor in Southport, IN.
And my first taste of property management didn’t come until 1978, when I oversaw six garden style apartment communities located throughout Indiana.
My boss, at year end, reassigned me from the apartment portfolio to four large and ailing ‘trailer parks’, three in Indianapolis and one outside Louisville, KY.
I was not at all pleased and thought about quitting! But gave myself 30 days to do a major attitude change or look for a new job. It only took a week for me to realize:
If I could learn the ‘mobile home’ business as well as I did apartments (there were no books or training back then), maybe there’d be a career opportunity – to create those resources!
Two years later, after turning those four communities around, they were sold. I briefly went with the new firm. Read ‘An Adventure to Die For’ in aforementioned book and in SWAN SONG.
In 1980, Carolyn and I founded GFA Management, Inc., to fee manage, as Carolyn was known to say, ‘Anything that didn’t move!’ – apartments, houses, shopping centers, MHCommunities.
In 1982 we bought our first of two land lease communities. And since then, I’ve also realized my goal of creating property management resources I didn’t have all those years ago.
Now it’s time to bow out. We sold our last community to Susan and Erin, and they now handle most of what our PMN Publishing did in the past, via EducateMHC.
Going forward, I plan to continue blogging, writing for MHInsider magazine, and occasionally traveling to Cape May, NJ, with Spencer Roane, to drink beer, feast on raw oysters, and visit my younger brother Mark.
In the meantime, Carolyn and I are proud parents of Susan and Adam – and their spouses Drew & Kim, six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. So there’s plenty there to keep me/us busy and happy for years to come.
In closing, I like what Alan Jackson sings in his album ‘Good Time’, describing the life of a small town southern man: “He bowed his knee to Jesus and stood for Uncle Sam” & “ His greatest contribution will be the ones he leaves behind.” Now that’s the way I want to go out!
Postscript.
I have received many letters, cards, and a gift or two (e.g. large bottle of Don Perignon champagne) these past few weeks, from well-wishers throughout the U.S. Two of my local ‘friends in the MHBusiness’ have taken me out to lunch, where we talked for hours about individuals we’ve known over the decades. And now, we’re here, doing the same thing! So much to be grateful for tonight; so, a sincere Thanks to all!
II.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN DAYS AHEAD…
You’ll want to read the next several – and final, issues of The Allen Confidential business newsletter! Why?
Well, in the September issue I plan to share my reformatted State of the Manufactured Housing Industry & Land Lease Community Realty Asset Class’ – now an overview of the ‘Past, Present, & Future Statistics & Trends Among Land Lease Communities in the U.S.! Preparing this was a stiff challenge for me, as to what to include and what to omit. My hope is that some of you, hearing it on 12 August, and reading about it in September, will save the message and refer to it from time to time during the months, even years, ahead.
And I plan to share my notes – or those of Scott Roberts, relative to his keynote presentation on the ‘Development of Raw Land into Land Lease (& RV) Communities’ – and Lessons Learned in the process. That too should be a Keeper for many land lease community owners/operators!
Finally, I plan to share The 30 Year Networking Roundtable Legacy’ that was distributed during the final Networking Roundtable & Retirement Celebration, as a handout or takeaway.
So, at least three Good Reasons to be sure to read the September issue of The Allen Confidential!
And what will we do in the October issue of the newsletter? I’m working on that already. Using our industry’s dozen known Evergreen (i.e. always relevant, always present) Issues as a baseline, I plan to communicate ‘My Thoughts Regarding the Future of Manufactured Housing & Land Lease Communities!’ – pulling no punches along the way. What does that mean? It means, in so far as possible, I’ll be skewering sacred cows, exposing trade secrets, and ‘telling it like it is’, where this industry and realty asset class are concerned. Not an easy challenge for me. As you likely know, I have little respect for the yellow journalism that’s been an undercurrent staple for more than a decade. I won’t stoop to ‘calling names’, exaggerating claims, and avoiding conspiracy theorizing. It will be up to you, upon reading that issue of The Allen Confidential, to secede whether I accomplish this end – giving you a practical template for years to come.
If you’re not a subscriber to the newsletter, reach out to Erin Smith, MHM, of EducateMHC and inquire as to how to obtain copies through the end of year 2021. Erin.smith@spotlight-strategies.com
III.
WHITE SPREMACY
Talk about ‘changing gears’ in conversation; here’s a rather extreme example to ponder.
Has anyone accused you of ‘white supremacy’ of late? Well, I found myself wondering what that as all about, until I read an ebook titled CRITICAL RACE THEORY by Dr. James Lindsay.
In it, he makes these statements: “…things like ‘getting the right answer in math class is an aspect of white supremacy culture’, and ‘believing that math can be done in an individualist sense rather than as a collectivist sense is white supremacy culture.’ Furthermore, “things like loyalty, punctuality, hard work, and achievement by your merits – these are all considered aspects of shite supremacy culture, according to Critical Race theory.”
Lindsay goes on to say, “this is not just a theory, it’s not even just a movement, it is a way of thinking about the world” – in essence a worldview.
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George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC