Rich Ohmann, Live and Uncensored
On Ground Hog Day, 2009, we got word from one of our favorite characters in home building’s pantheon of bucaneers, engineers, imagineers, and minor magnates–Rich Ohmann–that his brother Bob’s Raleigh, N.C.-based company, St. Lawrence Homes, was filing for protection under Chapter 11.
The Ohmann’s company is not alone in its plight. The way they’re handling it is what may set them apart from peers.
Click for St. Lawrence Homes' Web site. Bob Ohmann (left) and his brother Rich.
Since they entered bankruptcy, they’ve been working their way out of it. St. Lawrence’s emergence from this state is not happening as swiftly as, say, Chrysler’s, but hey, Fiat’s not planning inroads into U.S. home building anytime soon, so the company’s principals are working their way through the hard way. They’re selling houses, generating cash flow, paying bills, and trying to keep the lights on every day.
We’d received a few choice missives from Rich (who’s head of marketing and chief cook and bottle washer at St. Lawrence Homes) about society, big business, policy, and how it all affects trying to be a home builder in today’s tough market conditions. We asked him to write for readers, because we think his candor, insight, and values as part of the home building community reflect how more than a few colleagues feel.
Here’s Rich’s first post, which he entitled “Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.”
I have to tell you that I’m not a fan of funny t-shirts with smirky messages. ‘I’m with stupid’ with an arrow pointed to the left or right isn’t for me. ‘My Mom and Dad went to Hawaii and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ isn’t cute to me. The list is endless. This is not a recent issue for me so you can’t pin the economic malaise on my disdain for message t-shirts.
What’s this got to do with my need for screed? Last night, after a mind-numbing, rotten, catastrophe of a day I walked into my home, greeted by my wife and kids. Smiling and happy, full of the news of a couple of idyllic summer days with an order from my wife to start up the grill and handle my end of dinner.
I was struck with how wrong the old t-shirt was, the one that could easily be worn as uniform for most of us in homebuilding these, ‘Life sucks, then you die.’ Contemporize the message: ‘Confidence plummets, then you go bust.’ ‘You default on your loans, then they take your truck’. I’m not willing to accept it though and I’ll try and tell you why.
First, you gain your worth from who you are not what you are. If your material possessions and self important position defines your lot in life you have nothing. As a home builder things are tough. But I’m just a home builder and nobody else is either. For me, as a Dad, as a husband life is grand. Regardless of what comes my way I’ll have success if I keep my eye on the important things in my life. Am I by necessity having to make tough decisions about what I can provide for my family? Certainly. The material things aren’t as important to them as I thought they would be. It turns out that they just want our family, and everything else is optional.
Second, care for others more than you care for yourself. Self-worry, self-pity, self-loathing evaporate when you look for ways that you can help others. A family in my sons school has a gravely ill child. I pray for them and think about them often and what I might to do help them. My problems are small by comparison. I was in line at the grocery store and recognized a former employee a few customers back, a young father with a wife, 2 kids and another on the way. I knew that he was facing tough times, tougher than what I was facing on that day. I bought a gift card at the checkout counter and told the cashier to use it to help pay for his groceries. It kept me focused on the fact that no matter what I face I can always find someone who needs more help than I do and that feed my soul by helping others.
Third, cut the negative noise off. Les Brown is a motivational speaker. Very early in his career I hired him to speak at a small convention. He was a great speaker and so uplifting. I can still remember that he encouraged everyone to find unreasonable people and hang around with them. Reasonable people will logically tell you why you can’t do something, why the obstacles are too great. Unreasonable people walk on the moon.
Finally, find inspiration. Sure it’s a dark time but you can find things that inspire you if you keep your eyes wide open. Inspiration will lift the burden of impending doom from your shoulders. You’ll come to understand that you aren’t defeated by today but rather that you have opportunity around you. I like to think that I’ve taken the middle years of my life as a sort of vacation time and, because the market was grand, had my semi-retirement early.
Now? Back to work. Work is what we all did before mortgage money was easy, labor was cheap and the stock market lulled us to sleep. Work is what built this country and what my parents taught me. Mom and Dad told me to save where I could, spend what I could pay back and to look upon the future with great hope. Turns out that they knew what I realized last night standing in front of my Weber grill.
Time to close some houses.
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