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Category:
Published: June 2007
The son of the region's premier builder, Robert Van Patten took the best elements of his father's company and transformed it into a 21st century empire.
Success Magazine: What does success mean to you?
Robert VanPatten: Success to me is the feeling of accomplishment when all the parts of your life come together. You have your health, your business is growing, and your family is in harmony.
SM: What about personally?
RVP: I currently run all of the businesses my father built until his death from emphysema in 1990. I believe the business exacted a lot of hardship on my father's personal life. I am the fourth child from his third marriage. He went on to marry two more times. After his death, I was given the reins of his various businesses. Aside from having hundreds of building lots under construction, we managed commercial offices and industrial parks. We ran a home remodeling company, wholesale and retail plumbing businesses, golf courses, community pools, an apartment complex with 952 units, and water and sewer businesses which served thousands and thousands of customers. We had the additional burden of settling federal and state estate taxes. We have survived all this and more. I will be celebrating my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary this year. My wife, Kathy, and I have three great children, Justin 23, Kristin 18, and Andrew, 16. To me, success is being able to work for myself, which has given me the opportunity to find balance in my personal and business lives.
SM: How did you train for entering into this business?
RVP: I started working for my father when I was 14 years old. During the summer, I cut grass with a hand mower at one of the golf courses he owned. His primary business was home building, so I quickly became involved with that. I guess you would say I learned from the ground up. I worked for many years helping to run water and sewer utilities for home subdivisions. I progressed to working in the surveying department where I helped do a lot of the exterior subdivision layout. After graduating from high school, I went to a local community college where I earned an Associates Degree in Civil Technology. I spent my time off from school managing the home construction division of the sales office. I reached a juncture in my schooling, and I needed to make a decision. Should I continue on to a four-year school for engineering, or should I consider some other major? While discussing this with my father, he said something that helped me to find my answer. He said, "You know son, if I need an engineer, I'll just hire one." He described how he viewed his position in the business. He did not need to know a lot about any one profession, just enough so he could understand. With those words of wisdom, I transferred to a local business college and earned my Bachelor's in Business for marketing and management. The accounting, computer science and marketing management courses would serve me well into the future.
SM: Your father Robert Van Patten Sr. was a visionary who, with you and your organization, built over 5,000 homes in Clifton Park and Malta, commercial buildings as well as two golf courses. What made you choose to follow in his footsteps?
RVP: My father used his vision to build communities where people could live, work and play. The personal sacrifices he made have given me many opportunities and taught me valuable lessons. When he told me if he needed and engineer he'd hire one, he was not speaking down on the engineering profession. He was describing the breadth of professions he dealt with on a daily basis. He went on, "I get to work with engineers, attorneys, bankers, people from all walks of life, and I never get bored. Every day brings something different." From then on, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to continue in his footsteps, but in my own way. Why commit to one profession, when I could work with many?
SM: What have you learned from your father's management style? What makes you different?
RVP: Quite honestly, I am humbled by my father's management style. It seemed tailored to each person he worked with. Above all though, I believe he was a man of his word. That transcended everything. He was a tough man and a man of conviction. Most of the employees called him "the old man," and I always took that as a sign of respect. My style, however, is more easy-going. I believe in giving an employee the correct tools to do the job and respecting his or her ability to succeed. This is by no means to say I am a pushover. But, I feel great respect standing behind an employee who is excelling in their position. I believe the entire organization grows with each employee.
SM: Are you thriving or surviving?
RVP: I'll have to admit, for quite some time we were in survival mode. After my father's death everything changed. Aside from the fact that the business's prime mover and shaker was gone, we had a whole new set of rules to play by. His businesses were all placed in trust for the benefit of his grandchildren. I was named co-executor and co-trustee with my father's long-time friend and business associate Victor Vrigian, and his attorney Dave Steenburg. They serve as my mentors even to this day. We set out on a fourteen-year plan to pay the estate tax debts. All of my father's holdings were in what I'd like to characterize as "bricks and sticks," so we needed to come up with a plan to provide liquidity in a hurry. The housing industry was still moving at the time, so we capitalized on it and continued with our various building projects. This enabled us to pay down our debt. So, from survival mode, I can now say we are thriving.
SM: Were there any down times during your striving for success?
RVP: Sure, when the housing industry slowed down in the nineties I noticed a shift in our market in the Clifton Park area. Along with the normal cyclical shift in the housing market, something else was happening. Clifton Park had grown in population and brought in more and more competition. However, this competition was not bad for us at all. It actually opened up a whole new market. From the sixties through the eighties our company had to provide everything needed to build a home. We were vertically and horizontally integrated in the market. We bought the land, developed it, and built our own homes on it for eventual sale to the home owner. There was no middle man. This is how we provided value to our customers. Then, however, the homeowner was our customer. Now, I saw a new customer, our competition.
SM: What did you do during those down times to survive?
RVP: We diversified. As the housing market slowed, we shifted to building commercial and industrial parks in and around Clifton Park. We also started various apartment rental projects which we own and maintain to this day. However, one of the biggest shifts came in how we did business. With the cyclical nature of the industry, we could no longer carry large payrolls when times were slow. Gone were the days of having four hundred employees. I focused my effort on converting from employees to piece workers, and eventually to subcontractors. This allowed us to stay competitive and continue to provide value to our customers.
SM: You are diversified and own many different companies. Many compliment each other, and some do not. What changes have you made to your company to make it more manageable and profitable? What future changes are you planning?
RVP: I would characterize our company as a land development company. Having pared down our payroll in order to keep costs down, we could now purchase our building materials in bulk through the building and hardware franchises we held. We no longer needed to build the individual components of a home such as windows, siding, and stairs. We could still provide them at a savings, but without having to run entire companies to produce them. This was the shift from being horizontally integrated in the market. We no longer needed to be so vertically integrated to the extent we were either. Our competition could be our customer. The town was now large enough to support competition, which gave us this new market. So, I brought our company back to its roots as a land development company. Instead of having one hundred customers for a one-hundred-lot subdivision, I now have one customer, another home builder. There was also a shift in the attitude from local government regarding some elements of our business. At one point, the towns did not provide the water and sewer infrastructures needed to support our growth, so we provided it all. Over time this became fodder for local politicians and after my father passed away the towns became interested in the infrastructures we had built. We eventually sold them and transferred them to town control. Our company has successfully run with the market, cut and controlled our expenses, paid off our tax burdens and set the stage for our continued growth. Today I would consider our company a holding company, managing the assets we own. We're poised to develop the lands we still hold in inventory.
SM: At what point did you know that you had reached your first pinnacle of success?
RVP: There came a point in the nineties that we crested the burden of the estate tax payments. Now I can say that the business my father built has survived into the next generation. I grew up working in the home building industry. I love being outdoors where I can smell the freshly turned dirt. I love to take a piece of property and improve it. So, I decided to purchase the golf courses from my father's trust and own them personally. Interestingly, I do not play golf. I do, however, enjoy owning the business of golf, as my father did. I ventured to replace our thirty-year-old temporary clubhouse, and made improvements to the course itself. Our goal is to have our public golfers feel like they are members each and every time they play at Van Patten Golf Club. We are a 27-hole public golf club with upscale facilities, including The Vista Restaurant and Banquet Facility, as well as a state-of-the-art practice facility and a fully stocked golf shop. We are always looking for ways to improve and are never satisfied with the status quo.
SM: What are the downsides of being in such demand from all of your business ventures?
RVP: Attention to detail suffers. I have been very lucky, however. Seven years ago, when I purchased the golf course business from my father's trust, my wife, Kathy, joined me in its management. The expansion of the clubhouse facility has added an entire new business to the golf course. It allows us to host larger outings and tournaments, and we can now have wedding events in our new banquet facilities. Kathy has helped to build and manage this business when I need to give attention to the other businesses I run.
SM: We all talk about having balance in our lives. How do you achieve balance in your life?
RVP: I have worked hard to find this balance. I am still working at it. My wife and I have been working together running the golf course businesses for seven years now. I've been told that it is hard for spouses to work together. So, there was a little trepidation on my part when we started out. However, we have had nothing but respect for each other. We both recognize our strengths and weaknesses, and are able to find balance there.
Our children have also become involved in the business. Justin's expertise is with computers, so he helps with various aspects of our computer system, such as refurbishing our web site. Our daughter, Kristin, is a people person, so she fit right in working at the banquet facility. Our youngest son, Andrew, has jumped right in working for the maintenance department. I have learned the value of a happy family life. Obviously it is a work-in-progress, but working together and sharing our other interests helps balance our lives. Just this weekend, for instance, Andrew invited Kathy and me to go see his guitar teacher's band. We had a great time together. It was wonderful that he let me join him, as it was a little out of my comfort zone. Andrew shared his love for music with us, and we got to appreciate his interests. Also this weekend, Kristin was practicing for an upcoming horse show. I love her passion for horses, but boy, is this also out of my comfort zone. I'm 6'2", and that animal is so large that when it raises its head, I can't even reach it. Wow! We all have our individual interests, and yet we can work together as a family. It all fits into that puzzle we call balance.
SM: What advice can you give to new entrepreneurs?
RVP: I saw my father work his entire life and never enjoy the fruits of his labor. He would tell me that you needed to work, work, work, before you could enjoy yourself. Well, in retrospect, I think my father did enjoy himself. He loved his work and that is what was important to him. However, all the years he invested building our business were at the expense of his personal life. So, while I've been blessed by having a lot of that work done for me, I can appreciate the expenses of the building process. Hopefully you are pursuing something you are passionate about. You should be able to look forward to getting up in the morning and sharing your passions with others. Surround yourself with dedicated and hardworking people. Success cannot be achieved without the help of others. As you proceed, you never know who in your life will show up to help you in your efforts. Stay in tune with these forces, and treat everyone you meet as you would want to be treated. Give people the opportunity to grow and excel in their own right, and remember to celebrate their successes and achievements. Always move forward in life. Work hard and throw your passion to the wind, but don't forget to take a bite of that fruit as you go. And remember to join a health club along the way, I'm just learning that.
SM: What is your ultimate goal in life?
RVP: I hope to continue to learn the magic of balance, love, and appreciation such that my children can see it and apply it in their lives.
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