{"id":11601,"date":"2014-10-13T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=11601"},"modified":"2021-02-03T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T23:48:30","slug":"drucker-falk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/drucker-falk\/","title":{"rendered":"Drucker & Falk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DrukerOne company, two families, three generations.\u00a0 That\u2019s the short story of Drucker & Falk, a noted real estate management and investment firm now in its 76th<\/sup> year.<\/p>\n

With a 30,000 unit fee managed portfolio spread over\u00a0 seven states, this is no mom-and-pop property management operation \u2013 though it is firmly rooted in family and tradition.\u00a0 In addition to multifamily management, Drucker & Falk also offers multifamily and commercial investment brokerage services and commercial property management, with an office\/retail portfolio of 4 million square feet. Over the years, the company has turned down buy-out offers from major national players, preferring to continue on the path their grandfathers initiated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve changed with the times, which I think can be one reason why companies rarely make it to a third generation. But we\u2019ve held on to the core principles of the original founders,\u201d says David Falk, Jr.<\/p>\n

The three current Managing Directors of the company \u2013 David Falk,\u00a0 Jr., Wendy Drucker, and Kellie Falk, are the grandchildren of founding partners A. Louis Drucker and Emanuel Falk. They\u2019re the children of Erwin Drucker and David Falk, Sr., who expanded the company from Virginia to North Carolina 45 years ago.<\/p>\n

Privately held mid-size companies don\u2019t always last past a second generation, and partnerships bring an extra layer of potential complications. But the managing directors of Drucker & Falk believe they may even make it to a fourth round of descendant ownership, and they point back to their grandfathers as one of the reasons why.<\/p>\n

Founding Grandfathers<\/b><\/p>\n

Louis Drucker and Emanuel Falk came from very different backgrounds. Drucker was a British immigrant to the U.S., who had served in the Merchant Marine before opening a grocery store in Newport News, Virginia.\u00a0 \u201cManny\u201d Falk, a Newport News teen, met Drucker when Falk applied for a job as a fill-in clerk at the store. When Falk was away at college, Drucker was accidentally locked in the grocery\u2019s walk-in freezer, significantly damaging one of his lungs.<\/p>\n

This incident would prove significant for his family\u2019s long-term future. To recover, his doctor recommended that Drucker go to a high-altitude climate. With funding from disability insurance, a policy he had the foresight to purchase, he took his family to Switzerland.<\/p>\n

When they returned, he decided to sell insurance \u2013 after all, he could personally attest to its benefits. Manny Falk had attended the University of Virginia and returned to Newport News, where he was buying and selling property. They teamed up, and Drucker & Falk, offering insurance and real estate services, opened its doors in 1938, with an investment of $100 from each partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir ethics and values, like honesty and transparency, were ingrained in us as children. And once we joined the company, the guiding principles came from what we learned from our parents and grandparents. When we make decisions and lean upon those, it turns out well,\u201d says David Falk, Jr. He and his sister, Kellie, knew they wanted to join the company as children. Both spent large amounts of time in the office with their father, David Sr., who was a single parent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always dragging me along to the office or to properties, and we lived in apartments growing up. If there was a fire at 1 a.m., I got out of bed to watch it burn,\u201d says Kellie Falk. Both she and David Jr. began working for the company as children, doing jobs like pool cleaning, grounds keeping, and apartment maintenance \u2013 so they began to learn the business from the bottom up.<\/p>\n

Second generation growth<\/b><\/p>\n

When Wendy Drucker decided to work for Drucker & Falk in 1981, after college and a first job on the West Coast, her father sent her to the company\u2019s Raleigh office to learn from David Falk, Sr. He had aggressively expanded the company from its Newport News beginnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey called my father (David Falk Sr.) the steam engine and (Erwin Drucker) the safety valve,\u201d said Kellie Falk. \u201cHe wanted to take risks and see the company expand.\u201d From the late 60\u2019s onward, David Falk Sr. developed apartments around Raleigh and expanded the company\u2019s range throughout the southeast, more than doubling the size of the fee managed portfolio. His other passion in life was dairy farming, and later in life he started a company that bred show cattle.<\/p>\n

His partner, Erwin Drucker, was the company\u2019s legal advisor \u2013 he earned his law degree at Harvard \u2013 and operations expert. His daughter describes him as a sharply dressed leader who set an example of working hard and maintaining strong client relationships.<\/p>\n

Like the Falk\u2019s, Wendy Drucker was first tasked with taking on entry-level work to learn the business, beginning on-site, cleaning and leasing apartments and solving day-to-day problems. Then she became a roving manager, tackling troubled assets and lease-ups, and moving to problem properties for short stints until they were turned around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve really done everything that there is to do within the organization over these 37 years, except for perhaps the role of high-level corporate accountant,\u201d Drucker says.\u00a0 She speaks fondly of her memories of moving from community to community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was my own boss, and I had to produce my own results. That was fabulous from a standpoint of learning how to deal with different types of people, coming up with solutions to problems, and getting to know the resources within different communities. It was a fantastic experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Wendy and Kellie each oversee roughly half of the multifamily portfolio, Wendy focusing on the mid-Atlantic region from Newport News, and Kellie working south and east from the Raleigh office. David Jr. is the company\u2019s primary investment broker, identifying assets that might be strategic deals for the company\u2019s clients and working through the due diligence process to purchasing the asset.<\/p>\n

All three partners say they entered the business because it was their choice. Not all of their generation was interested \u2013 the Falks have two other siblings who followed alternate career paths, as did Wendy\u2019s only brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to earn the right of being an owner, and then buy in. We weren\u2019t given our interest.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a huge difference than just being expected to join the firm,\u201d says Wendy Drucker.<\/p>\n

A 1,000 member family<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the principles that has been passed down through the Drucker & Falk generations is respect and appreciation for the company\u2019s employees. All three directors mentioned their executive and administrative teams, as well as their site staffs, as being vital to the company\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re well into our second generation of employees, and even though we\u2019re a little bit big, we\u2019re still a family style company. You can walk into my office and tell me you\u2019re mad about something,\u201d said Kellie Falk. Spread over multiple states, Drucker & Falk now employs more than 1,000 people. Many have been with the company for decades, and spouses and children of employees are frequent hires.<\/p>\n

When it comes to hiring the next generation of Drucker\u2019s and Falk\u2019s however, the partners want to make sure that they let their offspring decide for themselves whether or not to cast their career into the real estate domain. Each has two children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to pressure my kids, who are the youngest. But nothing would please me more than seeing Drucker & Falk at 100 years old with another generation involved,\u201d said David Falk Jr. Wendy Drucker says her son, a high school senior with an interest in sports management, may be a candidate to come on board. Kellie Falk, though, takes a different approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sons have asked for jobs, but I tell them to go work for somebody else first,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One company, two families, three generations.\u00a0 That\u2019s the short story of Drucker & Falk, a noted real estate management and investment firm now in its 76th year. With a 30,000 unit fee managed portfolio spread over\u00a0 seven states, this is no mom-and-pop property management operation \u2013 though it is firmly rooted in family and tradition.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":11602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3354],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-11601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-team-yardi","tag-yardi-client-profile"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYardi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One company, two families, three generations.\u00a0 That\u2019s the short story of Drucker & Falk, a noted real estate management and investment firm now in its\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drucker & Falk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One company, two families, three generations.\u00a0 That\u2019s the short story of Drucker & Falk, a noted real estate management and investment firm now in its\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/drucker-falk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Yardi Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-13T12:00:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-03T23:48:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2014\/09\/DruckerFalkpic.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"522\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Etling\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Etling\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/drucker-falk\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/drucker-falk\/\",\"name\":\"Drucker & Falk - 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