Welcome to the second edition of Kerry’s Corner, keeping you up-to-date with what’s happening at Juniper Capital Corporation. We have closed some great loans to start off the first quarter, and April and I continue our hands-on marketing efforts. We recently visited businesses and built new relationships in Everett, Bellevue, and Kirkland, WA.
The past month brought some sun and spring weather to the Seattle area, which means, when I’m not out in the field, meeting new and existing business partners, I am out on other fields with my daughters, gearing up for another season of Little League. It’s a great time of year, when we move out of hibernation mode and focus more on being outdoors.
April and I compare the banking and mortgage industry to a big “family” of people, who have established connections through either past working relationships or interpersonal ties to family, work, kids, events, and so forth. The “seven degrees of separation” theory is very apparent in this industry.
April and I parked in the WAC garage recently and rode the elevator to a banking meeting we were attending. We said hello to the gentlemen in the elevator and I wondered if they were headed to the same event. April and I did not see those gentlemen that night as we mingled and networked prior to dinner. We sat at a table with people from Whidbey Island Bank, who were actually opening a new branch in Issaquah, just down the road from our Juniper Capital offices. As I talked with Bob Ittes, VP from Whidbey Island Bank, we found we had many common connections in the Issaquah area from my previous years working for a long-time friend and associate of his.
Two weeks after the event, April and I traveled to Tacoma to meet another VP, Nigel English of Heritage Bank. Just as we started talking about private money loans, he stopped and asked why we looked so familiar. After discussing Juniper’s resources and different business groups we belong to, we realized that he was one of the men in the WAC elevator! We also discovered that Heritage Bank and Whidbey Island Bank had recently merged and Bob, the man we sat next to at dinner, happened to be a fairly new business associate of Nigel’s. Two separate banks and two completely different locations. We all found that pretty coincidental and proof of the closeness of this industry, as well as how solid relationships are formed and established.
The number of people April and I are meeting is increasing exponentially. When we drive through downtown Seattle at lunchtime, we regularly see people we have met at NAIOP, CREW, RMA or SMBA functions. I value relationships and believe that we will reap rewards from the connections we establish and cultivate throughout our lives whether they are in business or life in general.
Kerry Travers
Juniper Capital
Vice President of Marketing
Contact Kerry and Juniper Capital to learn more about hard money loans in Seattle and the greater Pacific Northwest. We work hard to help you reach your real estate investment goals.
