So What’s Your Story?!

If You Don’t Know Where You Came From… 

You’ll never know where you’re going. My mom used to say that. She may have gotten it from The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond. It’s funny, the things like that that we remember.

I’m a first generation American, born to 2 Israeli immigrants, that met in Las Vegas. They didn’t move here together. That’s a whole other story that’s quick remarkable if you think about how unlikely that would have been in the mid 1970’s. 

Nothing special about my upbringing. Two siblings. Lots of aunts, uncles and cousins. Sick BMX Mongoose bicycle that I rode everywhere. I think my parents might have struggled with money from time to time, but as a kid, I never felt it. 

In jr. high it was Roller skating at Crystal Palace and laser tag at Ultra Zone. From there I was big into my Jewish high school youth group BBYO and Magic the Gathering. Both played big roles in shaping me. From the youth group I had a sense of belonging and started learning leadership skills. At 17, I won the Nevada State Championships for Magic the Gathering and played in the pro-tour in Chicago. It was televised on ESPN 2.

Here’s a fun fact. I graduated high school with a 1.9 GPA. But it’s not because I was a bad student. I just didn’t apply myself much jr. and sr. year. I also never took the ACTs or SATs, and yet managed to get myself admitted to college.

After 2 semesters at Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN) and being a non-admitted student at UNLV, my transcripts were good enough to get me fully admitted into UNLV.

College was so great! I was really involved with my fraternity AEPi. I was Social Chair, Pledge Master, and Chapter President twice. I joined the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and was elected to Homecoming King of UNLV in 1997. The homecoming king thing taught me how to set a long range goal, break it down to smaller steps, and execute on a vision. I really shouldn’t have won. But I was better prepared than anyone else. 

During college I worked several different jobs. There was a necktie store at the Forum Shoppes called – wait for it – The Knot Shop. I worked at another high-end necktie store called Tino Cosma and then Banana Republic. From time to time, I would clean construction sites for my dad and there always seemed to be a side hustle. I worked for a well-known events DJ as the hype guy at weddings and bar mitzvahs. You know, the one who got people to do the conga or YMCA dance.  They got me connected with a photography group that sent me to expos. I set up a booth and people took branded pictures with some tchotchke that was given out. There were more but now I’m getting wordy.

The year after graduating from UNLV, I traveled North America for my fraternity. My title was Educational and Leadership Consultant. I basically went around and organized our chapters to recruit new members during rush weeks. When it wasn’t recruitment season went and started new chapters like at Michigan State and Yale, or I went and visited chapters that were behind on their dues payments to nationals. It’s the kind of job you do for a year after college. Maybe two years. One year was plenty for me. I got to see a lot of the country and had an enormous amount of time to reflect.

When I came back, I worked with my dad in his construction company. This was spring of 2004. We did stucco. It was a nice little company at a great time. We had a small screw. Eighty percent of our work was stuccoing the block walls in people’s backyards. Then we did a handful of rooms additions and a custom home here and there.

I got my real estate license in 2004, and like most people in Las Vegas at that time, it was only to scrape some commissions off any deal we bought or sold. More on this in a bit.

While I was traveling for the fraternity, my dad bought some land in Brian Head, UT and started a condo development on a shoestring. I got to work on it with him along with the stucco company. I got great exposure from that project.  Learning how to buy land on terms. Also, how much value is created by the process of taking raw dirt through entitlements. There is a lot of brilliant stuff for me that comes out of this story. Mostly, it was a very expensive lesson in partnering. 

After a few years with my dad, I had a realization. If I wanted to be “in real estate” I would have to commit to it more seriously. I started working Tuesdays and Thursdays at one of my fraternity brother’s mom’s brokerages answering phones and doing anything else that was asked of me. Then I joined a friend at a Keller Williams office. I knew I didn’t want to do residential, but I was taking steps forward.

From there I partnered up with Jarrad Katz (we met in BBYO before either of us could drive) and ventured into the wonderful world of commercial real estate brokerage. That was 2007. You know what happens the following year. 

Jarrad and I slugged it out through the great recession. Over the following six years we were recruited to a regional company, then a global company, ultimately finding our home at MDL Group in April 2013. 

I’m married and have 3 kids that keep us active like Uber drivers schlepping from tennis, to dance and gymnastics. There is more stuff about me personally on the Causes & Interests tab if you’re interested.