1st American Management Company’s history stretches back over four decades, starting off as a department within Harley Snyder Companies in 1975. Residential property management in the Region was niche at the time; homeowner associations and other community organizations were just starting to gain traction as clusters of homes started flourishing around Northwest Indiana.
In 1987, John R. Marshall, a successful property manager with a young family in Chicago, sought to leave the city and come to the Region. He moved to Chesterton and commuted to the city for a couple of years before sending a letter to Harley Snyder, who saw his talent and brought him into his company, assigning him leadership of the property management team.
“I didn’t really want to raise my kids growing up in an elevator in Chicago,” Marshall said. “I relocated to Chesterton in ’87. The commute got old after a couple of years, so I sent that letter to Mr. Snyder – he owned a construction, insurance, and real estate company.”
A couple years later, Coldwell Banker 1st American acquired the division. Marshall stayed with the new team and in 1993 was able to purchase it outright and incorporate it as an individual entity, 1st American Management Company – becoming its sole owner, president and CEO.
“I was honestly surprised they sold it to me. We didn’t make a lot of money back then, and my wife and I were living paycheck to paycheck,” Marshall said. “Things all fell into place; the stars were all aligned so to speak. The partners of Coldwell Banker 1st American were made up of some really great people and understood that I was a young guy trying to find my way and sold it to me for a very fair price. They really helped me get started.”
At the time, the housing market was starting to take off even further, with new neighborhoods and subdivisions being built. Marshall saw that there were very few local companies equipped to meet rising needs.
“There were a lot of big corporations doing business in Northwest Indiana, but none of them were from Northwest Indiana,” he said. “In the 1980s and 1990s, condominium developments and homeowner associations were brand new, something that didn’t really exist before, and there weren’t big local companies to meet the need.”
Marshall worked quickly, getting 1st American’s name front and center for property developers. He worked on acquiring four other small property management companies in Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan and merged their portfolios into what is today 1st American Management. This was accomplished with solid business advice from Harley Snyder who proved to be a strong lifetime mentor to Marshall.
“We found a niche in managing that nobody else really wanted to fill,” he said. “For everything that got built and developed, those builders and developers came to 1st American Management Company for property management.”
One thing that Marshall understood from the outset was the importance of honesty and integrity – always being upfront with clients, even when things did not go right.
“One of the things that I found lacking in the business across the Region was a sense of honesty,” he said. “I always stressed that we were an honest management firm that charged a fair rate. We didn’t nickel and dime our clients and customers, and I think word of that spread very quickly. We weren’t perfect, we made mistakes, but when we did, we never tried to cover them up. We made them right.”
He included how he treated his employees under that same principle. Simply following the golden rule of treating others the way he would want to be treated helped build a staff that had very low turnover.
“I tried to provide benefits to my team that I wanted for myself back when I was an employee,” he said. “Health insurance, a 401k and profit-sharing plan – we got really creative with our holidays, vacation time, and paid time-off. We had an employee handbook that included maternity leave – all these things that, at the time, big companies had, but small ones like ours didn’t. I think that went a long way towards the longevity of our staff; it showed that we were reinvesting in our people, our buildings, and our facilities.”
It helped that Marshall rarely hired property managers based on their skill sets. Especially in the ‘90s, there were not many experienced property managers.
“We always felt that we could teach property management,” he said. “What you can’t teach is being a good person. We hired people first – people that had heart and were good communicators. People that cared about others and providing quality service.”
Essentially, he looked for people whose thoughts mirrored his own approach to property management – that the customer always comes first.
“We’re in the customer service business, and you have to enjoy customer service to be successful,” he said. “The most satisfaction I got, even in my earliest days in property management, was from helping people. If you don’t enjoy helping people and problem solving, you’re not going to be successful in this field. You have to have empathy. You have to have a heart.”
Now, Marshall is retired from 1st American Management Company and lives in Florida, though he still owns a home in Chesterton to visit with his kids and grandkids. He passed on ownership to Gina Manns and Mike Bottos, who have both worked at 1st American Management Company for about two decades.
“When we started out, we had about six full-time employees and 29 developments,” Marshall said. “Now, during the summer, we have about 70 to 80 employees and in the neighborhood of 240 developments in and around the area, yet they’ve still managed to maintain that small company feel. Their focus is still on providing great benefits to the staff and a great working atmosphere. They make it a great place to raise a family. It makes my heart feel good that they’ve been able to accomplish that and keep that going.”
To learn more about 1st American Management Company, visit 1stpropertymanagers.com.
