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- [00:10]
A
Join Willie Walker, Walker and Dunlop's chairman and CEO, as we bring you fresh perspectives about leadership, business, the economy and commercial real estate. Willie hosts a diverse network of leaders as they share wisdom that cuts across industry lines. His guests are experts in their fields, from leading economists and CEOs to Harvard and Yale professors and everything in between. Our one goal is simple, providing you with unique insights, unparalleled data, and real time market analyses. There we go. So Kevin, Kevin, Kevin was poking fun at UNC a little bit hard. So I went into my iPhone and pulled out and sent it to these guys and said, we got to put that up there. This is an incredible place to speak. So is the Dean Dome. And next year when I come back here, I expect the cavalier to be in here running around like the Tar Heel did in, in unc. Now we can put up the other photo that you can just leave up there. That's when my dad was inducted into the Raven society here at UVA back in 2015. That's my son Jack with the two of us. I want to first of all say thank you to Kevin and UVA for having my dad and me. The, the idea for the two of us to be here came from Kevin and my friend Chris Stezelli, who's here this morning was class of 92 at UVA. And Kevin reached out to me and said, will you come and be a keynote at uva? And I do a lot of speaking these days. And I said, of course I'd do that. And he said, but I want you to bring your dad. And I said, now that's a really good idea. But I said my dad won't come if I ask him, so you need to ask him. And so Kevin reached out to my dad and my dad, in typical Mallory fashion, said, people want to hear from Willie and what's going on in the markets today. They don't want to hear about me. And so he said no. And then I did what I've done a lot with my dad, which is call him and convince him to do something different. And thankfully you're here. I have, it's, it's. I've almost done 300 Walker webcasts. This is going to be broadcast as a Walker webcast next week. And I fortunately have Chris the set of coming on the Walker webcast next week. And he gave me some really great ideas today about what Chris and I are going to dive into. I will also say that to listen to two CEOs like Ben and Chris, both longtime friends of mine, but People that I have looked at and watched them build their brands and build their companies. I would reiterate what Ben said, which is that Kristin said is truly one of the great CEOs in America and what he has done with Hilton and that ups and downs being a public company CEO, which I've been now for 15 years, you never really know when you're going to wake up the next day and have what Chris had, which not really revenue is going from 55 billion to zero, but the vagaries at the markets and being able to deal with them. I think one of the things that I would say about Chris that's so redeeming to him is A, his humor and B, the fact that in the hospitality industry you've got something going on in one of your hotels somewhere in the world every single day that would make most of us stop in our tracks. People go to hotels to commit suicide. People go to hotels to have big parties. People go to hotels, do all sorts of different stuff. The stuff that Chris has dealt with is a great lesson as it relates to consistent leadership over time. Mallory walker, born on April 13th to those of you who are historians might know that somebody else shares the April 13th birthday, 1939. Went to Lawrenceville School, went to the University of Virginia, then went to work for his father, Oliver Walker, in the fall of 1962 at Walker and Dunlop, which at the time was a small regional brokerage firm in Washington D.C. and spent his entire career there, becoming president, then becoming CEO. He founded a firm called Green Park Financial in 1988, which was one of the first Fannie Mae dust lenders in the country. And then in 2007 stepped down as CEO of Orkur null up and in 2010 stepped down as chairman of the board. And I was the fortunate one to step into his role as CEO of the company in 07 and then chairman in 2010 when we took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange. Hi, dad.
- [04:27]
B
Hi, Willie.
- [04:28]
A
My friend. My friend Peter Cook, who went to Duke and we got a bunch of our old St. Albans buddies here today, said to me, make sure you let your dad speak, Willie. And I said, I will definitely let my dad speak. So Chris gave a great memory of this room and taking an exam in here when he was a student.
- [04:46]
B
You ever come here?
- [04:46]
A
Back in the late 50s, early 60s and anything memorable from Cobble Hall?
- [04:52]
B
I have great memories too. But I want to start by saying that one of the best weeks of my life was the fall of 1984 where I went with Chris's father to Nepal to hike. And we're on an airplane from London to Delhi, and the pilot comes on and says, Mrs. Gandhi's been shot. We not going to land in Delhi. We're going to go to Bangkok. And Paul Nasetta and I are standing at the bar in a 7:47. And he says, we're going to have a really good time. And we did. We had an unbelievable time. So walking in here, I heard Chris say, I took in the fall of 1958 music appreciation in the room first as you walk in this door. And I heard chamber music in this auditorium all during my first year. And it created a love for classical music that I have never left. And I spend more of my time today because I don't have to worry about business listening and tracing to classical music. It's Cabell Hall.
- [06:00]
A
So 1965 years ago. Dad, um, what's changed about UVA? You've spent a bunch of time here since 2008. And we'll get back to 2008 in a moment. But as you come back onto this campus and think back to when you were at uva, what's the most. What's the most glaring difference?
- [06:19]
B
Women, minorities, ties and a. Sorry to say this, but a much more intellectually stimulating environment. I mean, Virginia was a great school in 58. It's a much greater school today.
- [06:35]
A
So you're finishing up at uva. Your plan is to go work for your dad at Walker and Dunlop. Talk about walking out of here and going to D.C. to work for your dad.
- [06:47]
B
I had life figured all out. I'd passed comprehensive in history, I had a job, and I was engaged to Diana. I mean, nothing could go wrong except I failed Spanish my senior year. And in those days, you had to have the third year of a romance language in residence in Charlottesville to graduate. So I went to Dean Cawthon and said, can't you make an exception? And he said no. So I left, went to work because I'd already accepted a job and I wasn't going to hang around for another semester to take Spanish 3 and went to work for Walker Dunlop.
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A
So back in that time, who is a typical Walker and Dunlop client? And where'd the money come from?
- [07:32]
B
So the world had at that time was bfs, all had Aetna, and Weaver Brothers had Metropolitan. And all of those did joint ventures with developers which wedded them very tightly to both that lender as well as to that mortgage banker. And so we weren't going to get the Albert Small business because he had done a deal with Weaver brothers at seminary and 395 joint venture. So we had to find clients that weren't already aligned with one of the three big firms in town and who had the three biggest insurance companies because the insurance companies were the source of our capital. So we were the new people on the block, so to speak. And we were looking for developers who had not already committed themselves to our competition.
- [08:24]
A
And how big was Walker? Nope.
- [08:26]
B
Back then we serviced about $200 million in mortgages, but most of those were single family. So I don't know what our commercial portfolio was.40 or $50 million. But we had been in the single family business for a number of years.
- [08:43]
A
And how many employees?
- [08:45]
B
45, 50.
- [08:47]
A
And was it a successful firm?
- [08:50]
B
It was successful in the sense that I educated you and it had all the normal elements of success. We didn't lose money, but we were always subject to finding the next deal. There was never a day in which you didn't have to wake up the next morning after having just settled some wonderful thing you'd worked on and finding another deal. So we were deal dependent. And in 1984 that began to change and we started looking for a way not to become always dependent on the next deal.
- [09:31]
A
Talk about going to pitch Melvin Lincoln to do a financing for Lincoln. Well, Melvin Lincoln was a, a very notable developer in the D.C. region who my dad did a bunch of work with. But the way that Melvin used to work on deals. Go, go ahead.
- [09:52]
B
There were clients that you had a lot of fun with. There are clients who were really tough to deal with. And Mel was just always a lot of fun. And we would go into pitch mail on a new deal. And if he rarely did he like our proposal. First off, that was his, his way of going about life. You know, this is not good enough. And I'll call Phil Mudd and he'll do it. And Phil Mudd was my always shadow. I mean, whenever I was working on a big deal, Phil Mudd was being the next room or calling in to get an appointment. So anyway, the way Mel would end the discussion was he would yell at a so that everybody in the room could hear it, everybody in the office could hear it call Phil Mudd. That meant we had not sold the deal at that point in time. So then the question was, as we walked out and passed Phil Mudd coming in, did we think that we had the lender for this particular deal that Phil couldn't compete with, or were we dead in the water? And you could pretty well tell as you walked out, by the nature of the deal, the kinds of things that Phil did, and that's just one example. Every developer has a tactic. And I remember there are a whole series of people we dealt with over the years who used to try and set the table by taking a call the minute you got in their office for somebody more important than you were. And the person who rose that to an art form was Bob Smith at Charles E. Smith Company. And I was kind of accustomed to walking to his office and having him take a call from Senator Ribicoff and talk about both American politics and Jewish politics. I was going for the biggest deal we had ever done, $100 million facility on a bunch of apartments on a very unique structure. And he took a call from the President of Israel. So I waited there for 10 or 15 minutes and he walked over and he said, your fee's too high. Well, that always happened. I mean, that was the beginning of a conversation. But it was an effort. And the Mill story is somewhat the same thing. It was an effort to set the table and say, I'm more important than you are. And you either do it my way or you don't get the deal. And of course, part of that is.
- [12:21]
A
Mastering that process you talked about. In the mid-80s, you started to move towards sort of focusing on what's the next deal to try and build up, if you will, more stable revenue streams. Before I ask you the question, one thing that I would put out there to any of the students who are looking at the job market today and saying, maybe it's a challenging job market to be going into. If you look, if you listen to what Chris said previously about where he had opportunity during the SNL crisis in the late 80s and early 90s in. If you look at the generation of leaders today in commercial real estate, people like Chris Nassetta, people like Barry Stern, like people like Bob Faith. Barry Sternlich and Bob Faith both graduated from Harvard business school in 1987, went out, and both got fired from their first jobs and turned around and they formed Starwood Capital to go buy notes in the rtc, the Resolution Trust Corporation. And that was the beginning of Starwood, which ended up turning into Starwood and Greystar, two of the great companies in commercial real estate today. The one thing I would put forth is adversity creates opportunity. Chris talked about it in his career. Bob Faith and Barry Sturmlich both found it in theirs. And so in a steady market, there is always opportunity. But it's when things get rough and tumble that the really, really great entrepreneurs and leaders step in and find opportunity where they can go with that. Dad, in 1988 you decided to go and get one of the first Fannie Mae Dust licenses and you started Green Park Financial. You didn't have enough capital to get the Fannie Mae Dust license. What'd you do? And talk for a moment about the partnership agreement that came back to benefit you so much.
- [13:58]
B
So Fannie mae required a $5 million segregated piece of capital that they could tap if any loan went bad. That was the initial qualification. We didn't have $5 million. So I called Connecticut Mutual and they said we'd love to do it. We've just come to the Washington D.C. area, love to be your partner. And I thought the company was going to be called Walker and Dunlop something. And I get a call from Connecticut Mutual and they say, one little problem, you're going to go bankrupt. We're not going to go bankrupt. So the company can't be called Walker and Dunlop because we don't want to buy the name when you go bankrupt. So think up a name you can name the company, but it just can't be called Walker and Dunlop. Can't be called Connecticut Mutual either. So we struggled, looked at lots of different names. Finally a friend of mine said call it Green park because that's a park across from Buckingham Palace. It's residential in nature, rather high class residential and you know, it sounds English and Wall street will love it. And so we called it Green Park. And the irony of it is that Connecticut Mutual took insolvency and we got another partner who followed them and they took insolvency and we got a third partner in Green park, always putting up the capital. And they became insolvent in that partner.
- [15:34]
A
Partnership agreement though, didn't they, didn't they say that you could buy back the partnership interest for a dollar because you were the one who was going to go bankrupt and not them and then you were able to buy back the partnership interest for a dollar.
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B
I wish, I wish I'd ever been able to buy it back for a dollar.
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A
But you bought it back at a steep discount because that's what they negotiated for in the, in the partnership agreement. Why not?
- [15:53]
B
Connecticut Mutual just said, we have financial problems, we need to exit the business and not have any of the risk. They gave us a year to find a new partner and it didn't cost us anything other than finding a capital partner that would replace Connecticut Mutual. So in that sense it was a dollar, if that's what you mean.
- [16:12]
A
Yeah. So throughout your leadership of W and D, you were always quite innovative on technology. I remember distinctly as a kid, on Sundays, when you'd go down to the office, I'd go back into the Dictaphone room and there were these Dictaphone machines where you would record on your tape messages for a memo or a letter. And then you'd come in on Monday morning and give it, and the secretary would sit there with a typewriter and actually type all the stuff up. And then when voicemail came out, you would lead these endless voicemails for your whole team that would, you know, you'd add and say, add this person and add that person. You'd send it out to everyone. And then I remember when I went to college, you gave me an IBM PC, and I was the only guy in my. In my fraternity who actually had a PC at that time. What was it that made you technologically sort of, if you will, not only literate, but kind of cutting edge in the practice of technology? Obviously you weren't out doing development things like that. But what was it that made you always want to put technology into Walker and Dull Hall?
- [17:13]
B
Not exactly sure. I thought of applying to architecture school at Virginia, and I didn't think I could do the math in those days. We didn't have HP12s and everything was done on either a slide rule or you had to actually know the math. And I thought I wasn't great at that. So I decided to go to the college instead and major in history. And it turned out, however, that I have a certain skill for looking at numbers and kind of see patterns. And so I quickly, when I went into business, found that numbers, math all felt comfortable and. We had Burrows calculators when I went there, and we had to produce amortization schedules, and that would take forever. I mean, just forever. Then we went and we were a very early adapter of a IBM PC. I remember when we went out and bought two of them and we did all sorts of things. I can't remember what, whether it was productive. I don't think it probably was, but anyway, I've always been interested in technology. It's something that I thought I liked early in life, found I was better at it than I thought I was, and it's always interested me.
- [18:36]
A
So 2003, I turned to you at Dulles Airport on my way back to London after you, and I remember it well. Yeah, I remember it really well. So I'd done a. I was on the Walker in the lot board at the time, and I was running the European operations of a large call center, publicly traded call center company called Teletech. And I'd come over to do a strategic planning session with my dad's senior management team. And we were at the Hilton Hotel right next to Dulles Airport. And as I was leaving after running the management team through it, I turned to you and I said, you know, there's a lot to do here, dad. This is a really great company. What would you think about me joining you? And what was your response to me, me saying, what do you think about me joining you?
- [19:20]
B
Well, as I remember, you said you wanted to join it for a short period of time and move on. And I said, no, you either come and stay or don't. And that gave him a lot to think about on the plane back because he was not planning on coming to Walker Dunk and staying. He wanted to fix a problem we had and he would have been great at it and then leave. And my view was that in a family owned company, none of the employees would relate well to him coming and fix the problem and leave. Either this was going to be his calling or it wasn't, and we have to work that out.
- [20:01]
A
So one of the other things that I do think is interesting is because my dad went from UVA straight to Walker Null up, he'd established a rule for my brother and me that we neither of us could come to work for Walker DMOP for at least five years after college and we had to go out and do something else. I never had any interest in going to Walker and Dunlop, quite honestly, until the fall of 2003. And I had been living in London and just had our first child and was thinking for the first time in my life after spending a decade in Latin America and then three years in Europe, that it was kind of time to come home. So I joined. On the day that I joined Walker and Dunlop, you gave me your office. I literally walked into the office and took his office. He'd moved out of it physically. And you also said you're running the Monday morning production meeting with all the bankers and brokers in the company, which I knew nothing about. Why'd you do that?
- [21:03]
B
Well, the why I did it, the why I did it and what it accomplished to the thing. So the easy answer to that is that my father stayed around too long. In my judgment, he had come from nowhere. He'd worked very hard. And when I came into the company, he saw that it was an opportunity to take more time off and. And all the big decisions would Wait until he came back. But I was doing all the work, and I thought, that's no way to run a business. And Willie had graduated from business school, gone off and had two jobs that were very successful. He clearly knew how to manage a process. So if he wanted to come to Walker Dunlop, that was the time to make the absolute transfer. And the fact that he didn't know the mortgage business, anybody had gone to business school, had his experience, could learn it fast. And so I just determined that the best thing for the company and for the family, meaning he and me, I don't mean the larger family, was to simply say, if you come back, it's yours, and I'll leave, so to speak. We had a little complication in that. In that by that time, we had Sun America as a partner. Sun America knew my phone number, didn't want to know his phone number, and they were going to deal with me as long as they had their equity interest in Green park, which is our Fannie Mae desk company. And so I had to stay involved. But the original idea was that it should be turned over to Willie. He should run it. He would probably run the company in a very different way than I was going to run it. I didn't necessarily need to stay around and see that happen. He was perfectly competent.
- [22:59]
A
So was there any time during that period of time? Well, first of all, what was early reaction to me coming into the company? And by the way, I've never asked him this, ever. What was early reaction to me coming into the company?
- [23:10]
B
My reaction.
- [23:12]
A
Early reaction in the company of me coming in, in other words. So, 2004, 2005, what were you getting as far as feedback either from the team, not from my partners. That was also the first time I've heard that.
- [23:23]
B
Yeah. He didn't know anything about real estate. He'd been in the technology business and in the banking business. But, you know, the people who work for Walker Dunlop thought if you didn't know exactly what a life insurance company wanted or a developer wanted, you didn't know this business. He had none of that. And so it was. It was negative. I asked, well, I'm glad to get ahead. No, no. But the first day Willie walked in, we had an oil company meeting. I said that Willie was taking over. I was moving out of my office down the hall into a tiny little cubbyhole and that he had the corner office and he was running the company and it was quiet. That's all I can say. And then a number of people came up to me that day. And said, why did you do it? And what does he know? And why is this going to work? And I would say it was not enthusiastic, I'll put it that way.
- [24:24]
A
So I come to you in 2006 and said to you, he said, sun America. Sun America was bought by aig. So it was AIG, who is our partner in Green park, our Fannie Mae dust business. And I said to you in 2006.
- [24:37]
B
Son had been taken over by AIG, correct? Right. I'm sorry.
- [24:41]
A
And I turn. I'd wanted us to get into the conduit business. I'd wanted us to do more balance sheet lending. I'd wanted us to do a bunch of different things. And seemed to me at every turn, our partners at AIG said, we've got a conduit. We do balance sheet. We don't need you to do that. Just keep doing your Fannie Mae agency business in Green Park. So I turned to you and I said, I want to buy AIG out of Green Park. What was your response to me saying, I want to buy AIG out?
- [25:08]
B
Well, first, where was I?
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A
I don't remember.
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B
I was at the University of Virginia.
- [25:12]
A
No, you weren't.
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B
I think it was a phone conversation.
- [25:15]
A
No, no, that all. That all comes after this is 2006. Not 2007. 2008.
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B
Okay?
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A
So I'll tell you the story. If you want to hear it, please do. So I go to my dad and I say, I want to buy out aig. And his response to me is, great, if you can get them to a price and you can finance it, go ahead. Neither of which he thought I could do. So I got AIG to a price for their 49% interest in green Park Financial. And to give people just a little bit on this, when I joined Walker, no off in 2003, we thought the firm was worth about $25 million on maybe a good day and a really good debt.
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B
Yeah.
- [25:58]
A
And Fast forward to 2006. And I went to AIG. We'd gotten a bid for the firm in 2004 from a firm called Capital Sour to buy the company for $65 million. What do you think about that one?
- [26:11]
B
Go cash the check and go to the bank.
- [26:13]
A
So I thought, thankfully, we didn't.
- [26:17]
B
And.
- [26:18]
A
And then in 2006, I went to AIG and said, I want to buy you out. I got them to a price which was $76 million, and I needed to go borrow $38 million to buy out AIG is 49% interest. And I went to bank of America. And this is one of these things about cycles to just keep in mind. We had negative $1 million of equity in the firm in 2006, negative $1 million of equity in THE firm, and we borrowed $38 million to buy out AIG's interest.
- [26:45]
B
Good day. A really good day.
- [26:48]
A
So the other thing that I think is important to keep in mind here is that just as. As. As Chris and Seta talked about, the fact that he had no idea that a pandemic was ever in one of his business plans when we were buying out AIG in 2006, I had no thought that the great financial crisis was right around the corner. And so we put $38 million of debt on the company with negative $1 million of equity in 2006, and did basically a management buyout of the company at that time. A lot of people in the room, dad, will either be in a family company or work inside of some type of partnership. Talk about equity in the company. And that buyout, if you will, that management buyout, which I ran, was what actually gave me shareholding in Walker. Nope, you hadn't given me any additional stock in Walker Nolan between 2003 and 2006. When I did that. What was your thinking from your upbringing and the way your dad used the equity at Walker Dunlop between you and your sisters, and what your thinking was as it relates to equity in the company for me and my brother?
- [27:49]
B
Well, the. I didn't have any stock in Walker Dunlop. It wasn't a question. I wasn't going to get it. But I never had it until 1981. So I came to work in 1963-81. My father had all the stock, but the understanding was that he would leave the stock a third, a third, a third to his three children. And that was just how I worked. In other words, I always thought, I'm going to own a third of this company, and my sisters would own the other 2/3. But along the way, I had met a man named Earl Slick, unbelievable man from North Carolina, who had. I had sold him a big piece of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And as he was taking me back to a plane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, he said to me, you need to buy out your sisters. No company can be run by three children, two of whom don't work there. And I said, no, no, I get along well with my sisters, no problem. He said, trust me, I know more about business than you do. You need to find a way to consolidate ownership. So I put that in the back of my mind, went to talk to my father. He gave us the third or third or third stock in 1981. And in 1986, I got comfortable enough with the idea that I went and bought my sisters out. And I bought it out on a loan. And Americans, good old American security lent me more money than I was worth. And it. The loan got caught up in a real estate cycle. And so I had to pay it off quickly because I didn't want to report to. They had been. They had been taken over by Maryland National Bank. And I did not want to work for Maryland national bank any more than Oliver Carr wanted to work for Maryland National Bank. And we were two great friends. So I owned the company. My sisters had been bought out. I had the risk, and they were happy with that. And it was the right way to go and run an entrepreneurial business because there were going to be days when we had no dividends and we were sucking wind and there were days in which we were making lots of money. And it was just not something that should be shared by people who are not working in the business. And I think I forgot the end part of your question. What did you want to go to? No.
- [30:19]
A
So then fast forward you're talking about. I'll take all the risks. So in 2006, we buy out AIG, we put $38 million of debt on the company, and then we hit the great financial crisis. What was your thinking in during the great financial crisis as it relates to what I'd done in levering up the company and cutting the dividend.
- [30:39]
B
This answer might surprise you. I had by that time two years, three years of working with Willie, where I had planned to completely leave the company the minute he came in. Because I thought there could only be one boss and I shouldn't hang around. I had this relationship with Eli Broad and the Sun America people, and they wouldn't let me go, so to speak. I ran loan committee, things of that nature. But it was pretty clear that he had proven in a short period of time what he could do. And the fact that we were going to go through hard times. We'd been through hard times. Real estate, cyclical, and it would come back. And so I think where it wasn't a pleasant time for any of us, I never had any doubt that both the market wouldn't turn and that you wouldn't find some gold in the troubles that we were in. And you did.
- [31:46]
A
So fall of 2007, you're retiring as CEO, and I walk into your office and I say, dad, I called the alumni development office at the University of Virginia and I called him up and I said, look, the story is that my dad didn't graduate from uva because he didn't pass his Spanish final. If my dad actually didn't graduate from uva for some other reason that I don't want to know about, just call me back and say you don't want to know about it. I then said, second, I think the.
- [32:19]
B
Person you called's in the room.
- [32:21]
A
I think she is second, was he if he failed the Spanish exam, he's never going to pass a Spanish three final as a 68 year old. So do you still have the language requirement or can he just take a course? And then finally he lives in D.C. now, if he were. If on number one, he actually only misses one credit and on number two, he doesn't have to pass up to Spanish three final, can he do it at one of your satellite campuses up in the D.C. area so he doesn't have to come back to Charlottesville. So she calls me back and she says, I got good news and bad news. Good news is your dad is only missing one credit from uva. Second good news is that no longer we have a land requirements. All he needs to do is pass one class and he'll get his degree. But the bad news is he's got to come do it in Charlottesville. So I walk into your office in 2007 and say, that's the news. What are you going to do?
- [33:09]
B
Well, I said, I'm not going to go live in a dorm. And Willie says, just be patient, you'll have an offer that you can't refuse later today. You're talking about until the rest of the go ahead. So I mean, obviously the idea that Virginia would take me back and allow me to graduate 40 some years after I left is remarkable because most people have left. It just doesn't happen. But because of Willie's call, they said they would take me back. I could take one course. But the idea I decided to go to Georgetown and learn about world religion. You couldn't read the morning newspaper in 2007 and understand the difference between Sunnah and Shia and Orthodox and reform. And I didn't know any of that and I wasn't religious. So I was going to go to Georgetown, study religion and not go to Virginia. Willie sets this up so I can go back to Virginia and do it. And then I thought to myself, I don't want to live in a dorm. No one is going to call me by first name. They're going to call me mister. I mean, how? It's not going to fit. So, anyway, I do come back in the fall of 2006.
- [34:32]
A
Seven is. You're the oldest graduate of the class of 2008, I believe.
- [34:36]
B
No. Although, one year before. Okay, I come back and I love it. I mean, the idea of coming back to college for one semester when you were as old as I was was thrilling. I mean, unbelievably thrilling. And I want to tell one quick side story, which is that I was given a special dean of admissions that was to take care of problem children. And so his name. His name was Pop Off. And he was in what's Garrett hall, which is now the Batten School. And I was in his office, and he said, Mr. Walker, you can take any course you want. You don't have any requirements. You just have three hours you've got to get. So I said I wanted to take Dean Ayers course, Marching up to the Civil War. Ayers was a phenomenal Civil War historian. And he said, no, I couldn't take that because it really is at the graduate level. And it was too much reading. And the dean had just taken the job as head of University of Richmond. So it was only one more semester at Virginia. You need to do something else. And I thought, you know, that's terrible. Anyway, I said, the only other thing I want to take is a course on architecture, because I've always loved architecture, and I'd love to take the history of architecture from Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. And he said, great, go for it. And I said, but it's a graduate course, and I haven't graduated from undergraduate school. And so he said, go over to see Richard Guy Wilson. If he signs your card, you're in. I went over to see Wilson, and he looks at me through his glasses and says, what are you doing here? I said, I'd like you to sign my card to take a course, architectural history, 387 Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. And he said, what do you know about architecture? So I fooled him into something, and he signed my card and I came back.
- [36:37]
A
So you pass both courses. You got four O's, I think, in both courses. And then I said to you, you gotta walk. And you said, I don't wanna walk. And so you said, no, they'll mail me my degree.
- [36:49]
B
I won't know anybody. I mean.
- [36:51]
A
Yeah, you didn't know anybody, right? You hung out at a beautiful farm here. You studied. You stayed at Edgar Bronfman's farm here in Charlottesville, you'd come down for a couple days a week, do your course, and then you were done. Right.
- [37:04]
B
And so I didn't walk until then. That's right.
- [37:07]
A
So when my dad got inducted into the Raven Society in 2015, we all came down. He put on the cap and gown, walked up on stage and sat there and watched diplomas being handed out. So, dad, we went public in 2010 at a market cap of $220 million. And over the next 12 years, our market cap went from 220 million to 5 billion. As you sat there and watched the firm grow and the things that we were doing, what was your reflection as it relates to someone who was clearly deeply invested in the company, given your shareholding of it, but no longer being inside the firm and operating it.
- [37:44]
B
Admiration. You haven't heard me say that before. No, it. An unbelievable experience. It's a story. You can't. Right. I was around until 2. Oh, until December. 210. So I saw the company under Willie's leadership from when he came in Thanksgiving, 203, grow the company. We had a whole bunch of fun things that we did together during that period of time, but it was just. It was remarkable to watch it grow as fast as it grew. And I. You know, there's no way to have anything other than respect and gratitude for what happened to the company under your leadership.
- [38:36]
A
If W and D. You never. I don't think you ever had any thoughts that either my brother Taylor or I would join the company, given that I did. I've never asked you this either. Do you have any expectations that it goes on to a fourth generation?
- [38:50]
B
I have no expectations of that.
- [38:53]
A
I think that.
- [38:53]
B
And I've talked to your children. I don't think they do either.
- [38:56]
A
Yeah. So I. I will say my niece, Zoe Walker, who is a senior here at uva, is actually coming to the company next year and will be the only. It's kind of interesting. She will be the only. The fourth Walker to actually work at the firm. So my grandfather, my dad and me were the only three Walkers or Dunlops who've worked at the firm? Actually, no. So Laird Dunlop was. It would be the fifth. But Zoe is going to leave UVA and come to us, which I'm very excited that she is joining us. I was joking with my friend Charlie Zarate last night, who was class of 89 here at UVA and one of my old, old friends about the fact that Charlie worked for Walker. No, before I did. And. And Dan wasn't successful in his summer Job of taking the firm down. Although Zarate could possibly take the firm down.
- [39:40]
B
He had that capacity.
- [39:41]
A
He definitely had the capacity to take the firm down. So, dad, as you look back on your career, what do you think as it relates to kind of what was your superpower? What was your skill? You mentioned previously we talked a little bit about technology. You'd created a great training ground for talent in the mortgage industry at Walker and Dunlop. Did you take pride in that, or was it frustrating for you to develop all these great mortgage bankers who went off to the bigger firms?
- [40:08]
B
Great pride and great frustration. Yeah, we did become a great training ground. Awful lot of businesses, real estate, finance businesses, were created through Walker and Dunlop. People came to work, went off, started their own firm, and towards the end of my career, they became my biggest competition. So it was rewarding to see that happen and that people wanted to do that. It wasn't rewarding to see them leave or to say, you know, why isn't there room here for you? But that we survived and they survived.
- [40:47]
A
As you think back on it, I mean, you and I tell the story, and we've. We've done a little bit of this in the past as it relates to sort of family companies and succession planning and all of that. I will tell everyone in the room that the story looks really, really great on the outside and at certain times, gets really, really tough on the inside. For him, for me, for families, you have an axiom which you use all the time, which is money divides. Absolutely. But as you think back to anyone else who has a family company or kids who might be thinking about coming into a family business, what piece of advice would you give to them?
- [41:27]
B
Every situation is different. You can't make kind of universal statements. But I think you were about to ask me a question a minute ago. I thought it was, what was. What am I most proud of? And I was patient. I saw more than my fair share of competitors go out of business because they were impatient and couldn't see themselves through to the end of COVID to use an example that we've just used. They just basically were running too hard. And so I think that I've taken the long view. You've taken the long view? Not everybody in business does. I think that, you know, and we're lucky. There are not a lot of businesses that have three generations of one family. We've been quite lucky in that sense.
- [42:21]
A
Oh, I'm a big believer that the first generation typically creates it, and if the second generation doesn't kill it, the third one Always will. And so we've clearly avoided that. When you, when you think dad about. I asked you what the reaction was when I joined Walker and Dunlop, and you were very open and honest about that. What do you think people think is your superpower? Not what you'd like to think it is, but what do you think people say was your superpower as it relates to Mallory Walker? Other people, what other people say about you? What's. What's the redeeming quality?
- [42:53]
B
I'll.
- [42:54]
A
I'll tell you. It's your curious nature. One of the things that anyone in the room who is at uva, who spent time with my dad, whether it's on the foundation board or sitting at a dinner table, will consistently say to me is, your dad has got one of the most curious minds of anyone you'll ever meet. And I think it goes back to what Nessetta said earlier about Chris's desire to continuously learn. My dad, for his age, the last thing he does is just say, I know what tomorrow's going to bring. I know everything I need to know. I'm just going to go about, do my own thing. He's got this curious brain that is constantly asking for more knowledge. And he'll sit down with my buddies and know nothing about what they're up to in their lives, and he'll just sit there and pepper them with questions to understand what's going on in their lives and what they do. And it is really your. Your desire for continuous learning is, I think, quite honestly, a what keeps you so young and secondly, what makes you so such a delightful person to sit down, have dinner with.
- [43:51]
B
And I'll add to that, that part of that is because I came back to Virginia for a fall semester in 2006 and got turned on to not only learning, but also what are the challenges of a big educational institution. I became fascinated by what is Virginia? What's Virginia trying to become? What is it? And I have you to thank for that. Because I wasn't coming back to Virginia. It was Willie who said, don't go to Georgetown. Go back to Virginia and get your degree. And I thought to myself, why bother to drive to Charlottesville? I don't need to. And it truly changed my life.
- [44:31]
A
I think that's a great way to end it. Kevin, thank you for having us. And thank you, everyone, for today.
- [44:48]
B
Sam.