Toward the end of my teaching semester at GW in 1980, I made the decision not to return to the National Housing Partnership. There were two reasons for this. The first was that since my two bosses were my age and were very good at what they did, there was no obvious path for a promotion. I probably could have handled that, but the other factor put the nail in the coffin. The HUD Section 8 Program for new construction and substantial rehabilitation was at risk of being axed. Reagan had just become president and was threatening to kill the program. Without Section 8, the development of affordable housing would be very difficult. That all came to pass in 1983 when the program was terminated. The National Housing Partnership went out of business a few years after that.

But what next? Developing affordable housing was no longer a job option. Finally, I had developed an expertise in an activity that I could get paid to do, and now this expertise was no longer needed. Well, I thought, I am not getting any younger. In April of 1980, I had turned 38. If I was going to make a career change, it was now or never. And I realized that some might ask whether I even had a career in the first place.

Then when I thought more about it, I realized that I did have several skills that I had learned that I thought might have value. At Gladstone Associates I had learned how to do real estate and housing development research and accompanying financial analyses. And working for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington I had learned what large scale housing developments entail in the failed effort to develop Seton Belt Village. I also had learned a lot about developing market rate seniors housing. In addition to developing St. Mary’s Court, I was responsible for exploring how the diocese could develop a “lifecare” community for more affluent seniors, and we got pretty far down the road by making a down payment to purchase a 300-unit apartment complex in northwest DC near the National Zoo to convert it to a lifecare community. That effort was also stopped in its tracks when the DC City Council passed a law in the spring of 1979 making it illegal to convert rental housing to another use.

But I felt that with all this experience I had a shot at making it on my own. I took a deep breath and announced to Embry over dinner in the spring of 1980 that I had decided to start my own company.

I can’t remember her exact response, but I do remember that I did not get what you might have expected: “You what? Are you out of your mind, do you have any idea of how hard that is, and by the way, how are we going to meet our mortgage payments with you not working?” Embry in fact, though a bit surprised, was supportive. She had a good job which made enough income to support our family of four for a while. But still, it would be a heavy lift.

Before making the decision to start Howell Associates, I had talked with several colleagues in the housing development field, all of whom were cautiously supportive. I told Embry that I would not pull the plug until I had at least one contract. When one of my former clients at Gladstone Associates hired me to do a market study for a large multifamily complex, that was enough for me to tell my bosses at NHP about my plans, and they too turned out to be supportive. I rented a small office for about $600/month from a company that provided support services for people starting up a business or shutting one down, printed out some business cards and stationery, and “Howell Associates” was up and running.

Then my first and only contract fell through when my client could not secure financing. Oops. Guardian angel, where are you?

Within a couple of weeks of desperate phone calls to friends and former associates I got a phone call from my former boss at the Diocese of Washington. They had been approached by a wealthy shopping center developer in the Washington metro area who owned a 125-acre parcel near the Beltway in Prince Georges County near the site where Seton Belt Village would have been located. For tax purposes he needed to dispose of the property and was prepared to give it away to a nonprofit owner. The lawyer that the diocese had used for the Seton Belt rezoning effort was also the shopping center owner’s lawyer who had recommended the diocese to the shopping center developer as a possible recipient. The diocese, my former employer, needed a feasibility study before taking the property.

Bingo! A job again. Thanks, guardian angel.

Howell Associates was selected as the consultant. I did the study, ran the numbers, and recommended a 350-unit “lifecare” community (also called a “continuing care retirement community” or CCRC) modeled after Kendal, a Quaker community outside of Philadelphia. The proposed community would include cottages and apartments, a large community dining room, auditorium, library, meeting rooms and a large indoor swimming pool. Skilled nursing and assisted living were also part of the recommended development program. I then eased into the job of being the community’s development consultant. I assisted them in hiring an architect, builder, and lawyer, identifying a possible CEO, prepared a marketing plan and filled out forms for zoning approval and for approval by the Maryland Office on Aging. This time with no baggage regarding DEI initiatives, we sailed through although the process took more than a year.

While the assignment turned out to be a life saver for Howell Associates, it was not the long term business opportunity I had expected. Near the end of the first year of my consulting as development adviser for developing the property, the lawyer that I had recommended to be part of the development team gave me a call and asked for a meeting “about a serious matter.” He came to my office in downtown Washington and announced that the board of directors had no confidence in me and that I was fired. When I asked him who was going to take over my job as development consultant for the project, he smiled and said smugly, “I am.”

I was stunned. How could this have happened? And what did the lawyer know about developing a lifecare community anyway? I should have suspected something was up because several weeks before the decision, he had spent several days in my office going over all my work and brought in his “accountant” to review my financial model and projections. I searched for answers which pointed to a couple of key board members whom I did not get along with. I never was sure why but suspected it was because I refused to get down on my knees in the lobby of the Ramada Inn where we often met for breakfast meetings. They would pray loudly asking Jesus for help in developing the property. That was where I drew the line. Good heavens, who were these people? Episcopalians do not do such things. But there was nothing I could do to change the outcome. I recalled that the lawyer who had just delivered the bad news was on his knees praying with them big time.

So, I was back to square one, needing to find clients to replace the Diocese of Washington contract to manage the development of “Collington,” the name given to the community (and ironically where Embry and I now live). There was much work to be done to make Howell Associates a going concern. How that happened and how the company grew from a one man show to a viable business is the subject of the next post.

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