This is a recognition of a mindset that was always there. My father spent 35+ years in Commercial Real Estate in San Antonio. Multiple relatives on my mother's side built successful careers in the industry as well. I grew up around it; car conversations on the way to games, trips through warehouses, dinner table talk about landlords, tenants, deals and market cycles. I can still remember the first time I learned about squatter's rights at fifteen, after a day at the Lumber Yard downtown and interacting with long-term homeless.
What I didn't fully recognize until recently was how much of that had taken root. Once I noticed I was spending more of my personal time thinking about real estate, driving past a vacant space and wondering about its highest and best use, reading about the market, the decision became easy. This is the work I want to do for the rest of my career.
I enjoy developing and maintaining relationships with people, and I continuously strive to become a valued expert — wherever I am.
In my engineering career, I became a genuine expert in fasteners and bolted joints. It sounds narrow, but the deeper I went, the more I realized most people only know the simple surface-level theories. The real knowledge is diverse, nuanced, and valuable across a huge range of applications. That expertise opened doors and earned trust in ways that general competence never could.
I carry that lesson into real estate. I'm not looking to know a little about everything. I'm looking to find my bolted joints, the specific corner of this market where I can go deep, add genuine value, and become the person people call because they know I know. I don't know exactly what that specialty will be yet. But I know how to pursue it, and I know what it feels like when you've found it.
Right after college, I was living at home, working as an engineer, and saving up for my first home. When it came time to start looking, my dad said he would represent me at a discount despite not being in Residential, but that I'd need to scour the MLS on my own. He also said that if I found a duplex or four-plex I could make work financially, he'd be willing to entertain buying in together.
What I heard was: find the right deal and we'll do it together. So I started combing the database. I was tracking a wave of development centered around the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio. Values hadn't moved yet, but you could feel where things were going. After about six months, I found what looked like the perfect four-plex: 100% occupied, stable building, and priced before the surrounding appreciation hit.
We put in an offer hours after it came on the market. They accepted. We went to the inspection together.
What I hadn't done was set expectations upfront. I never had the conversation about how much I planned to finance, what the projected net return looked like, or what the structure of our partnership would actually be. When we got home from the inspection, I found out I had no leverage, and I was out of the deal.
He honored his word and waived my realtor fees when I found a home to buy. I did find one, rented rooms to friends, and honestly, it was the right fit for where I was in life.
But I hold that four-plex close. Not with bitterness, we laugh about it now. Because of what it taught me: ask your questions early, set expectations with your investors before you fall in love with a deal, and do your viability homework before the offer goes in. And even when lost on the financial outcome, I genuinely enjoyed the process of learning the market, identifying an opportunity, and executing on information. Wisdom and knowledge is found through actively seeking it, and through experiencing what happens when you don't.
My dad started in San Antonio in 1980 at one of the larger local developers, working under a hard-driving man we referred to at the dinner table simply as Melvin. Melvin trained him to be a human database of local businesses and their buildings — knocking on every door in the city, identifying growing companies through foot traffic and firsthand observation.
Melvin would roll by his office and call out "Carroll Report" — and it was expected my dad would give a live rundown of everything he'd learned since they last spoke. From there he learned to negotiate and sell. The core lesson was simple: this is hard work, and to stay relevant you have to be savvy and put in the time. There are no shortcuts that hold up.
Growing up, I absorbed that through proximity. On the way to a game we'd lay eyes on a building. On busier days I'd roller-skate through vacant warehouses while he measured and documented space. When I had my lawn business, he found a broken commercial weed eater — told me it was worth the risk to fix. I got it running. It lasted another twelve years. That's how he operated: no handouts, but real opportunities for anyone willing to work.
My dad is now retired from Commercial Real Estate in San Antonio and has passed his relationships on. I won't benefit from those directly, but the legacy of mentorship he built gave me people I can seek guidance from as I get started.
Colorado Springs is my home now, and I am enjoying learning about the market here. I'm licensed, I live here, and I'm committed to building something real in this community. When I align with the right brokerage, my focus will be on deepening my market knowledge, building relationships, and finding a specialty where I can become genuinely indispensable, the way a good engineer becomes the person everyone calls about a specific problem.
I know this is a cyclical business. I know the due diligence periods are intense. I know the first years are mostly about establishing habits, learning, and earning trust. I grew up watching someone succeed in this industry by builidng longterm relationship by providing valuable Information, continually Involved, and above all Integrity. My goal is to do the same.