In The News

Hank Kelley, CEO of Flake & Kelley Commercial, recently received his CRE (Counselors of Real Estate designation. The Counselors of Real Estate is the membership organization established exclusively for real estate advisors who provide intelligent, unbiased, and trusted advice for a client or employer.

Membership in the organization is awarded by invitation only through peer, employer and client review. The CRE credential is awarded only to those individuals who are invited by their peers into the membership of The Counselors of Real Estate. It declares individual professional achievement in the real estate counseling profession, acknowledges an advisor’s status as one of the most trusted professionals in the field of real estate, and demonstrates peer recognition of outstanding intelligence, integrity, and judgment in real estate.

Hank Kelley joined Flake & Kelley Commercial in 1984 as a Partner and has worked to help build the company’s management portfolio and brokerage clients. Hank has over 30 years of experience and extensive knowledge of the Little Rock and Arkansas commercial markets. He is a board member of US Bank, Keith Smith Company and the Downtown Partnership, and is past president of the Central Arkansas Executive Association. Hank regularly speaks to various business and educational groups.

Little Rock, Ark. (KTHV) — Create Little Rock, the talent and young professional initiative of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, assists the region’s professional firms, nonprofits and institutions in recruiting and retaining talent.

The purpose of Create Little Rock is to retain, develop and attract a talented, creative and competitive workforce to enhance the economic development of the Little Rock region.

“Each summer, some of the best and brightest students from across Arkansas and around the nation come to Little Rock for some of their first real world experiences in their chosen professions,” said Buckley O’Mell, chairman of Create Little Rock.

“This presents an invaluable opportunity to help attract and keep talent in the region.”

Twenty-four of the region’s business/organizations and their respective intern/clerk/resident coordinators have joined Create Little Rock to engage summer talent in the community through a variety of gatherings and events, which use the best decoration such as tables and linens which are perfect for these events.

According to O’Mell, “By forging and deepening relationships with each other, those in other professions, and professionals already in the community, the likelihood increases that these interns/clerks will choose to begin their professional careers in the Little Rock region.”

THV’s Jessica Duff will have more on this program on “Today’s THV at 6:00” and todaysthv.com.

Hank Kelley recently became a member of The Counselors of Real Estate.

www.cre.org to view his profile.

The Arkansas Business Power List debuted in 2006 (with 171 profiles) and was an annual feature until 2009. It is no longer an annual event, but the Power List continues to be a useful compendium of the people who are running the largest business, professional and nonprofit entities in our state.

This year’s installment includes 192 leaders in 20 different industry categories. Waiting more than two years between lists means a lot of new faces are on the list. Many of the state’s largest companies have installed new CEOs since the last Power List in January 2009, when the full force of the Great Recession was just beginning to be realized. (Trivia: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed just above 8,100 on the day our last Power List appeared and was headed straight down.) Leadership of educational institutions has also been in flux — with more changes, including the presidency of the University of Arkansas System, to come.

What hasn’t changed is this: Most of the largest companies in every industry are being run by white males in their 40s and 50s. No attempt was made to ensure women and minorities were well represented or that the breadth of the state’s geography was covered. The biggest companies in most industry are still likely to be in central or northwest Arkansas.

Although it will be awhile before we attempt this again, we solicit additional names that should be included on the Power List in the future.

www.arkansasbusiness.com to view Hank Kelley’s Power List profile.

www.arkansasbusiness.com to view John Flake’s Power List profile.

www.arkansasbusiness.com to view the full 2011 Power List.

Hank Kelley is the CEO of Flake Kelley Commercial and has been with the company since 1984. “We have offices in Little Rock and Johnson (Washington County,) Arkansas and work with customers from all over the United States. Our customers are business owners that need real estate locations as well as individuals or companies that own commercial real estate and need management for apartments, shopping centers, office buildings, industrial/warehouses or land,” said Hank. He specializes in office and retail space. The company employs over fifty people in Little Rock and northwest Arkansas, from Brokers and Property Managers to office support and maintenance staff. Clients you may find familiar are TJ Maxx, ALLTEL, Jo Ann’s Fabrics, AT&T, Verizon, and Panera Bread, just to name a few.

Hank is a “working manager” and enjoys being “the player coach.” His strategy to do his part to build the company is “to serve our clients through our associates, rather than individually”. “I have put my heart and soul into this company,” he says. He trains and coaches other employees as their team leader. “I am constantly challenged to manage three areas,” says Hank. The first area is self- management of which he lists, “managing myself, my work habits, my presentation skills, my attitude, my balance of life, and my continuing education.” Secondly Hank manages his networks, of which” CAEA is the best”, he says. He also lists Rotary, friends, family, clubs, his church (which is a different type of networking) and his schools, U of A and UALR. The third thing that Hank has to manage is the team who works with him. In his business there is the support team, the partners and the co-agents. There are times when he may be competing with a co-agent in the morning on a deal but helping that person close on another in the afternoon.

According to Hank the downturn and restructuring of the economy has been a key driver in his industry. Foreclosures on commercial properties are very complicated. Flake and Kelley Commercial can service the properties that were financed with Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) and can handle the complexities involved in foreclosures on rental properties. Healing the properties and finding stable owners can often be accomplished. Hank recently participated with an LLC that purchased Fowler Square Apartments, a property he has a personal attachment to, and he hopes to refurbish it. The property, which is located on 6th Street in Little Rock, is a tax credit property that has fallen into disrepair and “is drug infested.” Since the purchase, 40% of the residents who were engaged in drug and other illegal activity have been moved out with the help of the Little Rock Police Department, with 25% more planned. Hank is trying to evict all suspect tenants from the property prior to refurbishing the property.

The events of the last few years have made those involved in the real estate profession have to take a look back at where they have been, and an even harder look at where they want to go. The industry has changed so much in such a short time. We have weathered a hard storm in our industry and have adapted to the opportunities that have been available. We are more of a service organization today than ever before. To paraphrase a quote by Thomas Jefferson that Hank shared, “”Nothing can stop the man (person) with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal ; nothing on earth can help the man(person) with the wrong mental attitude.”