Tom Quigley had little doubt while growing up here that he would carry on the family legacy, operating Spokane Neon Sign Co., which his grandfather, Jack, had founded in the 1930s and later passed down to his father, Glenn.


That was intended to be my business, he says.


He had begun pushing a broom there at an early age and later spent summers and much of his other spare time working at the sign shop, located near Playfair Race Course. He even paid for his business degree from Washington State University with money he earned there.


Quigley says he realized soon thereafter, though, that, it just wasnt a good fit for me and my personality. He informed his father of that when his father quizzed him about his career aspirations in 1975 before deciding to accept an attractive, unsolicited offer for the sign business.


Following the heartfelt signs that led him down a different career path has proven rewarding, he says. Quigley, 56, now is president, CEO, and majority owner of Kiemle & Hagood Co., one of the Inland Northwests largest commercial real estate and property management concerns.


The company says it had record transaction volume and revenue last year, handling transactions with a combined value of more than $175 million. It doesnt disclose revenue figures, but Quigley says its revenues leaped 39 percent in 2007, boosted partly by three large transactions, following a 15 percent jump in 2006.


He says the company has budgeted for a 20 percent drop in revenue this year, due to the real estate market downturn, but that year-to-date activity suggests it will finish the year down only about 10 percent.


Along with its brokerage activities, Kiemle & Hagood manages more than 5 million square feet of commercial, office, retail, and industrial space here and about 1,300 apartment units. It also has a parking-company unit, called Friendly Parking Services, that it formed about five years ago to manage or handle certain duties at parking facilities for clients, and it now oversees about 20 parking properties, mostly in the downtown area.


In addition, it has a portfolio of homeowner associations that it manages, and administers a roughly $2 million-a-year, single-family housing rehabilitation program sponsored by the city of Spokanes community development department.


The company occupies the fourth floor of the Washington Mutual Financial Center, at 601 W. Main downtown, where it has been a tenant since the building opened in 1974, and has about 60 people working there. It also employs about 90 people who are scattered among the various properties it manages.


It expects to open a satellite office in Coeur dAlene within the next week or so.


The company has done well, and Im fortunate to be involved in it, Quigley says. To me, this is an extension of my family.


Quigley was born here, with his family living for a time on the North Side and later in the Valley, and he graduated from University High School. He says he loves to travel and went to Europe while in high school on a trip arranged through the People to People student ambassador program, then again in college, postponing the second semester of his junior year in 1973 to embark on a low-budget, six-month overseas adventure with several fraternity buddies.


We rode the train and stayed in youth hostels. We were religious about using the $5-a-day book. It was a phenomenal trip, he says.


He graduated from WSU in January 1975, and his father sold the neon sign business that following August.


I was kind of fishing around for a career direction, he says, when he discovered it during a lunch meeting later that month with his girlfriends father, Ed Kiemle, who had co-founded Kiemle & Hagood with Jerry Hagood four years earlier.


That lunch led to a lunch meeting with Hagood as well, then a job with the company as a commercial real estate salesman.


It was a good fit, Quigley says. I knew I probably had a sales personality, kind of a service mentality. I liked the culture of the company. It felt like a great opportunity in something that had great potential to grow, to the extent that a 23-year-old can judge that.


Rise to management


Quigley became the companys brokerage-department manager in 1980 and has remained in that position ever since, in addition to the other administrative duties hes taken on since then.


Property management had the bulk of the bodies back then, and we never had a sales manager per se, so they let me test the waters, he says. The sales, or brokerage, side of the business now accounts for about 75 percent of the companys annual revenues, he says.


Quigley jokes about using his romantic relationship with Ed Kiemles daughter to finagle a job with the company, but says he had a goal of reaching a top management position someday regardless of where he found employment.


It was my full expectation that if it hadnt been here, it would have been somewhere, he says.


Quigley joined the co-founders as an equal owner in the company in 1987. He and Hagood then bought out Kiemles interest in the company in the early 1990s, when Kiemle was preparing to retire. Hagood then sold his interest to Quigley, Larry Soehren, and Jeff Johnson at the end of 2000, but Johnson later left and Gordon Hester became the third principal in the company.


I couldnt ask for a better situation, Quigley says of his relationship with Soehren and Hester. I think we complement one another very well. We always have had balance in ownership (with the companys principals each having responsibility for different areas of the business). That balance allows us to achieve what weve achieved.


He deflects credit for Kiemle & Hagoods recent strong growth, contending that its been due heavily to the talent of the people who work for the company.


I think I had a better talent for sales management than selling, he says. Ive been surrounded for 25 years by people who are better at sales than I am.


Nevertheless, Quigley twice has been named Realtor of The Year by the Washington State Commercial Association of Realtors, which he helped found, and served as president of the organization in 1997. He also has been active in the Seattle-based Commercial Brokers Association, in addition to serving on boards and committees of several local civic organizations.


Additionally, he was a board member of Big Brothers & Sisters of Spokane County for 18 years, serving as president of that organization in 1988 and 1999, and has served on the boards of other community organizations ranging from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to the Fairmount Memorial Association. He has held a number of positions with WSU foundations and committees and currently sits on the WSU Spokane Presidents Advisory Board. He also serves on the boards of the Spokane Club Foundation and the Manito Golf & Country Club.


Quigley says both of his parents were active in civic and political affairs, so he was brought up to embrace those traits. Of Spokane, he says, I think its one of those places where one person can make a difference, and he adds that he encourages Kiemle & Hagood employees to adopt that mindset of community involvement.


Its an interview question for me when evaluating job candidates, regardless of the position the candidates are applying for, he says. It tells me a lot about a person.


In his spare time, Quigley continues to enjoy traveling, now with his wife, Kelly, Ed Kiemles daughter, to whom he has been married for 31 years. He also spends his leisure time golfing, reading, and relaxing at the familys Rockford Bay getaway on Lake Coeur dAlene. The couple have two grown children.


His father died last March, and his father-in-law passed away three years ago, but he says he remains close friends with Jerry Hagood, who now spends much of the year in the Palm Springs area, and regards Hagood as a mentor.


Quigleys grandfather, who founded the neon sign company, died when Quigley was only 7. Quigley has a framed picture next to his desk of the two of them together, taken when Tom was less than a year old, and his grandfathers old pocket watch is affixed next to the photo. He says he draws a bit of inspiration from having the display there.


My family is really important to me, he says, and I can just sort of remember the character that I think he had. Id like to think that same character is instilled in me.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.