I had the pleasure of sitting down with my father, Tom Graham, for a lengthy discussion of his career. The conversation begins with Dad’s early life in 1940s and 50s Rock Hill, South Carolina, we continue through his careers in energy and the nascent software industry, his introduction to real estate development, and his work as what one might appropriately call a wildcatter developer in Atlanta multifamily and single family real estate. We wrap things up with the the beginnings of our rezoning effort for the development of I’Onin the late 1990s in Mount Pleasant.
This could have been several different podcasts: Management Science America and the early software industry, deal structure and financing for the yeoman developer, and the origins of I’On.
Links to things mentioned
Coming Home: The Southern Vernacular House (book by Historical Concepts)
Historical Concepts (Jim Strickland’s architecture firm)
Timestamps
0:00 – intro
3:28 – place of origin, family
10:14 – teachers, schooling, high school
13:22 – what was important to Tom in high school
15:14 – Freeman magazine, development of interest in political economy, college
18:18 – meeting his wife, Emory, macroeconomics
21:40 – getting married
26:20 – Cuban middle crisis, JFK, Vietnam war, the draft
31:14 – early career, software, key punch cards
38:20 – Management Science America, business consulting, financial software
43:59 – quitting, end of MSA
45:55 – consulting and software as sole practioner, self-employment
47:37 – Charlie Ackerman and getting into real estate
57:21 – going off on his own, Tripple Creek apartments
1:02:36 – Harwood condos
1:05:22 – financing stack 5x deep
1:07:33 – zoning compliance debacle
1:12:42 – converting apartments to condos
1:23:08 – urbanism part of career, infill community development
1:39:18 – possibility of losing everything
1:48:22 – leaving the Atlanta market behind
1:53:37 – the home of an entrepreneur, remembering the characters
1:56:47 – new urbanism, Spring Island, Newpoint
2:05:08 – doing it again in Charleston, the I’On property, financing
2:13:22 – Mt Pleasant’s desire to build walkable mixed-use communities, zoning
2:21:19 – rolling takedown, pricing structure, option payments
2:31:35 – gathering builders, building beauty, opening up lot sales
2:34:04 – Newpoint concept plans, plan books of ideas
2:37:45 – Jim Strickland and classical architecture
2:43:59 – showing off beautiful houses, design of Tom’s house
2:48:05 – I’On plan books, vernacular and classical architecture
2:49:17 – conclusion
You can find Yeoman on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube, and elsewhere.
Yeoman 