A Different Kind of Developer Perhaps not that many women head up their own construction companies, but they haven’t all had the kind of mentoring Valerie Draeger did. By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter After about a half dozen years as an independent developer, Valerie Draeger came to a fork in the road. She had hooked up with an investment partner so that her Thousand Oaks-based Triliad Development Inc. could acquire properties for development outright instead of bidding on jobs for others. But the newfound financial wherewithal also meant that Draeger had to choose pursue larger projects and make more money, or stick with the niche she’d carved, building smaller developments for entrepreneurial companies. Draeger held firm to her notion of being a boutique developer who personally oversees everything from entitlements to build-outs. To be sure, Triliad’s fortunes have changed since the company partnered with PEGH Investment LLC, a group headed by Gene Haas, president of Haas Automation Inc., in 1998. The partnership has given Triliad access to a range of projects, including Mission Oaks Business Park, a $100 million industrial center on 55 acres in Camarillo. It acquired the 30-acre Moorpark West Corporate Center, and it has begun construction on the $20 million Canyon Vista Office Park in Calabasas, to name a few of its current projects. The company has just completed a new facility for Rockwell Scientific Co., it broke ground recently on a new corporate headquarters for The Cheesecake Factory and it has begun the entitlement process on several other large industrial centers. But Draeger has stayed true to the company’s original intent taking on a small number of clients so that she can oversee each project personally. Question: Describe the approach you take to your business? Answer: I specialize in build-to-suit, taking a company like Haas Automation or Medical Analysis Systems that has started from scratch maybe in 3,000 square feet and grown. And now the company has to take it to the next level. They’ve patched together a system that pretty much worked for them, but they can’t work efficiently because they’ve just sort of grown out of their skin. We take a look at their operation and, along with them, we come up with a plan and usually it includes equipment, operations and infrastructure to make it function. Q: Why do you insist on getting personally involved in all the details? A: You can’t hand a set of criteria to engineers and say go design this facility because, for example, who would have known that a cheesecake catches a cold? It has to sit for two hours after it leaves the oven. It cannot be moved or toggled or joggled or jiggled. It has to cool down, otherwise it will crack. It has to be, not a chilled environment, it has to be a humid temperature, room temperature but not cold. How would you know that unless you sat down with (Cheesecake Factory CEO) David Overton and he tells you the story of how his cheesecake catches a cold? When you’re working with these entrepreneurial companies and they’ve got a new process or this is the first time that they’re really moving into the next stage, you really have to spend lots of time with them. Q: So how much of your business is repeat business? A: For Lockheed, I built quite a few facilities for them in past years. Cheesecake Factory, this is the second facility I’ve done for them. Helmet House, I built a facility in Calabasas for them in 1995, and I’m looking at remodeling their facility right now and have looked at some expansion space for them. Haas Automation started out with 400,000 square feet. I built 200,000-square-feet additions. Medical Analysis Systems, I finished their building a couple years ago in Camarillo and I’m going down this afternoon to see what they need. Q: How did you get started in the business? A: I started out as a secretary at Los Angeles Air Force Station. I wanted to make more money, so I went to work for (shopping center developer) Ernest W. Hahn Inc. I started in the payroll department but then I moved into the development division as a secretary. There was a gentleman there, Art Hanson, who had been with Ernie for 30 years, and he had no other life. I mean they had to call him and tell him to cash his paychecks. He lived very frugally. He didn’t have any family, and he was very knowledgeable. I showed an interest in learning how to read plans and stuff and basically he was ready to dump information onto the first person who would befriend him. He was just fantastic. I would come in early in the morning before work would start and spend a couple hours with him. Q: When did you get your first shot at a development job? A: I wanted to move into a tenant coordinator position. My first job was Plaza Pasadena. It was quite a struggle to get Ernie (Hahn) to let a girl go out on a job site. I was in my 20s, a single mom. Myself and another girl, Bonnie Grover, were both assigned so they couldn’t say that a guy pulled us through. Q: What about when you went out to the construction sites, a twentysomething woman with those crews? A: The fist time I went out on a job site there was a crusty old superintendent Gene, and the first time I walked through, the guys started whooping and whistling. I don’t know what Gene did, but after that there was never another sound in the hall. And at Christmas the crew gave me an ugly mask and a whistle, so I could go on the job site and keep from distracting the crews. Q: Didn’t you have problems getting them to trust your judgement and your input? A: Maybe I was blinded to it. I’ve just been really lucky with Ernest and especially even with (my next job at) Cabot, Cabot & Forbes. If we were in a social situation, because many times I’m the only girl there or woman or whatever, the president of Cabot, Jim Kenyon, would be very careful about explaining who I was, so with that kind of support it got around really fast. Q: When did you decide to go off on your own? A: I wouldn’t have, had (Cabot, Cabot & Forbes) not closed down. When Cabot shut down, I had all these relationships with these industrial parks. I had built Rockwell facilities, Rocketdyne facilities. When Cabot went away I’d get calls from these guys and they said, ‘We know you, so do you want to build something?’ Q: With the exception of Canyon Vista Office Park, most of your focus is in the industrial sector. Why? A: I’m not into office buildings. They’re the most vulnerable in a recession. I tend to lean toward the industrial buildings. Even in a recession the tenant may have to cut back, but they’re not going to move out. In an office building, you can have multiple tenants of which a lot are support for other businesses and not necessarily the corporate headquarters, and you tend to see the office space free up first (in a soft economy). Q: How has your partnership with Gene Haas changed the role you play and the way you approach the business? A: You have to start thinking about how big you want to be and how many projects you want to take on. You can take on a lot of projects and do them half-heartedly, but the way I oversee projects is not like the normal developer. You can probably make more money the other way, but I wouldn’t have the niche where I personally get involved in the other aspects. I had to step back and say, which company do you want? The one that everybody has or the one that clients come back and you get a lot of repeat business and you feel good about yourself at the end of the day. Q: Why do you think there aren’t more women in the business? A: If I had not had the gateway in that I did with all the guys at Ernie Hahn I was a single mom. I was in my early 20s and women were supposed to be married and in the home. It took quite a lot of support from the guys in the office going in and saying you should give her a chance. You had to have people that didn’t have egos that were so focused on their individual success. They were all part of a team. I don’t know how many companies I’ve seen that are set up where the people within the company are more competitors than team members. And to me that’s so foreign. So I think that I was just lucky. At Hahn I was paid quite a bit less than the men, but I always saw that as an investment in my education. Valerie Draeger Title: President, Triliad Development Inc. Age: 48 Education: El Segundo High School Career turning point: “When Art Hanson took time to be my mentor.” Most admired person: Art Hanson (deceased) Personal: Married, three children