November 16, 1998

Two join real estate hall of fame

A.H. Clise stayed steady in a topsy-turvy business

By MARC STILES
Journal Real Estate Editor

The late Alfred Hammer Clise was not your typical developer. He wasn't like his grandfather, James W. Clise, whose arrival in Seattle the day after downtown burned to the ground in 1889 cleared the way for him to invest in real estate and other ventures.

Nor did he take after his father, Charles F. Clise, an outgoing, prominent developer and financier who bought downtown properties during the Depression.

A.H. Clise was a close-to-the-vest Marine. "A big-time Marine with a tough persona," recalls his son, Al M. Clise, who is president of Clise Properties.

A.H. Clise had to be more cautious than his dad and grandfather. That's because he was not looking out for merely his own interests but the interests of his siblings and their families as well.

This is not to say that A.H. Clise, who died in 1993, didn't develop his share of downtown buildings. Or that he led a dull life. He was a big-game hunter who once bagged a grizzly bear and who displayed his hunting trophies at his office in the family's Securities Building and at his Bellevue home.

When it came to constructing trophy towers, though, Clise wasn't interested.

The buildings he helped develop -- the Pacific, United Airlines and Westin buildings and the Westin and Executive Inn hotels -- were sensible structures that penciled out, recalled his son. He stopped building after 1980 while other developers constructed skyscrapers.

"We could never figure out how it made any sense," said Al M. Clise, who said his dad was "more of a shepherd and manager" than a developer. "Slow growth was good growth as far as he was concerned.

"We -- because of that fairly conservative attitude -- were able to weather the cycles and find ourselves today in great shape. I feel very fortunate to be where we are."

Clise Properties is preparing to build the 24-story 700 Olive Building and has its eye on developing housing, office and retail space in the Denny Triangle, according to Al M. Clise.

"My father managed the portfolio for 33 years and essentially positioned us where we are today," he said. "That's what I give him credit for."

After he graduated from Lakeside School in 1939, where he was quarterback of the football team, Clise went to Whitman College in Walla Walla where he graduated with honors in 1943. Immediately after graduation he was commissioned in the Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific in World War II and later in Korea.

He earned various decorations, including the Purple Heart, and retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving 22 years.

His Marine Corps experience shaped his life. Harvard Palmer, the Clise family's longtime, in-house business counsel, called him the consummate soldier.

"I think Al was a prototype. As we used to say, 'He doesn't go around obstacles, he goes through them," Palmer said with a chuckle.

Clise joined the family firm, then the Clise Agency, in 1946. Save for a brief interruption when he was recalled by the Marine Corps to serve in Korea, his entire career was devoted to the business.

In addition, he served as president and lifetime trustee of the Seattle-King County Building Owners and Managers Association; trustee of the Museum of History and Industry; member of the Senior Advisory Council of the Downtown Seattle Association and the Whitman College Board of Overseers; and he was active in the U.S. Marine Corps Support Group VMP216. He also maintained memberships in the Rainier Club, the Seattle Tennis Club and the Washington Athletic Club.

He became president of the business in 1961, when his father suddenly died.

"It was a chaotic time because no one was ready for my grandfather to die," Clise said. There were estate issues and tax issues to manage. "That was a rough period."

Nineteen years later he lost two children, who died in accidents within a year of each other.

Yet Clise --the stoic Marine -- maintained. He did what he needed to do, preserving his family business' position as one of the Northwest's most stable firms in the topsy-turvy world of real estate.

Now his son is poised to build on the family legacy. "I'm excited about the next 10-year bite and the next 10-year bite after that," he said. "There's a lot to be accomplished, and he's the reason we are here talking to you about it."

Harold Hill 'fathered' a long list of companies

By MARC STILES
Journal Real Estate Editor

Joe Simmons was shocked one day when his former boss, Harold Hill, told him that no matter how much he loved his job, he'd have to leave someday.

"He said, 'Joe, you're not going to work here forever. Learn and then start your own business because it's the only way you'll make any money.'

"It kind of took me aback," said Simmons, "and then I thought, 'You know, he's right."

It was the sort of wisdom Hill, who is a legend in the Puget Sound region's construction industry, imparted to his employees over the years. Many took his advice and now are on a lengthy list of companies "fathered" by Hill.

Jeff Foushee and Loch Anderson of Foushee & Associates. Roger Collins of Sierra Construction. Dick Winter of R.C. Winter Co. The late George Minnear of Poe Construction. Gid Palmer of Trammell Crow. George Leyton of Seaborn Construction. And Simmons, head of Joseph S. Simmons Construction. These are just a few of Hill's professional progenies.

"There was hardly anybody who didn't work for him who didn't go out and start his own business," Simmons said. "He had no problem that you were going to work for him for awhile and then you were going to leave."

But it is not the number of people he mentored that sets Hill apart; instead, it was what he taught them -- be fair, decent and honest -- that counts.

"Good Midwestern values" is how Simmons describes Hill's teachings.

Hill, 75, was born in Sedalia, Mo., and grew up in Kansas City. After World War II, he attended Kansas State University in Manhattan and graduated with a double degree in architecture and engineering.

He worked in his hometown before heading west and landing in Seattle, where he and his wife, Mary Frances Jennings, moved during their honeymoon. Initially he worked for Morrison Knutsen where he bid on jobs, including the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Eventually, he went to work for Hugh S. Ferguson Construction.

This was a turning point in Hill's professional life. He and Ferguson pioneered tilt-up concrete construction in the Seattle area but more important, Hill said, is what he learned from Ferguson.

"He's extremely ethical (and) honorable," Hill said. "His philosophy and certainly ours and I hope everybody who has ever worked for me was the same, and that is: We are in the business of building buildings not to keep (clients) from doing it themselves but to save them from their lack of experience."

Ferguson, 82, said Hill's success is rooted in his intellect. "He's a very smart man" and "a credit to the industry," he said. "I'm proud to be associated with him."

For 14 years, Hill worked for Ferguson before starting Harold W. Hill Construction on May 1, 1968.

"The first week I had my own company we had at least three jobs," Hill said. First on the list was a building for developer Martin Selig. "Martin came over and said he wanted to be No. 1."

His big break came when he landed a contract to build convenience stores for 7-Eleven. "It was like having a rich uncle," Hill recalled.

By the end of the first year, the company had either finished or had on the books 50 projects. By 1983, Hill Construction had completed more than 500 jobs for clients.

The vast majority of the work was warehouses. Hill considers industrial properties an overlooked need that can be easily filled. "They're just big boxes," he said.

He eventually built buildings as investments. One was the Tire Distributors Building in Kent. He took the profit from that project in 1975

and bought the 100-acre Menges and Patterson farms in Kent between the East Valley Highway and the Valley Freeway. The result was creation of Hill Investment Co., and those farms now are the Hill Industrial Park.

Today, half of the industrial buildings in the Kent Valley were either built by Hill or he currently owns or has owned them, according to John Pietromonaco, who joined Hill in business 10 years ago.

Hill built and sold what is now the Northwest Bottling Building, and he sold land so he could finance construction of his own warehouses. He had the city of Kent annex the land, had the property rezoned, installed utilities, brought in 1 1/2 miles of rail lines and built three streets.

By 1977, he was ready to build the first of many structures in the industrial park that his family still owns today.

The following year Gus Raaum, a longtime friend, partnered with Hill to form Hill-Raaum Investment Co. Over the next 10 years, they built and controlled more than 750,000 square feet of space.

"We never, ever had a dispute," Hill said of his friend.

In 1983, Hill Construction was dissolved. The boss wanted to spend more time with his family, and his investments were cash flowing so the need to build diminished.

Pietromonaco joined what is now Hill-Raaum-Pietromonaco in 1988. Since then, the firm's portfolio has grown from 950,000 square feet to 4 million square feet through both construction and purchase of space.

Hill has many outside interests that keep him occupied today. He has two sons, John and Stephen, and six grandchildren. He has been active in the Rotary Club of Mercer Island and Emmanuel Episcopal Church. He formed the Hill Family Foundation that contributes to charities.

One of his most notable accomplishments is that in his many years of business, Hill has sued or been sued only once. "It ended up a split decision," he remembered of the dispute over an industrial development.

Joe Simmons said he realized how remarkable that was when he worked for another boss, who was involved in all sorts of legal fights. "I thought, 'Man, if this is construction I don't want any part of it,"' he said.

But now Simmons is in business for himself. He paid the ultimate compliment to his former boss by saying that when he faces a challenge he often asks himself: "How would Harold handle this?"