From left: Eric Ditter; an oil rig in Williston, N.D., one of nearly 200 active drilling rigs in the state. The number has quadrupled since 2009.
“HE’S WILLING TO TAKE RISKS. HE’S JUMPING INTO SOMETHING... WHERE IT’S ALL BEING DONE FOR THE FIRST TIME.” —EARL ARMIGER, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT PROFESSOR, ORCHARD DEVELOPMENT PRESIDENT
“It’s a career job to come out here and work,” Rolfstad says. “Going forward, we’re going to have to see families move in here.”
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Ditter saw an opportunity, and a solution: Build these men a community to call home. “I’ve always been a startup guy,” he says. “Fifteen ideas come up a day. I’m driven not to be an employee.” Growing up in West Chester, Pa., he started a landscaping business when he was just 10 years old. His father helped him collect and fix people’s old mowers, and by the time he was in high school, he was servicing up to 100 lawns. It helped pay for his education at Virginia Tech; he kept the business going by hiring two local kids to run it while he was away.
PHOTO BY LINDSEY GIRA/FLICKR
After he got his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2000, he took a job at General Electric. At the same time, he moved in with a college buddy, Brad McHugh, and joined him in buying and fixing up properties in Annapolis, Md. “I knew that anyone who had money had real estate as a foundation,” Ditter says. He did well for several years, at the height of the market in the early to mid-2000s. But soaring prices made him nervous, so he looked to graduate school to learn more about real estate and expand beyond flipping houses. He chose Maryland, which had just started its master’s program in real estate development in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “I love the program for its entrepreneurial mindset,” he says. Many of his professors were out in the field, including Earl Armiger, president of Orchard Development and a key player in the development of Columbia, Md., in the 1970s. He became a mentor to Ditter. Armiger put him in touch with trusted accountants and lawyers and walked him through the steps of forming a company with McHugh, White Dog Development Group. “Eric has the characteristics that are absolutely essential for an entrepreneur and a developer,” Armiger says. “He’s willing to take risks. He’s jumping into something he’s never done before, in a community where nobody’s done what he’s done, where it’s all being done for the first time.”
Dakota, and the family trekked out there each year, acclimating him to the culture. “They’re sincere, hardworking people. I was raised with that Midwest mantra,” he says. “They’ll give the shirt off their back.” But at the same time, “the locals don’t always trust development because they’ve seen these booms come and go,” he says. “It’s all about what you do with that trust and the relationship. We always respect them and the help we’ve been given.” The oil’s always been there—it’s just been a question of the technology available to detect and extract it. The first mini-boom came in the 1950s. The second arrived in the late 1970s, when the international oil crisis limited the supply and drove up prices. After prices stabilized in 1981, Williston’s influx of workers moved on. Its population, which had grown by more than 5,000, dropped back to 12,000, and many businesses went bankrupt. Local officials are betting that this time will be different. With projections saying this boom could last anywhere from 15 to 100 years, they’re investing in infrastructure, greatly expanding the water treatment plant and building a $150 million airport. Ditter and McHugh arrived in 2011, before many of these investments had been made. Main Street, like much of the city, still needed revitalization, so that’s where they bought a building for their home base. It’s where McHugh, with his construction background, lives and works while renovating the property. (It's also where the pair could potentially earn some oil royalties, as companies are starting to install lateral wells under CYCLES OF BOOM AND BUST their property and throughout the city.) Ditter has roots in the open plains of the Soon they purchased another 50 acres, Dakotas. His parents grew up in South with rights to 100 more, just south of the
FALL 2013 TERP 23