PAM COWPER | REAL ESTATE

Our Walden journey began in 1988 when a close friend told us about this wonderful neighborhood named Walden. We were living in Bainbridge and golfing at Aurora Country Club but had never heard of Walden! When we first drove down Walden Drive, it was spring and we were captivated by the beauty surrounding us.

So, we decided to sell our Bainbridge house and purchased our first condo in The Meadows in 1989. Thirty-four years and two condos later, we are still here and still loving our lifestyle.

Here's my story of how I got to where I am today, selling Real Estate!

Selling was always a part of my profession. In the mid-1970s, I worked for an electronics distributor, Cramer Electronics, which was then purchased by Arrow Electronics. We sold electronic components to the OEM market. I worked in customer service, servicing orders and solving problems. I was an inside salesperson asking for business and taking orders. I became a product manager, purchasing and managing inventory and negotiating market pricing. I became an outside salesperson, managing my accounts and designing our products for purchase. The electronics industry at that time was very fast-paced and fluid. Pricing fluctuated on a monthly basis, as new products and new manufacturers came into the market. Little did I know, at the time, that the sales, customer service, problem-solving skills and pricing strategies that I mastered would serve me in a future career in Real Estate.

I met my husband, Wally, at the beginning of my electronics career and we tied the knot in 1980. He was the ultimate salesman, and I truly believe he could have sold ice to an

Eskimo! We decided that between us, we had all the contacts, skill sets and experience necessary to start our own manufacturers’ representative company, and we did so in 1986. Five Star Electronics was born! We had nothing to sell, and I guess you could say, nothing to lose. We knew the lines we wanted to represent, so we started interviewing and selling ourselves, hoping to convince them to take a chance on a new business that was being run by seasoned veterans of the industry. Through much hard work, we grew our company to 11 people and yearly sales from zero to 23 million dollars. We sold our company in 1998.

Starting in 1990, we became very active in Club Walden. We golfed every chance we got and won our fair share of awards along the way. We were on numerous committees and spent much time at our club. I had much fun working with our new Club Manager, Patrick Cunningham, in 1999! We planned many events together

By Pam Cowper

with other committee members.

For the past 14 years, I have been an active member of The Walden Association, starting in 2009, as the Landscape Committee Chairperson. Eventually, I became the trustee of the Gardens Association. I am the secretary of the Walden Association, first as a Walden Association executive committee member and then as a committee member on the Walden Architectural Committee.

I started in real estate in 2008 when a friend in real estate told me I might as well get my license and begin selling homes. I had called this person so many times, giving names of people I knew who were either wanting to move into or out of Walden. It wasn’t anything that I had thought of doing, but it was time for another career, so I jumped in with both feet! It was then that I realized that the many years of honing my skills in sales, customer service, problem-solving, pricing strategies and management were the exact same skill sets that I needed in my real estate career.