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Realtor finds talk is key to business success By JIM LARSEN | News-Times EDITOr
Gerry Oliver isn’t much of a joiner, but he’s a talker, and that’s how he runs his real estate business. “I get out and talk to everyone,” said Oliver, voted Oak Harbor’s “Best Businessman” this year, after two consecutive years of winning “Best Realtor” honors. “I run my business face-to-face,” he added. “It’s almost a lost art.” Oliver’s is one of the best known faces in town, which gives Go Realty, which he co-owns with his wife Cindy, an advantage. He was basically raised in his mother’s Bargain Center furniture store, he graduated from Oak Harbor High School in 1995, and he started in the real estate business with Rick Chapman. He belongs to the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, but other than that he prefers one-on-one talking to attending meetings. Oliver is a familiar face on Oak Harbor High School’s Wildcat TV,
where Shane Evans does the playby-play for football and basketball games and Oliver provides the color commentary. “I love sports, I love watching the kids grow,” he said. One of his favorite TV gigs was the Roller Derby contest covered by the high school TV crew in the Roller Barn. “That was a blast,” he said, “but I had to study. Danger Ali gave me some good material to cover,” referring to one of the roller girls. Most recently, Oliver is known for sticking his neck out in support of the controversial one-way conversion of Pioneer Way, the city’s historic downtown. He moved his business there just before construction started. Months later, the pavement ends just in front of his business, housed in offices that once served as a bank (Everett Trust) and law offices (Christon Skinner). “The road stops at ‘Go’,” Oliver said with a laugh. But customers still find him on the dirt street at
Jim Larsen/ Whidbey News-Times
Gerry Oliver discusses “Go Realty” at his desk, in an office once occupied by bankers and lawyers. Construction is hampering traffic on Pioneer Way, but Oliver said people still find his Go Realty office. He moved his business there to show his support for the controversial downtown makeover project.
the corner of Dock and Pioneer, the paving of which is held up due to the discovery of Indian bones during
See Realtor, page 5
Networking helps beat the ‘scary’ out of business By JIM LARSEN | News-Times EDITOr
Jim Larsen/ Whidbey News-Times
“Everything worth doing starts with being scared.” Those words from Whidbey Island insurance legend Hank Koetje are framed and hang on the office wall of Shelli Trumbull, who just over a year ago started her own business, Cascade Insurance Agency, LLC. She worked for the Koetje Agency in Oak Harbor for 18 years before it was sold and both the Koetje brothers, Hank and Al, found themselves out of the business for the first time since 1948. Trumbull, too, left when the new company took over. “It was a very, very scary step,” she said from her comfortable office chair in a building near Red Apple
Shelli Trumbull sits at her desk at Cascade Insurance Agency in Coupeville. Despite starting her business during the Great Recession, she’s enjoyed success through networking.
grocery on South Main in Coupeville. “I chose to leave. My husband (Brad) said, ‘if you don’t do it now you’ll never do it.’”
Trumbull had wanted her own business for 25 years and she knew the insurance business inside out. But the Great Recession was in full swing. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Trumbull admitted, echoing Hank Koetje’s framed works. She couldn’t even talk to her old clients for one year due to a non-compete agreement, so she was starting from scratch. After finding a space to lease in Coupeville, Trumbell hired an as-
Published as a supplement to the
sistant, licensed customer service agent Kyla Garden, and started her new business the only way she knew would work — by networking. She joined the Central Whidbey Chamber of Commerce, Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, Coupeville Boosters Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, Gifts from the Heart food bank and Central Whidbey Little League, to name a few. Her community boosting efforts are evident even before entering her office. A pink toilet sits in the yard outside, a fundraising effort by the parents of the CVHS Class of 2012.
See Networking, page 5