By the time you take off, you’ve got know where you’re going land—and possess the right flight plan get there. Eric Reese, the Greater Eastside’s only real-estate broker who’s also an experienced pilot & flight instructor, applies the same meticulous preparation to his work with clients. As with flying, he says, “everything you’re doing, you have to thinking long term with each transaction.” What is the desired result, and what will it take achieve it?
Eric, with the support of his wife and partner Renee Reese, has been asking—and answering—these questions throughout a long career of entrepreneurial ventures. He ran a satellite equipment lab at Lockheed Martin before his passion for flying led him a flight school Livermore, , which he grew from a single plane 20 aircraft. When he and Renee moved her hometown of Seattle to raise their three children, Eric pursued sales with large-scale computer software concerns until 2004, when he began contemplating another career move. He remembered something his real-estate agent told him Livermore—that Eric would make a good agent himself. “It was because I was a successful business owner,” Eric recalls, “because successful real-estate brokers are entrepreneurial and understand the work it takes assemble listings and negotiate contracts.”
Flying has remained a constant since Eric left the University of Washington to become a professional pilot at age 23. He pioneered aerial photography for his property listings before the advent of drones, which The Reese Team now employs to produce stunning perspectives of their luxury listings.
Every entrepreneur recognizes that quality work is a team effort, and for that, Eric doesn’t have to look farther than his own family. Renee, the “people person,” Eric says, is a design expert and certified professional stager who focuses on clients’ needs and on staging their homes for sale. The Reeses’ two sons, meanwhile, own video and documentary companies that produce The Reese Team’s videos, property tours and VLOG’s. And while their newest team member, Erica Hachey, isn’t technically family, her communications degree, social-media expertise and deep knowledge of her native Seattle has already made her an invaluable player.