S.E.C. Real Estate Observer

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An S.E.C. Biography

Arthur Hamel was born and raised in New Windsor, New York. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) with a degree in Industrial Engineering.

Art married his lovely wife Jane in 1965 and they have two fine sons. John, age 35, earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and an MBA from NYU. He is married. He is a Senior VP in investment banking at Freidman, Billings and Ramsey (FBR) in Irvine, California. Jim, age 30, also attended the University of Southern California and is working in the automobile repair field.

While working his way through college, Art began his first businesses shipping books, delivering fast foods and delivering newspapers on campus. After graduation, while working for IBM in New York, Art and two partners formed a management consulting firm called HTH Consulting Associates. It still is in business in New York.

Hamel was transferred to California by IBM to set-up the new 360 program. The 18 month project took only 8 weeks. Hamel had been interviewed by the Arthur Young Accounting/ Consulting Company in New York before he moved to California. Since IBM was out of work for Hamel, he became a consultant.

As a consultant he worked with the owners of many small businesses. He discovered that his knowledge was equal to or greater than that of the average business owner. Hamel did not seem to fit in “Corporate America,” so the stage was set for him to become a business owner. (The only problem was, he didn’t have any money!)

Art discovered a small 25 unit motel in Modesto, California that had been by-passed by the freeway. He bought it with a prayer down. It was summer in the hot-hot valley and the area was swarming with truck drivers that had to wait many days for a load back to Arkansas. Hamel’s idea was to give every trucker an ice cold beer when they checked in. The motel vacancy rate dropped to below 0%.

At the motel, Hamel had a chance to meet many travelers selling products. One day he met the franchise salesman for Pizza Inn Restaurants. Hamel built a free-standing Pizza Inn restaurant in Modesto and was off to the races. Hamel’s friends at Pizza Inn offered other existing restaurants in California and Hamel ended up with a few.

A movie producer from LA stopped by and asked Art if he would like to start a franchise sales company. He continued to make movies and Hamel expanded the company with three national restaurant chains/franchises.

The main restaurant-franchise owners would not invest money back into the business and so Art bought the main company. He had been in businesses for two years and already owned 25 businesses. The problem—- he was national but he only had businesses on each coast. (Nothing in the middle of the country.)

Hamel then thought —–what the heck was he doing in the restaurant and hotel business??? Engineers buy manufacturing companies. They are larger, easier to manage and have less competition.

Art had to sell all of these businesses and get into something larger. A real estate friend advised him to get a real estate license so he could find agents to sell the businesses. He could not find any. (He ended up training many of the first in the business.)

The real estate agent then advised Art to look into exchanging and to attend the RENO class. Hamel called the Reno, Nevada real estate headquarters for three months, but was told they did not know what he was talking about!

Then Art heard about “THE RICHARD RENO.” Next he met Cliff Weaver and Peter Hodgkinson, and they led him into the Society of Exchange Counselors.

Cliff talked Hamel into teaching a seminar on Business Opportunities. It was “The Number One Business Opportunity Seminar” in the United States for over 15 years. Over 100,000 attended, with tens of thousands of successful graduates. The cassette program is still being sold internationally, 30 years after it was produced. During this 15 year period Art continued to buy and run larger manufacturing businesses, and he was a weekly guest on local and national TV and radio shows. He also co-hosted local radio shows. Hamel also had a weekly TV show in San Jose, California.

Art is the founder and “President Emeritus” of the first Business Opportunity designation, CBC, The Certified Business Counselor award. Hamel also taught a Business Opportunity class for the California Association of Realtors, and special business opportunity seminars for state real estate departments in Montana, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Michigan and New England; as well as a beginning Entrepreneurial Business Seminar for the University of Southern California (USC).

Hamel was appointed to the California Department of Real Estate Business Fraud Committee. He was a Regional Director for the Society of Exchange Counselors, he served as President for two real estate exchange groups, The Bay Area Exchange Counselors (BAEC) and the AIEC. Hamel started two additional management consulting firms, a venture capital (angel investing companies).

Art seems to do everything in 15 year cycles. The talk in business circles concerned the great business opportunities in Mexico. He started slowly in Mexico and over 15 years owned 17 businesses. Art had to admit that the reason that he had so many at one time was that the investors would not let him out. (Art does not speak Spanish.) The businesses were varied and included furniture manufacturing, ceramic manufacturing, mail box rental, mattress manufacturing, electronic assembly, (PCB) PC Board Manufacturing, (SMT) Surface Mount Technology, clothing, real estate and telephone equipment distribution.

Hamel is now in the process of buying two manufacturing companies in Southern California. For 25 years he has purchased businesses that have sales of $5 to $10 million and a net profit of $1 to $2 million. In 2005 he has finally raised his sights to businesses that have sales of $10,000,000 to $25,000,000 and net profits of $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 million dollars. Let the fun begin!