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Meet Katie Kruger

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Kruger.

Katie, before we jump into specific questions about your organization, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was strapped in my seat on a small plane flying from Kuparuk to Prudhoe Bay, when I recognized one of my biggest guiding truths. The tundra below was spotted with lakes and wore a haze created by swarms of mosquitoes hovering near the ground. I was near the northern most point of Alaska and had just completed my night shift, yet the sun was directly overhead. I had just finished a 30 day shift in the oil field camps. I was very tired. It was my last flight home and I had the money I needed to go to college.

Today, when I talk to young people about career choices, I talk about something I call The Next Rung. It’s a concept where life is organized like a ladder. It is the idea that we can systematically and progressively put effort into something, and that we can conquer the step in front of us. That we can climb and eventually we will get to a new higher, better place.

The big truth I found in the plane that day had to do with how we begin change in life. The truth is: You have to start where you are. We have to start with the rung that is right in front of us. I grew up in rural Alaska. Our mother got sick and died too young and my father worked away from home. There were five kids in our family and the stories of our childhood are made up of the misadventures of kids raising kids.

My situation had readied me to work far north but I had other plans for my future. An earlier moment of clarity I had was when I was in elementary school, stacking wood with my sister after school. One day I had the thought that I would someday go to the city and work in an office. I used to imagine the people, my desk and what we would say to each other. Looking back I can see that I was fantasizing about getting to make a living using my mind. My siblings and I did a lot of manual labor growing up. Everyone did where we lived. I was a straight A student and a deep thinker and I remember having the thought that someday I wanted to think to live.

When I became a teenager, I had very little to offer the world aside from hard work and I knew I could work as hard as anyone out there. After playing a significant role in raising my younger siblings, I went to work for the oil companies that served the Trans Alaskan Pipeline. To do this I would leave the rural place where we grew up for someplace far more remote. I traveled 800 miles north to the tundra covered plains of the northern slopes of Alaska. There were 5,000 men who worked and lived in the camps situated around Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay. These tidy drilling sites and quarters were made up of metal sided buildings that housed turbine modules and sleeping barracks situated up on stilts so not to disturb the caribou migration. I seldom saw another woman while working up north. I worked manual labor and I worked as many hours as my employers could legally allow. The money I earned provided for me to go to college in Colorado. And, college changed everything.

Just as I completed my degree, I was hired for a very small salary to do a lack-luster job for a very cool company, right in downtown Denver. It was with that opportunity that I learned my next big truth. I think Stacey Dowling from CMG Financial says it well: When you have a job, you’ve got to work it. My first post-graduate job taught me how important this truth is in our search for the next rung.

I had made it to the city but the work was not yet fulfilling. At this first job, I could see that I was creating a brochure about a community and my colleagues were creating the actual living breathing layered place of land and people – the master plan – and I knew I was in the wrong chair. Down the hall, there were people envisioning two of the biggest communities Denver would ever experience. On top of my normal work, I began to take on research projects and city process projects that made me more valuable. Within four years, I had made a place for myself on two of the prestigious project teams that would eventually develop new communities that created thousands of jobs and tens of thousands of homes; what we all know in Colorado today as Stapleton and Lowry. And, during this time period, I was made one of the youngest executives in the firm. This is when I learned the value of having work and that when you have work, you’ve got to work it. I had traversed the next rung.

For over a decade, I found the rung in front of me and I climbed up within companies and industries. I always started where I was and worked the jobs I was given. At age 34, I was made CEO of the Denver Metro Commercial Association of Realtors, and seven years later I still represent the commercial real estate industry, 2,000 businesses and a $13B piece of Colorado’s economy. The company provides me a beautiful office, right in the middle of one of the most anticipated and burgeoning tier one international cities. My husband and I also raise our kids in Denver. We do visit the mountains, but at this point in my life, the wilderness is for rejuvenation. After more than 20 years in Colorado, it is Denver and all of its urban opportunity that continue to entice me the most.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Sometimes, the rungs on the ladder are hard to find. We have to be willing to work, but moreover, we have to be willing to try. One of my favorite stories comes from this book I read from time to time to center myself. The book is called Awareness and it opens with this story about a baby eagle that has fallen from its nest and is being raised on a farm. One day the baby eagle is clucking grain in the barn yard and a great shadow sweeps out over the farm. As he stares in awe, he asks, “Brother chicken, what on earth is that?” And the little chicken next to him replies, “Well, that is the great bald eagle, he can fly over tree tops and mountain tops. He is the king of the sky.” That baby eagle watched as the eagle soared free in the wind and eventually swept out of sight. And, after a moment, he went back to clucking his grain. That baby eagle lived and died believing he was a chicken.

My biggest hurdle wasn’t something with a definite beginning and end. The struggles of both my personal and career lives have been made up of these long slogs where you’re going through a metamorphosis. We have to open our eyes and we to have courage sometimes. In fact, the last truth I want to share is that sometimes all we really need is 10 seconds of bravery. A brave moment can help us to begin. It helps us reach high for that first rung. Or, that next rung.

As a young CEO, the company I took on was on trajectory for bankruptcy and had been deemed insignificant. In order to attract the decision-makers who focused on the future of Colorado, we had to turn over many of the seats on our board of directors. I remember there was a board member who was a large financial contributor and someone who had been in leadership for almost ten years. This voting director would arrive for board meetings, eat the catered meal and sleep in his chair. We had to let go of that money at a tough financial stage, knowing that our vision for a more vibrant strategic atmosphere would carry profits down the road. Today we have strict criteria for achieving board member status and this is sometimes pushed back against by those seeking leadership access. We command significant mental and financial presentation from our key partners, and the criteria vets both the organization and applicant for fit. It isn’t an easy job. The combination of intellectual sharing and financial commitment by our directors creates what I always imagine looks like a wide steel plow, solid and unstoppable, ever advancing our annual goals. Our directors work out differences and speak with one voice. They are invested and proud of their work together.

During the early days of reforming the company, we had to recreate our tertiary business relationships in the community, as well, and build a case for our validity in the policy realm. New revenue generation was critical to growth and survival. I pushed the company out and into every corner of the business community, but I was dismissed at every turn, thought to be too young and our company not valuable in the market yet. I didn’t fault these businesses and politicians for shunning us early on. I learned from their savvy. When you start where you are and do the hard work of climbing, there are definitive steps to progress. When a new program was necessary for growth, I first sold it to myself, then sold it to the board and sold it to the industry last.

It was just three years from the dark days of our beginnings to our exceptional growth that took us to be the largest 501c6 of our kind in the U.S. Today we are also the largest financial contributor to pro-business issue campaigns in Colorado, and we often represent the industry at the national level on policy issues.

When I was a teenager and before I could go up north to work and live in the oil camps, I had to pass hazardous materials training. At that time, I didn’t have a realization of truth but more a burst of bravery. I was in this moment where life was either going to stay the same or change. I was parked in front of the facility in downtown Anchorage where I was required to fulfill training in order to go to the job on the pipeline. I didn’t know how to do the work. I didn’t fit in. I worried I could be turned away once they saw me. And, I was sitting in my car that day deciding what to do. I watched all of these seasoned mature oil field laborers going inside to get their annual training. I was frozen, paralyzed with fear and I almost drove away. Somehow I found 10 seconds of bravery. In actuality, looking back it was probably about five seconds of courage and five seconds of total denial, but on that day, in that 10 seconds, I started something that would change the course of my life forever. Getting a college education was the outcome, but the moment, the seconds that changed my life, were when I decided to slowly open the car door and step inside the front door to hazmat training. There will forever be the day before I opened the car door, and the Katie that was to be on the day after.

We’d love to hear more about your organization.
In Colorado, there are well over 30,000 licensed real estate brokers. Our organization represents the 2,000 commercial real estate brokers and owners across the state. We believe the Colorado economy is our business. Our first priority is to advocate for local, state and national policies that protect or support the right to own, use and transfer real property. Our organization has created one of the most highly educated commercial real estate markets in the country regarding policy. This has allowed us to participate in bill concepts and campaigns that shape the industry and state growth. A recent example includes our leadership role in opposing Denver Initiative 300 which would have allowed for Denver’s unhoused population to camp on sidewalks and in parks indefinitely. While we opposed this ballot proposal and it failed to pass come Election Day, the work now moves to repurpose funds for additional services and partnering with the Mayor’s office on his homeless initiatives. We protect private property rights and look carefully at issues that impact economic development. Sometimes this puts us on both sides of the same political argument. The diligent education and engagement of the industry and greater business community on these changing policies require constant publication of reports, radio interviews and TV ads particularly during robust issue election years.

We host national symposiums to talk about the global economy and we celebrate our top-producing members through recognition events and in the media. Our events sell out and our staff ever impresses in their execution. When you arrive, you can see the care and readiness for our attendees. We proudly have retained the same staff for five years now.

What we are most proud of, and something that sets us apart from other organizations, is our ongoing commitment to a program we have formally named The Next Rung. Attendees who participate are encouraged to start where they are and we share tools that help them to climb. More than anything, The Next Rung inspires our young and middle-career professionals to keep going. We hold a packed annual event where a panel of some of our biggest industry stars share real stories for how they have made it in the highly competitive commercial real estate industry, and they share their personal tools for gaining stability, and later success.

Additionally, the organization makes room in my calendar for me to meet with 100 young and middle-career people from our industry or others to talk about career advancement. We believe that the workforce of the future is here in Colorado but that the paths for preparing the next generation are as varied as the jobs and the people we are working to connect. I share advice when it is asked for, but more importantly I share my vast network of fellow CEOs. Rather than mentoring young professionals or new graduates, I make it a point to use my time to sponsor these tenacious individuals. When you sponsor someone, you actually hand a resume to your senior colleague and say, “Hire this one.” When you sponsor a professional, you change lives. If a young person is undecided on their path, I will send them on assignment to interview my colleagues in order to find the answers they seek. The program is highly sought and fundamental to my belief that we can come from anywhere and become anything. We teach that no matter where they are today, no matter how far down the ladder they are on their way to somewhere new, there is within them the ability to climb. We help them to start where they are, help them find a burst of bravery and remind them that there is a rung in front of them. Even if they have fallen from their nest at some point, they can climb, and if they can climb, they can soar.

If you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?
If I could talk to my younger self, I would share these three pieces of advice that I share so often today. These are timeless. Get good at writing emails that show who you are and what you mean. You will write millions of emails in your professional life. Get good at speaking in front of people as soon as possible. You do not want to be trapped inside yourself. The storytellers are the most powerful people in the room. Learn from them. Their ideas have the most reach.

Pricing:

  • Annual membership costs start at $249.
  • Non-members fees are available for guests to preview special programs.
  • Anyone can meet with the CEO to gain access to her contacts for career advancement.

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