I received word this evening that George Ablah of Wichita had died. Years ago, when I was an editor for the Wichita Register magazine, I interviewed him; in a strange turn of events, the feature never ran. If it were to appear in print, I would take more time to do some fine editing/rewriting. However, as it stands, I think the details about this gentleman's fascinating life are worth sharing and preserving. Thanks go to George's son, Jeff, for filling in many of the details.--KB
George Ablah
High risks, big reward
With George Ablah, what you see is what you get. The owner of Ablah Enterprises, he’s a freewheeler who can’t stand restraints. He typically won’t wear a suit and tie. And at a time when most people of his business stature won’t leave home without their Blackberries, he remains attached to a singular piece of paper. Ablah carries one around in his pocket, updating it constantly and filling both sides with everything he needs at his fingertips, highlighting what’s most important in several bright colors.
At 16, he owned a gas station and a liquor store, and had traveled back and forth to Chicago to make real estate transactions. He did a stint at KU and WSU, but all the business acumen he would need was either already in his gut, or would be learned by trial and error. Along the way he learned perseverance, the importance of continuing, despite the odds. Ablah nearly died at 20 while working on a construction crew. A house jack he was manning snapped and hit him in the head. As a result, he lost the hearing in one ear. It affected his vision. But he’s never let either inconvenience stand in his way.
The
eldest son, he left his father’s business, Ablah Hotel & Supply, to strike
out on his own. The company made everything from coffee mugs to dinner tables
to restaurant floor plans. George worked until 2 and 3 a.m., drawing up
designs. For a time, he and his wife lived with their young family in a College
Hill duplex shared by his father and uncle’s families.
With
his wife, Virginia, working at his side for often six days a week, Ablah built
a real estate and oil investment business that spans almost fifty years and
every major city in the United States. There’s probably no metropolitan area in
America that Ablah hasn’t considered a piece of property in. At 78, he’s got no
plans of slowing down. Currently, he’s doing business in Memphis, North
Carolina, Texas and Arkansas.
By
all newspaper accounts, Ablah seems to swoop in, quickly assess a property,
snatch it up and swoop back out again, confidently decisive, holding onto the
land or buildings only long enough to turn a profit. He is a true entrepreneur,
a risk taker and a gambler. When others would balk at property based on the
fact it’s one hundred percent vacant, Ablah sees clear potential, and buys it
without a second thought.
And
his interests are diverse. Aside from oil and real estate, he’s had his hands
in medical supply, steel, health care, computer software, restaurants and more.
He goes to Las Vegas once a month, whether he needs it or not. And in his
typically larger-than-life fashion, he’s managed to win $1 million at the table
in one sitting.
Time
is one’s most valued commodity, he tells his grown children and those fortunate
enough to hear his twelve steps for business and life. One way he saves time is
through an uncanny ability of quickly scanning information to determine if a
piece of property is worth pursuing.
It
was thirty years ago that Ablah bought Chrysler Realty with Charles Koch, dba
ABKO. Ablah, realizing it would take him a year to visit two of the six hundred
car dealerships each day, didn’t wait on his personal surveys or the written
ones before he signed on the dotted line. Time was of the essence. Doing
business as usual with a gentleman’s agreement, he took the word of the sellers
that everything regarding the multi-million dollar holding was as it should be.
Personally
involved in more than $2 billion in real estate transactions, Ablah has never
been in a lawsuit, a testimony to his personal ethics. While others burn
bridges behind them, he knows he can look at himself in the mirror each
morning. He also knows he can go back to the same people, over and over, and
they’ll be happy to do business with him again. Perhaps another reason for this
is that he tries to see things from the other side. Quite literally, he reads
contracts from both sides of the table to make sure they’re fair, rising from
his chair to sit on the other side of the table to look things over to see if
he’d be comfortable doing business with himself.
Locally,
Ablah owned much of the land from Rock Road north of 29th Street. He
built Northrock Theatres and the bowling alley, Jimmie’s Diner, and the
five-story building at 29th and Rock where Wendy’s sits. “He built that on
spec,” his son, Jeff, says of the latter in amazement. “At the time, there was
nothing there. I remember, because I was out hunting in the field across from
it, where Walmart is, now.”
Ablah
donated land to the city for the K-96 Expressway with the stipulation that
construction begin in 1992. Thus, commuters on the north end of Wichita have
been able to fly to their workplaces every day for years, while those who work
farther south still await the Kellogg flyover completion.
Time
is of the essence. Ablah starts his
workday at 5 a.m. And every morning at 11:25, like clockwork he walks down his
office hallway and offers to buy lunch for anyone who will join him at his big
heart-shaped desk, and chat. He knows all about relationships. The loyal
friendships he’s made throughout his life have helped carry him through any
rough patches. Because even the best gambler runs out of luck sometimes.
And
the true measure of any person in any setting is how they perform when things
aren’t going their way. “When most would fold up their tent and say, ‘I’m
done,’ he kept going,” says son Jeff, who works in the family business in
investments. (Ablah has another son who also works at Ablah Enterprises and
focuses on oil.)
Each
time, Ablah has come back, successful once again. Jeff remembers the day his
dad “lost a huge deal, and went on with his normal day. ‘Don’t you want to go
play some golf, or go home awhile?’ he asked his dad. But Ablah doesn’t waste
time thinking about things he can’t change. Do that, he told his son, and “you
lose that moment forever.”
A
bleu cheese dressing fan, when Ablah sampled a particularly tasty batch in
Colorado, he immediately asked the restaurant owner for the recipe. He was led
out to a barn, and was shown the large wooden bucket where it was made. Ablah
wanted the recipe for himself, so he bought it and formed a company called
Swiss Chalet. Even now, the mini croutons sold in grocery stores as Crispins,
are the remaining signs of his salad days. When he sold Swiss Chalet, he
briefly became the largest individual shareholder of the Clorox Company.
There
came a point in Ablah’s life when he sometimes flew to three different cities
in one day before arriving back home in Wichita. And so, he became partners
with Jack DeBoer, and bought out DeBoer Aviation. Then he made his pilot, Ron
Ryan, a full partner, and formed Ryan Aviation. The pair later sold it to a
public company called PHH before Ryan bought it back again.
Along
the way, he also became a golf course developer. Willowbend was to become the
first for him, but so far, it’s his one and only. He simply wanted to prove one
needn’t be a millionaire to enjoy the perpetually green scenery and spend time
out on the fairways.
Equal
access is a theme that runs through another project, this one on a tremendously
creative scale. When Ablah became the largest owner of Henry Moore sculptures
in the world, he offered to loan several pieces to New York City. People who
typically didn’t see the inside of an art gallery ought to see the inspiring
works of one of the world’s most renowned artists, he thought. So he wanted to
place the sculptures outdoors, in the city’s parks and boroughs.
Fearing
the priceless work would become victim to graffiti and vandalism, Mayor Ed Koch
wanted to wall off the artwork with guards and fences. But Ablah said no, and
took personal responsibility for the art himself. As if some divine force were
protecting it, Moore’s sculptures remained untouched the entire year they were
on exhibit. Time Magazine would
publish a book about the unique outdoor installation, calling it the “Museum
without Walls.”
He
met Moore, became a friend of his. And yet, over the course of his lifetime,
through all his accomplishments, Ablah has been most proud of his family. First
and foremost, he told his kids, you are Christian. The reason your family fled
to America is because other religious groups were killing and persecuting
Christian Arabs.
The
second thing he told them was, you are not Lebanese, you’re an American of
Lebanese descent. Speaking English was important at the Ablah household. In
fact, the only two Arabic words his son Jeff used on a regular basis as a child
were jiddy, which means grandfather,
and sitty (grandmother). It was
important that George took one of his children to eat breakfast with sitty every Sunday morning. “Grandma had
a premium influence on Dad’s life,” Jeff says.
Ablah’s
mother came over to America as a young girl with not much more than an orange,
which was given to her with the advice to only eat it if she really, really got
hungry. When Sitty died, her family
found that orange in her dresser drawer, dried up and shrunk to the size of a
marble.
He
may form a partnership with someone, but if the business has anything to do
with real estate or something he’s very adept at, he won’t take a back seat. In
fact, he won’t answer to a board of directors. He can’t ask someone for
permission. He’s got to be on his own. And he certainly isn’t concerned with
what others think. A true individualist, he tells his son, “I’ve gotta go when
I’ve gotta go.”As Jeff says, “He’s so real, and he won’t put on any airs. He
dances to his own song.”
At
this point, Ablah shows no signs of slowing down. His goal is to live to be
129, and all he’ll need, he says, is a new set of eyes and organs, and he’ll just
keep right on rolling.
