Newly appointed to the state finance authority, Carmen Villarma talks business and life
To stay in business, you’ve got two options, says Carmen Villarma, president and owner of The Management Group Inc.
You can move forward or downsize.
"You can’t stay the same," she says, "If you do, you’ll lose, so you’d better be ready for change."
Change is central to Villarma’s Vancouver-based property management group. And after more than 20 years in business, she knows a thing or two about it.
Her philosophy is simple: Never give up on anything.
"Once I get a hold of something, it will happen if I want it to," Villarma says. "I always want to be moving forward."
Villarma was recently appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire to the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority board of directors.
The finance authority is an independent state agency created by the legislature to develop innovative approaches to the problem of unmet capital needs for small- and medium-sized businesses in the state primarily by issuing nonrecourse economic development bonds for qualifying projects.
She also serves on the First Independent Bank board and is the chair-elect for the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.
Prior to her joining the finance authority, Vancouver was not represented on the board. She joined to help promote business here.
Villarma is known for her tenacity.
"I refuse to dwell," she says. "When something doesn’t work, I move on so fast."
It wasn’t always that way. She used to dwell on every mistake, every error. Then she went to a basketball game with her husband, developer Dennis Pavlina. One of the players made an egregious gaffe. Instead of wallowing, his teammates high-fived and went on playing.
Why couldn’t she do that? she wondered. Then it occurred to her she could.
"That’s our office policy," she says. "When we mess up, we high-five and move on."
Villarma was born on tiny Wrangell Island, Alaska, where her family still lives and she and her husband have a cabin. She is Alaskan Indian and belongs to the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska.
Villarma attended Highline College in Seattle, then Seattle University, but did not earn a degree. She came to Vancouver in 1978 working for the Melville Corp. managing regional retail, and got a real estate license the year she turned 21.
She went to work for Beau Weidman managing property, then in 1985, borrowed $15,000 from her parents and founded The Management Group.
The business has grown from two women, Villarma and employee Nancy Bonander, to 107 employees.
"We decided to do it on our own, and we did," she said.
In 2002, a second office was added in Portland to handle the growth potential there. Bonander now telecommutes from Eastern Washington and Villarma no longer handles physical property management.
Her biggest challenge now is promoting training and educational opportunities for her employees, and keeping them excited and motivated.
As far as advice for burgeoning business people out there, Villarma offers this: Know your strengths and know your weaknesses.
"There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there with great ideas," she says "They are innovative people who think they have what it takes to make a business work. They overlook the fact that their strengths lie in those innovative ideas, and not in the operational stuff like marketing or finance."
She says it’s a matter of hiring the right people.
"You have to have varying levels of expertise," she says. "What you need today will be different than what you need tomorrow."
Business is moving fast. Employees need to be better and better at what they do.
"That means I must give them the skills to increase their value or they need to come with increased value," she says.
On both a business and personal level, Villarma says she’s happy.
"Things are going really well for us," she says. "I’ve finally become confident enough that the business will exist whether I’m there or not."
She’s an avid reader and picks up everything from supermarket romance novels to the lately ever-present "The World is Flat."
A dedication to Vancouver permeates Villarma’s everyday life.
"Vancouver is starting to create and have more of its own identity," Villarma says. "It’s more in focus now – you can sort of see a little outline of it in the clouds. The population is getting up there, and there are great things happening, especially downtown. I’d like to see it create more of a focus, and I’d like to come up with things to help that."
