The Publisher’s Page
An interview with Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of RE/MAX

By Edward F. Pazdur, Publisher

How Dave Liniger’s lionhearted spirit, with a group of Vietnam vets, a bottle of tequila, a shot glass, lime and salt, created RE/MAX.

When Gail Liniger was critically injured in a plane crash and remained comatose for three weeks, Dave never left her bedside and was strongly supportive during her three-year rehabilitation.

Gail Liniger, Vice Chairman, and Dave Liniger, Chairman. Both are co-founders of RE/MAX.

Denver, Colorado: Dave Liniger, 59, co-founder of RE/MAX International, a giant in the real estate industry, has been a winner and a risk-taker almost from the day he was born in Marion, Indiana. “I determined as a young boy, standing in a cornfield or soybean field in Indiana, that Indiana was not a very glamorous place,” said Liniger.

“I watched all of the adventure movies. I saw Tarzan and all of the westerns. I watched Sky King and everything that was daring. I wanted to have a life of adventure.”

Golf Was A Sissy Game

“Even at 6,“ recalled Liniger, “I decided I did not want to be a farmer or a small businessman. I wanted to fly airplanes, be in the military, drive tanks, go hunting, go hot-air ballooning, go fishing and camping, climb mountains, scuba dive, and drive race cars,” proclaimed Liniger. “Golf, at that point in time, was a sissy game.

“Because I was hyperactive, I created a lot of problems as a child,” mused Liniger. “I grew up as an Episcopalian with a strong work ethic and midwestern values. At 17, I was more interested in doing things than being a student. My real problem, even after matriculating Indiana University, was that I had no defined goal.

“I had a lot of part-time jobs. I worked in my father’s sheet metal shop for a buck and a quarter an hour. I worked farms. I baled hay. I planted crops and raised cows. I was very active, not a person who watched a lot of television,” said Liniger.

College Experience Was A Disaster

Dave and I met in his beautifully designed, top floor, corner office and conducted a prearranged and open-ended interview for precisely 60 minutes. Liniger was mostly to the point, very professional, very disciplined, unsmiling, and militant—a trait he acquired in the U.S. Air Force. His military experiences remain classified to this day.

I wanted to probe into the development of his daredevil personality, from the day of his birth to the present as honcho of RE/MAX, a real estate franchise network he co-founded in 1973.

The purpose of this interview was not to study the business plan of his company. Its purpose was to delve into his life and find out what drove him so hard. At the outset of our meeting, Liniger described his childhood and high school days as trying and exploratory. I asked him to tell me about his college experience. Maybe his days at Indiana University were productive.

His answer did not surprise me. He said, unsmiling and frankly, “My college experience was a disaster. I went to college after having had my parents supervise every day of my life. Then suddenly, I found this new independence with nobody to be accountable to.”

Discovering Girls, Beer, And Sports

“I had very high SAT scores, but in reality, I lacked total self-discipline,” sighed Liniger, now cracking a slight

“A golf community is an ideal place for an aging baby boomer to buy into for investment or retirement.” — Dave Liniger

smile. “I discovered girls, beer, and sports. I became a lousy student with bad grades during my first semester. When the pressure was on to get good grades—or drop out of school—I put my nose to the grindstone. I busted my fanny to earn good grades and to remain in college for three semesters.”

“Why didn’t you graduate?”

“Because I realized college didn’t work for me,” replied Liniger. “I was totally bored. I was taking classes because they were required and not because they were of interest to me.”

“So you quit.”

“Yes, I said screw this and got out,” groused Liniger.

After college, he got married and joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War. “The Air Force and the war turned my life around to where I felt I was something. The Air Force taught me discipline, and marriage gave me responsibility,” he said. “I faced my first real challenge when my wife got pregnant and I was stationed at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

“The challenge was raising a family on an enlisted man’s pay of $99 a month with $75 in monthly rent to pay for living off base,” said Liniger.

“To make ends meet, I worked my full-time military job and took on three additional part-time jobs. I worked in a gas station, a movie theater, and delivered newspapers to grocery chains until 2 o’clock in the morning! I’d rush home, take a shower, and be at the base by 7 A.M.

“A short time later, I was assigned overseas to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia. That made life even more difficult.”

“What was your assignment?”

“I was an Air Force liaison with another organization about which I’m not at liberty to discuss,” said Liniger sternly. “It still remains a classified operation.”

How He Evolved Into a Millionaire

“The Sanctuary is a private golf club, used for charity fund-raising, with a membership of two — Gail and me.” — Dave Liniger

Liniger’s ultimate goal and driving force was actually manifested in high school. “I saw a movie in 1960 called The Carpetbaggers,” said Liniger. “It was a parody on Howard Hughes. And I thought—boy! —I could become a businessperson. I had a superficial interest in real estate at the time and thought maybe I could learn how to own and operate my own business.

“In high school,” continued Liniger, “I read two books that made a lot of sense to me. One was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It was the cornerstone of motivational books at that time.

“Hill’s message was to have a written goal, to dream big, and to put together a group of people around you as masterminds to help you achieve your goal. He maintained whatever the mind of man can believe and conceive—he can achieve.

“The second book,” said Liniger, “was How I Turned $1,000 Into Five Million In Real Estate In My Spare Time by William Nickerson.”

Liniger’s Launch Into Real Estate

Before being shipped overseas, Liniger saved enough money with his three part-time jobs to buy a house at a very low price, fixed it up, painted it, landscaped it, and sold it for a $4,000 profit. “It was actually a college textbook in real estate for quite some time,” said Liniger.

Liniger wrote his parents during his military tenure in Vietnam about the outside world. “I said this just beats the hell out of Indiana. There are airplanes, tanks, soldiers, and guns. We have king cobras, tigers, monkeys, mountains, and stifling jungles. Man, I mean, this isn’t Indiana!”

After his Air Force discharge, he kept a personal promise never to return to the domesticity of Indiana. Liniger and his family settled in Phoenix where he and some of his military buddies formed loose partnerships. They bought, fixed, and sold houses at a profit.

But, There Was A Problem

A tiger cub enjoys Dave’s company at a Wildlife Experience social event.

Liniger loved metropolitan Phoenix and cosmopolitan Scottsdale with its intriguing desert and beautiful mountains. The problem was he hated selling real estate, especially during those blistering summers.

“My wife and I heard about God’s country, meaning Denver, Colorado. It had beautiful mountains, pine trees, and best of all,” added Liniger, “it had cooler weather. When we came up here, we were surprised that Denver was a desert on flat land. We expected it to be like Vail or Evergreen. But the die was cast and we decided to build a career here.”

Tequila Toasts Launch RE/MAX

The Linigers moved to Denver on October 31, 1971, a time when the real estate industry was not very professional. Most companies were mom-and-pop shops. “So,” said Liniger, “in January of 1973, I sat down with a group of my friends, a bottle of tequila, a shot glass, some lime and salt, and created RE/MAX.”

I teased: “I guess you guys felt no pain when you put this thing together. Maybe it was the best way.”

“Yeah,” laughed Liniger. “We were all Vietnam vets, hence the red, white, and blue colors in our logo. We were starting a small company determined to make it the biggest real estate company in the world. The name we chose was RE/MAX, meaning Real Estate/Maximum. The concept was to help agents maximize their earnings,” explained Liniger.

(Top) Dave and Gail love animals. Dave is co-founder of The Wildlife Experience just south of Denver. (Bottom) NASCAR race driver, Dave Liniger.

RE/MAX was launched in 1973 with Gail as co-founder.

They were not married until the summer of 1984, eleven years after the company was founded. They worked 24-7 during the ensuing first ten years and the company prospered.

Now, with the company safely in tow, they planned to get married in 1983. But, it was not to be. A heart-wrenching tragedy struck them about one week before they were to be married. Because Liniger looked cool and in control, I wanted to ask him about it.

Liniger Gets Testy About His Time

“I’m sorry,” said Liniger, “but I have an appointment at 2 o’clock.” He looked at his watch and indicated the interview was over.

“OK,” I said, “but you preapproved 60 minutes.”

“What else do you want to talk about,” he snapped.

“The tragedy.”

“You’ve got 20 minutes.”

“That might not be enough. I’ll come back another day.”

“It won’t be necessary, “ he suggested. “We can probably do it by phone and save you a long trip.”

“If it’s difficult for you to discuss the accident, I would prefer not to publish it.”

“I’m fine. Let’s get on with it.”

“Thank you, Dave, please tell me about it.”

He sat more upright, placed both arms on the desk, looked up at me with professional patience and said: “A week before we were supposed to get married we flew to the Bryce Bridge area in Toronto, Canada, for a convention.”

“When was this, Dave?”

“In October of 1983,” he said, pausing briefly.

“I remember we flew in a private plane and took a load of golden retriever puppies to give to our friends at the convention,” continued Liniger. “We thought they would be really nice presents.

“Then, during the convention, one of our franchisees had a seaplane and wanted to take Gail and some of our key people, including my instructor pilot, for a seaplane ride with a brief stop at his cabin. I saw no harm in it—Gail and I are both licensed pilots—so they left.

“They made it to the lake, landed, disembarked, and went into the cabin,” reminisced Liniger.

“Unfortunately, on the return trip, the plane was overloaded. It stalled in the air, spiralled, and crashed headfirst into a heavily wooded area.

“The pilot was killed. The other two men were seriously injured and hospitalized for months. Gail suffered a traumatic brain injury that left her paralyzed on the left side of her body. To make matters worse,” said Liniger, “she was comatose for weeks and doctors thought she would never walk again. It took almost three years of rehabilitation to get back to where she is today.

“Gail is a very, very courageous and remarkable woman. That’s basically her story,” sighed Liniger.

RE/MAX Rallies Around Them

There was, of course, more to the story, such as his personal courage and unfaltering devotion. Liniger remained in Canada at Gail’s bedside for several months, not knowing whether she would be permanently paralyzed or even survive. When she regained consciousness and her condition improved, he moved her by air ambulance to Craig Hospital in Denver, one of the foremost head injury and spinal cord facilities in the world, for more care and rehabilitation.

For months, during the interim period between the crash and Gail’s transfer to Denver, Liniger’s executive staff—lead by past president, Bob Fisher, and CEO Daryl Jesperson—all pitched in and rallied around them. They ran the company and delivered work to him at his home or at the hospital everyday.

Dave and Gail’s wedding, scheduled for a week before the accident in 1983, was rescheduled and they were married in the summer of 1984.

Gail’s tenacity and determination during years of rehabilitation brought her back into the mainstream of life. She progressed painfully from her hospitable bed, to a wheelchair, to walking again.

She married, regained enough of her health to play one-handed golf, and returned to work with her husband as co-founder of RE/MAX.

Gail’s accident was a wake-up call for Liniger. During the months he spent at the hospital, he saw a lot of children and adults with spinal cord and head injuries. That experience affected him emotionally. He felt a strong need to help charitable causes and searched for a meaningful way to do it.

With Gail’s rehabilitation and his weight problem in mind, they built a home at Castle Pines Golf Club in 1986. He walked the golf cart paths every morning and evening and watched those “silly fools” chasing a ball around the course. To ease the boredom of walking, he collected lost balls, hundreds of them. One Christmas, he gave a friend a bushel of balls as a gift.

Finally, curiosity got the best of him.

One day, while watching these silly grown golfers, he rationalized the game with the same logic as any business deal. He thought there must be something to it. He tried it. He got hooked. He joined the Castle Pines Golf Club and currently plays to a 20 handicap. Gail, determined to lead as normal a life as she could, also started to play golf. Her injuries have restricted her swing to the use of only her right arm.

Liniger’s Golf Rationale

The Liniger’s Sanctuary Golf Course in Colorado has beautiful vistas, including a view of Pikes Peak.

“The problem you have right now is that golf courses are overbuilt in the United States and the number of rounds have flatted,” said Liniger.

“The premier golf community properties, the really fine ones, are the ones in most demand,” he said. “I would say a golf community is just an ideal place for an aging baby boomer to buy into for investment or retirement. Most of us have a life-long love for the game. Golfers feel it’s more than just a game. They love the camaraderie of mixing with other people who have similar interests.

Sanctuary Golf Club Almost Unbelievable

Inevitably, golf is credited with inspiring them to transforming their 222-acre ranch, originally intended to house about 100 Arabian horses, into a magnificent 18-hole golf club, designed by Jim Eng, and named Sanctuary. He bought the land in 1994 and opened it as the Sanctuary in 1997, primarily for use by charities to raise funds.

Its total membership? Two: Gail and Dave.

Liniger constructed and opened a 23,000-square-foot clubhouse last year prompting speculation that he planned to convert it into a private membership golf club. His response: “Absolutely not true!”

If he said that, you better believe it.

Last year, 31 years later, RE/MAX had a membership of over 95,000 agents in 5,041 offices, located in 51 countries—the projected year’s end membership is 100,000.

Liniger has also achieved the goals of his lionhearted hobbies—he’s a multi-engine, instrument rated pilot; a golfer; an Arabian horse breeder; a NASCAR race driver; a Grand-Am Series Rolex 24-hour race driver at Daytona International Speedway; a member of a three-pilot crew that attempted to launch a “Team RE/MAX” around-the-world helium balloon expedition from Australia in 1998; and he has hunted and fished in exotic places around the globe.

To contact Dave Liniger, write to him at RE/MAX, 8390 E. Crescent Parkway, Suite 600, Greenwood Village, Colorado 8112.