TAKING THAT LEAP: A veteran developer explains Trinity Partners' and Trinity Capital's landmark success in commercial real estate.

• Author: Barkin, Dan
• Position: POINT TAKEN

Maybe you want to start a business. There are books. I would recommend "Creating Trinity: Blueprints of a Real Estate Entrepreneur & Investor" by Gary Chesson, a retired Charlotte real estate developer.

He is co-founder of Charlotte's Trinity Partners commercial real estate brokerage and the Trinity Capital Advisors investment business. After a nearly 35-year career, he decided to write a book that would help folks do what he did: Move from leasing up someone else's buildings to acquisition and development.

"That is the question mark most young real estate professionals have," Chesson told me. "They'll say, 'Well, I can learn the brokerage business but, gosh, it sure is intimidating to take that leap and become an investor.'"

This isn't just a real estate book. It is a book about how to take a leap. It's a big mystery, how entrepreneurs leave the security of a good living and go out on their own.

Not his first choice

Chesson, who turns 57 this month, grew up in Durham, where his father was in banking and real estate. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill, Chesson was hired by Wachovia in Charlotte in 1987. The Queen City was his third choice after completing the bank's training program. He wrote in the book that Charlotte then was "sleepy, with no NFL or NBA teams, and it wasn't much more than one of the top 50 cities in the U.S., population-wise. Few knew what a decades-long explosion of growth the Southeast as a whole, and Charlotte, in particular, was about to experience."

Commercial lending is a way to gain analytical skills and see different businesses when considering career options. Chesson knew he didn't want to spend decades in "stagnant but safe" banking, getting "the standard 2% raises that came at the end of every year whether I was crushing it or not ..."

He decided to try commercial real estate--the leasing and management of office buildings and warehouses and shopping centers. He made a list of every commercial real estate firm in Charlotte, identified their influential folk and set up interviews.

"I was networking, meeting as many people as possible," Chesson wrote. "I was still new to Charlotte, and I wasn't connected in any meaningful way--but I learned that you don't have to have connections as long as you're willing to make connections."

It was 1990, during an economic downturn. Salaried jobs in commercial real estate were scarce. He ended up working on commission as a tenant's representative, helping companies get the best terms. After several years, he was recruited by an office and industrial developer for a...