Why do architects leave Pete Dye and stay with Tom Fazio..

[JakaB]

I think everyone in the industry knows that Andy Banfield is one of the great talents working today but he seems content to stay in the Fazio family....why does it seem that Dye tosses architects like a bad salad when working for Fazio is more of a career....is it management style, design methods, money, family or what....or is it just a common misperception and the turnover rates are more equal than they seem..

[Tom_Doak]

John:

There's a very simple answer to that question.  Pete Dye doesn't have a payroll.  He put all of us to work on the ticket of the developer of whatever course he was working on at the time; and if he liked us, he moved us on to the next project.  But there was no job security, which is a marvelous incentive for striking out on your own.

The picture changed slightly when Perry and P.B. started their own businesses, they did carry a payroll; Perry had 90 employees at one time when he was raking in design fees from the Far East, but then he had to lay off nearly everyone when the Japanese market dried up.

Certainly, part of Pete's motivation was that he didn't want to worry about taking care of employees if business dried up ... but Pete also felt strongly that he didn't want people working for him for too long or his work would get stale.

[JakaB]

Speaking of the horses mouth...so...Tom, do you keep your guys on payroll or do you see them leaving you when the first opportunity appears..

[Tom_Doak]

John:

I do run a pretty good payroll, and there are days when I wish I didn't.  If there's a shakeup of my company one of these days, you'll now understand why.  

However, I worked under the Pete Dye system for long enough to appreciate that people with families need a bit of stability in their lives or they won't last long in this business.  [I didn't have a family when I worked for Pete, and neither did most of the other guys at that time.  We were all very young.]  I'd make a lot more money if I took Pete's approach, because it is a buyer's market for talent these days and my desk is piled high with resumes ... but I do believe in sharing the credit and sharing the wealth.  We just have to be on guard that it isn't the road to complacency.

It was harder to share the wealth when we weren't making very much money, which is probably one reason that my first couple of employees are out making a reputation for themselves.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

John,
Were you aware that Tom Fizzio recently had a lay-off of more then 1/3 of his staff?

[SPDB]

It's an interesting question. Arguably, the senior design associates at Fazio might be in a better position to leave since they reportedly take on much more original design responsibility and have less oversight. Banfield is the one mystery - I'd like to have seen what he could have been on his own. The one who I am surprised has never left is Marzolf, given his weakness for self-promotion.

It just might be that, like their boss, they are risk averse.

He still has produced some decent offspring - Strantz, Fry, DeVries (although he is probably more of a Doak offspring).

[SPDB]

Tommy - Times are tough. Fazio just put a $1.5 mil mechanic's lien on Bull's Bridge in CT.

[Mark Brown]

Redanman,

I'm with you on this one. Fazio does 20 or 30 courses every year and gets a lot of jobs because he builds what the average golf community player wants. Big fairways, big greens and pretty scenery -- although I do like some of his courses, ie. Pine Barrens which is great when the greens are in good shape.

Dye appeals to a limited market of good golfers and sometimes his courses are just too hard, although he has mellowed some. He has less demand and is hands-on so he can only do 5 to 10 a year.

I do love some his courses though -- Pete Dye GC, Collteton River, Honors Course, Long Cove, Harbour Town.

Also Fazio never lists an associate as a co-designer or let them do a course on their own, as has Nicklaus on occasion.
So none of them get any exposure and can't afford to leave.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Dye ... has less demand and is hands-on so he can only do 5 to 10 a year.

Not working housing projects and only having 2? associates would limit what you would want to do also.
I had assumed they worked on 2-3 projects at most.

This is all that comes to mind of their recent work:
Dye Fore - PGAize the straights - TPC Louisana - Wintonbury Hills -

Cheers

[SPDB]

Mark - Fazio has been giving co-design credit to Banfield as far back as 1984 at Ventana Canyon, and includes him as co-designer on the piece de resistance, Shadow Creek. As far as doing a course on their own, do you mean not at all connected to the Fazio Co.?

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

Your numbers sound way off to me, as a lot of the numbers in this business are.  For example, Jack Nicklaus has eighty (!) projects in some stage of development, but he only opened eight (8) courses worldwide in 2003.

I don't know the numbers for Tom Fazio, but I'd be very surprised if he opened more than ten courses in any given year.

Pete Dye, not including his sons, has never done more than 3-4 courses at a time.  Often he was working on just one; when we were at Long Cove, it was his only project under construction, although they were just starting to clear at Austin CC and he was doing the routings for The Honors Course.  I don't think he was any busier than that when he built The Golf Club or Crooked Stick [which was done in two nine-hole segments two years apart I think] or Harbour Town or Casa de Campo or the TPC at Sawgrass.  He and Alice lived in all those places for a few months during the construction of them.

[ian]

Going out on your own comes with a great deal of risk. Many architects have families and security has already made the decision for them. Many of my friends who are on their own left with a push rather than a jump.

Why would Tom Marzoff leave Fazio with the type of work he gets? Oakmont, Merion, Riviera, sound ideal to me.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Ian,
Your right.

I bet he goes to bed at night thinking about how he's going to get the next restoration right this next time and then lays his head and goes to sleep on that great big pillow! (To accomodate the size of that great big melon.)

Sean,
1.5 million dollar Mechanics lein?  I wonder why Fazio just doesn't bypass the bond company and insures it himself!

[Matt Kardash]

I get the feeling (though I have no proof) that in the past few years Pete Dye has been less hands on and lets his team have more input. I guess I understand that because he is pushing 80 after all. I also get the sense that his recent courses that have turned out well (Bulle rock, whistling straits, colleton river) were because he spent more hands on time on those courses. Maybe he picks and chooses which ones he really wants to dig into himself. I could be wrong though.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Tommy - Times are tough. Fazio just put a $1.5 mil mechanic's lien on Bull's Bridge in CT.

Sean-

What exactly is a mechanic's lien?  I'm not familiar with the term.

Thanks-
DRB

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy - Times are tough. Fazio just put a $1.5 mil mechanic's lien on Bull's Bridge in CT.

Sean-

What exactly is a mechanic's lien?  I'm not familiar with the term.

Thanks-
DRB

It's the legal mechanism you go through to assert your right to a financial claim - ie non payment of your fee.  What it does is prevent the land owner from selling without settling up his debts first.

Naturally, actual payment comes down to mediation, and a split of the assets among other creditors, which means you will likely get only pennies on the dollar, but at least you can get something.....in some cases, land owners can get around it, if your lawyer hasn't "perfected" the lien, which means file it in the proper form.  Sometimes, its hard to find who to file it against, since there are often shell companies and other tactics used by sharp and shady operators preciselyto shield themselves from debt.  And, the land owner can, and occaisionally does, sue the consultant to remove a lien for that reason.

Don't ask me how I know all this........  but, if Fazio wasn't paid a fee by a high flying developer, filing a lien is perfectly within his rights, and he would likely do that no matter what the financial situation of his business is.  Hey, a mil five is a lot of money to almost anyone!

[Doug Braunsdorf]

John:

I do run a pretty good payroll, and there are days when I wish I didn't.  If there's a shakeup of my company one of these days, you'll now understand why.  

However, I worked under the Pete Dye system for long enough to appreciate that people with families need a bit of stability in their lives or they won't last long in this business.  [I didn't have a family when I worked for Pete, and neither did most of the other guys at that time.  We were all very young.]  I'd make a lot more money if I took Pete's approach, because it is a buyer's market for talent these days and my desk is piled high with resumes ... but I do believe in sharing the credit and sharing the wealth.  We just have to be on guard that it isn't the road to complacency.

It was harder to share the wealth when we weren't making very much money, which is probably one reason that my first couple of employees are out making a reputation for themselves.  

Tom-

Is there a typical path for most architects to follow when working under an established architect (ex. Dye, Nicklaus, Fazio, Jones, etc)-  

Or, is it totally dependent on whatever work is at hand or in a pipeline, if one exists-


Thanks!

DRB

[Jeff_Brauer]

Douglas,

It varies from firm to firm and employee to employee.  Most talented apprenctices dream of doing it on their own, as Tom and I did.  At some point, there the principal of any firm can outvote his associates one to five, and it gets frustrating in a small firm not having final say.  Most associates have some kind of plan to break out, although I bet most say five years, and stay on seven or more, depending on their risk taking tolerance, and of course, family situation.  

As my mentor used to say, it helps to start a golf design business when you are young enough not to have responsibilities (ie, no kids and wife, or an understanding and high earning professional career wife) and just green enough to have the attitude of "What could POSSIBLY go wrong with this plan?"

On the other hand, Fazio, Nicklaus and a few others pay pretty well, and get the choice of best projects, and enough of them to create some design associate autonomy, so the people lucky enough to land those jobs stay, as often as not, figuring they get to do the best projects, and avoid the sometimes unpleasant (depending on your personality type) job of selling and office managing.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Jeff,
So many bond companies, so little time.........

Actually if Fazio is having to involve the bond company on Bull's Bay, I would assume its probably for the final payments, otherwise he would have in-acted the lein sometime before--just to get the thing finished, no?

Wouldn't it be then the bank or the person holding the lein, step-in and inact their power?

Its been a bit since I utilized my contractor law books!

[SPDB]

Tommy -
If I had to guess, the developer probably overleveraged itself, and is now either a) refinancing, or b) looking to sell.  In any event, I imagine he is not in a financial position to pay Fazio, especially ahead of the bank. Therefore, this move, which is nothing groundbreaking, is merely to preserve his right to payment. Although he is an unsecured creditor, he risks losing his claim if he doesn't take the administrative step of filing a lien on the property.

I'm a bit unfamiliar with the practices of the industry, but I imagine what you are referring to is a construction bond purchased by the contractor to secures the developer that if the contractor defaults the subs will get paid, and not come after the developer.  I don't think the developer gives any return assurance to the contractor or Fazio by way of bond to secure payment to him. Hence, why he's filing his claim, which is a lien that will attach to the property and will travel with the land until the debt is discharged. If this guy were to file bankruptcy, Faz would likely be looking at pennies on the dollar in the best case scenario.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean,

From memory, your right on. However I want to point out that the lein process is no different with an architect as it is with a contractor--the only difference is who is the prime (Fazio) and who is the sub (i.e. Freddie Fall's Wonderful Waterscape Company, who has been contracted by Fazio to build some of those excellent creeks.)

The prime has to watch out for his subs by way of lein and this is where I'm drawing a blank at the moment. It seems to me that Fazio can carry the note if he wishes--meaning he can be the insurer of that bond since he is the Prime. But I think he has to show that money in the form an account to the state which the work is being contracted in--or something like that. In this case, I would assume Fazio is doing, as well as protecting his own vested interests which you have so noted. Many General Contractors in building construction sometimes carry their own notes because they are willing to put up with the risk for the money saved for the bond through a bond or note company.  Once again, they have to have that covered by law, and it can't be touched until there is a lein release.

Speaking of which, I see Dennis Harwood is on-line right now, which means he's going to come-on here and correct me if I am in fact wrong. I very well may be wrong, and as I said, I'm going off of memory from my contractor laws and do's and don't's.

Dennis, GIVE IT TO ME!

[blasbe1]

Guys and Gals,

It seems that the practice of law is not so different from the business of GCA . . . thus, I will make the following suggestion . . . people left Dye because they could and people stay with Fazio because they must . . .

just b/c it's a golf-related industry doesn't mean it's any different at certain core levels.  

T.Doak,

Thanks for your candor, it's important for the non-professionals on this Board, like myself, to understand that there's a ton more to GCA than a 4-Day weekend and a trip to Cuscowilla (as good as that might be . . .)    

[SPDB]

Thomas -
The lien needs something to attach to (i.e. property (personal or real)). THe purpose in this context, is that if he doesn't get paid, the guy's property will be encumbered, clouding his title. The main purpose, in addition to securing your right to payment, is that the lien must be "perfected," which gives notice of your lien to the world (or at least buyers and creditors who do title searches). As Jeff mentioned above there is very particular processes with which you must comply. Why? because if you don't properly perfect your claim, the bankruptcy trustee will avoid your interest. Its less of an issue for an creditor like Faz, because he's got no security and gets paid with scraps left over after secured parties are paid. But the lien on real property gives him some leverage.
I suspect he's dealt with it before (e.g. National Fairways).

 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy,

I doubt that Fazio has actual construction contracts with the Owner, just a design contract.  He didn't hire the subs, the Owner or general golf course contractor did.  There are real insurance issues - both workmens comp and errors and omissions - when gca types get further involved in construction other than "periodic construction evaluation."

The bonds apply to the contractors, and are really insurance policies that they will finish the job.  A bonding company will only issue a contractor liens for the total scrap/sale value of the company's assets for the most part, although some companies with a track record may get slightly more.  So a Wadsworth may have bonding capacity of over $40 million, while a smaller company would have problems even getting a bond.

Liens are filed with the state where the land for the Project is owned.  Anyone providing work can file a lien to get part of the assets on the sale of property to satisfy the debt.  Any creditor can file them, but there are some different types of liens, and its important to file the right one in order to get any money.  You need a lawyer.

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