Audacity Isn't a Personality Type

Barbara Jaco was hired as the third employee of a South Carolina property management company in 1984. Before she retired, she helped run one of the most respected affordable housing portfolios in the Southeast.

But the story she told me on the WAHN podcast is the one that seems like an episode right out of Shark Tank.

Early in her career, her team got a chance to buy 70 rural development properties across Georgia. Properties they had never seen. They didn't have the money. The company's owner crumpled up their proposal and told them, more or less, to go kick rocks.

𝐒𝐨, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐲. 𝐎𝐧 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧.
No lawyers involved. Money was borrowed, personal guarantees signed.
Every one of them was afraid of losing their own home.
"We were terrified," she told me, "but we wouldn't show each other we were terrified."

Decades later, that portfolio is still housing families, and 44 properties were rehabbed without displacing a single resident.

𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐀𝐇𝐍𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭'𝐬 50 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 50 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠!

We talked about what it was like to be a woman in this industry in the 1980s. She was the "right-hand guy." The whole conversation is linked in the first comment.

Here's what we want the next generation of women in housing to take from this interview: 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞. It's a group of people too stubborn to let being scared stop them.

Babbie, thank you for going first and for saving the rest of us a seat.