Phil Castle, The Business Times

Michelle Urlacher grew up in the family real estate business. 

When she was in high school, she assisted agents with their transactions and helped clean the office. She subsequently worked as a property manager and, years later, chief operations officer. 

Urlacher believes her combined 23 years of experience in the business and industry will serve her well as she takes on her latest role as president of Bray & Co. Real Estate based in Grand Junction.

She says she’ll also rely on the mentorships of working with her grandfather and father and the company culture they instilled of commitment to customers and community. 

Moreover, Urlacher says her definition of family extends to the 57 agents and 60 support staff who work for the company. “I’m excited to work with this team.”

Urlacher succeeds Lynn Thompson as president. Thompson retired after working for Bray & Co. for 35 years.

Robert Bray remains chief executive officer and works with his three children. In addition to Urlacher, Brian Bray works as managing broker of Bray Commercial and Kevin Bray serves as development director.

Urlacher takes over as president of a company her great-grandparents, Sherman and Roxie Bray, started in 1946 in a remodeled porch in their downtown Grand Junction home.

More than 75 years later, Bray & Co. operates not only residential and commercial divisions, but also construction management, development and property management divisions.
The company maintains three offices in Grand Junction and an office in Rifle in serving primarily Mesa County as well as Delta, Garfield and Montrose counties in Western Colorado.

As president, Urlacher says she’s responsible for the financial performance of the company. But she’s also responsible, she says, for removing obstacles that get in the way of agents and staff in serving customers. That’s a function more of listening, than telling. “I’m not top-down approach driven at all.”

Over the course of her career, Urlacher has worked more than 12 years at Bray & Co. and nearly 11 years in various positions with other companies in Colorado and California.

Like her brothers, Urlacher says she started working in the family business at a young age. She says she remembers using typewriters in helping agents coordinate transactions as well working as a janitor in cleaning the office. She later worked as a property manager handling residential, multi-family and commercial properties.

While living in Southern California, she worked there as an appraiser, real estate analyst and agent. She also worked as a property and project manager and an independent contractor developing and implementing marketing strategies for real estate agents.

She returned to Grand Junction and worked more than six years as chief ethics and compliance officer for GeoStabilization International. The company offers a range of services to protect people and infrastructure from such hazards as unstable slopes, landslides and rockfalls.

In 2019, GeoStabilization International was among the operations recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as the World’s Most Ethical Companies. The Ethisphere Institute, an organization promoting ethical business practices, based its selections on such criteria as ethics and compliance programs, a culture of ethics, corporate citizenship and responsibility, governance, leadership and reputation.

Urlacher returned to Bray & Co. in November 2019 as chief operations officer and served in that role until she became president in February 2022.

Urlacher says she came back in good part to work with family — her father and brothers, but also the agents and staff. “Everybody here is part of the family.”

She says she also enjoys the culture at Bray & Co. — a culture established and maintained by her grandfather and father. That includes a commitment to relationships and taking care of clients and staff as well as doing the right things regardless of the cost.

That’s served the company well in enduring the downs that come with the ups in real estate cycles, she says. “If you really care, you’ll be fine.”

Urlacher says some aspects of the real estate industry has changed over the course of her career, including the ways in which properties are marketed and transactions occur. The COVID-19 pandemic forced innovations and changed the ways those working in the industry think about doing their jobs.

But there’s still a value to working with real estate professionals and the advice and expertise they offer, she says.

Urlacher says Bray & Co. provides comprehensive services in operating not only residential and commercial divisions, but also offering services related to property management and development.

The company also has entered into a joint venture to operate title services and has expanded property management to include vacation homes in Western Colorado, she says.

It;s not just a matter of quantity, but also quality, she says. “We’re gonna be Bray, but we’re going to do even better than before.”