Bray & Co. calls new president Jimmy Kleager ‘the right person in the right place at the right time’

Tim Harty, The Business Times

When Jimmy Kleager retired from the military in 2017 after 20 years, the former Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army moved with his wife, Katie, to her hometown, Grand Junction. There, his mother-in-law, Sharon Vaughn, got him started in real estate.

Vaughn, he said, is “very well respected” in the Grand Valley’s real-estate community, and she spoke often of Bray & Co. Real Estate, telling Kleager “it was this great brokerage” that she held in high regard.

“I’ve always known Bray to be that gold standard,” he said.

So, when Kleager got a call in December last year from Bray & Co. to see if he might be interested in becoming its next president, he said his reaction was, “Holy cow! Am I really getting asked to be the president of Bray?”

He was, eventually. And now he is.

Kleager officially started as president of Bray & Co. on July 20. He succeeds Michelle Urlacher, who is remaining with Bray & Co. and will focus on other areas, such as the company’s growing construction division, Build Works Group.

Bray & Co. CEO Robert Bray said after the company did its due diligence, Kleager was the choice for president.

“I’ll keep it simple,” Bray said. “He’s the right person, in the right place, at the right time for Bray. That’s what it is.”

Bray also said it’s interesting and funny how Kleager, who spent the previous eight years with Coldwell Banker, got on Bray & Co.’s radar. Bray said he knew Kleager “just kind of briefly and socially,” meeting him at board luncheons, Realtor luncheons in Grand Junction.

“We hired a national search firm and went on a national search, and we had candidates that were given to us that lived here and there. Nobody initially lived in Grand Junction,” said Bray, adding his preference is to find a local person. “In the end, the national search firm found a local person. … And so it kind of went full circle with that.”

Bray said Bray & Co. in its 80 years has had “probably four to five presidents, not many,” and some have been Bray family members, such as Robert Bray himself. He said he welcomes the outside perspective Kleager will bring at a time when the real-estate market is going through many changes, such as higher interest rates and inventories that are historically lower than the Grand Valley has been accustomed to seeing.

Kleager said he’s ready for the challenge, and his military background will be foundational in his approach to running an organization that has three primary, core businesses: the residential and commercial real estate brokerage; residential and commercial property management; and residential development.

Or, as Robert Bray put it: “He’s responsible for a lot of stuff.”

Kleager said he starts by acknowledging, “OK, I’m here. Here’s who I work for. Here’s the goals and objectives that I want to accomplish or that my boss is telling me to accomplish. Here’s the resources he’s given me to accomplish that goal. And then I’m going to give them the initiative to go out and accomplish that.

“I like to tell them, ‘Hey, here’s the end state. Here’s what it looks like. Here’s what right looks like at the end. Here’s where we’re at. Here’s the curves in the road. Now, you figure out how to get it done.’

“When you create that initiative within the company, now the team gets to exercise their – I’m going to call it their big brains – their ideas to accomplish this common goal that we have at the end. All that falls right into what the military teaches us.”

It is not lost on Kleager that he now gets to do this for Bray & Co., applying his skills with a company that’s so deeply ingrained in the Grand Valley.

“It’s exciting to lead a team that’s on the bow wave of real estate and trying to be out in front, and not at the national, but really at the local level,” he said. “And being on the bow wave and seeing how we can help – they call it the American dream of people getting in homes – and so I’ve got some big ideas as we move forward with that piece. And so it’s exciting to be part of a company that really can do it all.”

And Bray said he’s going to give Kleager “all the support I can and open all the doors, because there’s just a boatload of opportunity out there for this organization. And Jimmy will be heading that up.”