Oral History Program Thaine Fischer Interviewed by HallieKate Briggs 11 January 2022 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Thaine Fischer Interviewed by HallieKate Briggs 11 January 2022 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Fischer, Thaine, an oral history by HallieKate Briggs, 11 January 2022, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Thaine Fischer conducted over Zoom by HallieKate Briggs on January 11, 2022. Thaine discusses how he came to starting his real estate company, Fischer Regan Enterprises. He also discusses his involvement in redeveloping historical buildings, including ones that are part of Ogden’s Nine Rails Creative District, and the positive impact of creative districts. Note: Active listening, transitions in dialogue, (such as “um,” “so,” “you know,” etc.), and false starts in conversations are not included in transcription for ease of reading. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets. HKB: All right, it is 11:04 a.m. on Tuesday, January 11, 2022. This digital interview will be conducted over Zoom, both of us calling from personal homes or offices. My name is HallieKate Briggs and I will be conducting this interview on the history and impact of contemporary art in Ogden as part of my Bachelor of Integrated Studies capstone project. This project will be housed in the Stewart Library Special Collections at Weber State University. My interviewee is Thaine Fischer, managing partner of Fischer Regan Enterprise and social entrepreneur. Thank you, Thaine, so much for both your time and your willingness to participate in this project. TF: You're welcome. HKB: Perfect. If you don't mind, let's just jump right in at the beginning. Would you mind sharing with me when and where you were born? TF: Yeah, I was actually born in Cherokee, Iowa. Lived in Iowa until I was probably about four or five and then moved to Montana. Pretty much spent my entire youth 1 growing up in Montana, then went to college in Wyoming for two years at Northwest College, and then went to DeVry, and then eventually Arizona State. HKB: What was it like growing up in Montana? TF: Very rural. I lived next to a town, or actually it was on a ranch, but the nearest town to us had 58 people in it. Had basically a school, gas station, and a bar. That was about it. It was good. I mean, it was a fun place to grow up. Learned a lot and enjoyed growing up in a rural lifestyle. However, I wanted to see more, so I moved away from Kalispell, which landed me in Phoenix, Arizona or Scottsdale, and I stayed there for about 20 years, but I always wanted to... When we got married, my wife and I got married, we decided to move back to more of a rural lifestyle, and that's how we kind ended up in Ogden, Utah. HKB: What do you enjoy about the rural lifestyle of Ogden? TF: I mean, your memories drive a lot of what you enjoy. You know, when I was growing up, I did a lot of outdoor activities, from hunting and snow skiing and fishing and just everything outdoors. There was nothing around us, so my mom wouldn't let us in the house from between like 8 in the morning till 5 at night, like you had to be outside. We had hundreds of acres we could go run around on without leaving our ranch. It also created a really good work ethic. We had livestock that we had to take care of. I'd milk cows until I was probably 13, 14. You know, you baled hay for the rancher next door and put up barb wire fences. You can tell a lotta crazy stories about growing up in a rural lifestyle that are probably equally or sometimes less entertaining if you grew up in the city and you have those stories. But for me, I grew up, I love the outdoors, and I liked 2 growing up in, I don't know, a little bit of elbow room. When I moved into the city, it was fun to be in the city and the night life and all the things that the city has to offer, but growing up with the family, we ended up moving from Ogden back up to Huntsville and have a little more elbow room up there. I like where the kids can get out and run around and you can have friends over and you're not worried about the neighbors telling you to keep it down. I've been told I have a very loud laugh and sometimes my neighbors don't like my laugh that loud. I like having it where I can laugh as loud as I want and nobody gives me any problems. The rural lifestyle, it's just an experience that I enjoyed. It was something that was fun to get back to. HKB: Utah's kind of known for the outdoor life. TF: Yeah, absolutely. That was one of the things that attracted us to Utah, was basically it had great outdoor recreation, great place to raise kids. That was something that, when we were looking at leaving Arizona, we knew we wanted to get back to the four seasons, we knew we wanted to get to a community that ideally was a little more rural in nature, and Utah fit the bill real well. HKB: Can you tell me a little bit about your educational background? TF: Well, I went to elementary school. My mom was my second grade school teacher. I went to a three-room schoolhouse from the time I was in first to eighth grade. Then in eighth grade I went to Kalispell, which was about a half hour away and a bigger school. Actually, I think it was kind of a bigger class, just because so many people fed into it. My high school, we had about 600 people in each class. That was pretty good size for a high school, I think. After that, I went to college in 3 Wyoming. I went into Northwest College on a wrestling scholarship. I wrestled there for two years. It was a junior college when I attended, but now it's a fouryear NAIA school. They were known for wrestling and rodeo, and I was on the wrestling side. I wrested for two years there. My second year, I was an AllAmerican, both academically and athletically. Then I decided I was supposed to get—well, not supposed to. I had three different scholarship offers, but they were all to cold-weather states, and my second year of college I went to Arizona for spring break. I left my dorm room and there was two to three inches of ice on the inside of the window, 'cause it was so cold outside the water was condensing from the heat on the inside and just freezing inward like literally an ice box. I just remember going to Arizona for spring break and coming down out of Flagstaff, and we see cactus and then palm trees, and in March there's people by the pool, and it was just a whole different experience. I went back after spring break, and I had a couple of scholarship offers, and I said, "No, I'm not going there." I told my parents I was gonna go to Arizona and figure out how to go to college in Arizona somewhere. I went to Arizona, went to DeVry. Electrical engineering technology is what I was going for. I did that for a year and a half until I could get my residency, 'cause I had to pay my own way. As soon as I got residency in Arizona, I transferred to Arizona State, so I went to Arizona state and never left Arizona for 20 years. HKB: Did you continue electrical engineering in Arizona State? 4 TF: I did. I never finished that degree though. I had a brother that passed away, and it's the worst story and the craziest story, but I literally had applied for graduation. I went through all five years of school to get my electrical engineer technology degree, EEI, and I literally walked away. Applied for graduation and I walked away two weeks before graduation. Two weeks. Five years of education, so not one of my better decisions. But I had an invitation to go to Europe, and I felt like I was not gonna get that invitation again, so I just said, "Well, I'm outta here." I went to Europe, never came back to school. So yeah, I ended my academic career in a nosedive, but ultimately I found another way to make a living. HKB: What did you do in Europe, out of curiosity? TF: You know, I had a mentor of mine. When I was still going to college, I actually bartended, and I end up bartending for a gentleman up in... He was a major real estate developer. He just said, "Listen, I don't see you as an engineer. You should come work for me." He basically said, "I'm going to Europe. We're gonna travel around, blah, blah, blah, with my family. If you would like to go with me, you can." You know, pretty influential individual, and I said, "Okay, I think that's a good offer," so I did. When I got back, I actually went back to college and said, "Oh, you know what, I'm sorry, I should've never done that, should never [have] missed all my finals and went to Europe." They pretty much just slammed the door in my face, so I end up going to work for him in real estate. That was in 1987, I think. Actually, yeah, '87. I got my 5 real estate license and end up working for him. Really, Europe was just he's like, "Listen, my family's going and I'd like to show you around." Being from Montana, I had not seen much. I mean, it was an offer I thought I couldn't refuse, which in hindsight, I should have refused it, but I didn't. So yeah, I started working for him and he was my mentor. I worked for him for only about a year or so, and then the real estate market crashed back in Arizona. SNLs failed, huge real estate crash. I ended up going back to work as a bartender and doing some other odds and end jobs at this resort company. Two years later, I started my own company as a resort management company, and he has the developer help back me with some capital, and he was the one that helped start my career. Originally, I was in the resort management business. HKB: Do you mind me asking what the name of this mentor was? TF: Yeah, Jerry Nelson. He developed most of North Scottsdale. Some of the big golf courses, Troon North, Pinnacle Peak Country Club, all of pretty much the Pinnacle Peak area, he was the grandfather of development there. Still alive today. Amazing individual. He's I think 94. Very huge impact on my life. HKB: What was the name of this real estate company that you started? TF: Actually, wasn't a real estate company, it was a resort management company. I started a company called Fischer Villa Resorts. Originally it was Hohokam International. It was based on the Hohokam Indians, and the Hohokam had a design that people would recognize. We just thought because we were in the high desert, that would be a great company name. But you know, when you're 24, 25 years old, you don't really spend a lot of time thinking about marketing, 6 you just, "Oh, this is cool, let's do this." After that, I changed the name of the resort company to Fischer Resort Management, and we had a resort in Scottsdale, one in Mesa, one in Tucson, and we've managed two resorts in Branson, Missouri. HKB: So, you created this Fisher Resort Management. How did that end up leading to where you are now, Fisher Regan Enterprises? TF: I started that when [it] was 1989, and I had it for 10 years and I sold it to a company called ResortQuest. They went public and they were buying up smaller resort management businesses. After I sold that, I started Fischer Regan Enterprises, and it was just more of a consulting company. I needed a business to do business in. I actually bought a small legal services company called Capital Legal Services, and it was a paralegal company, and I end up joint venturing. I bought the company and then I sold half the company to an attorney, because I figured I could grow the company but I didn't know the legal side of it, so I needed an attorney to manage the legal of it. My business partner, Martin McHugh, he came in as my business partner in 2004. But actually, I sold my company. ResortQuest, they hired me back as their president two years later. I did that for about another two years, even though I had Fischer Regan Enterprises going. Then they basically had some significant financial problems on the Wall Street side, their stocks went off. I left, and that was in 2004, bought Capital Legal Services, and we still have it today. Capital Legal is still around. He manages it out of Arizona. We're still partners. 7 I ended up meeting an individual that I end up marrying, her name was Tahna Regan, and that's how we got Fisher Reagan Enterprises. It was Tahna Regan and Thaine Fisher. We basically said, "Let's have this company together," which we did. We decided we wanted to move to the four seasons, so we started looking at Southern Oregon, Northern California, Park City. We actually end up in Park City looking around, skied Snow Basin, and had a second home up in Ogden Valley for a while. You know, I was up there most of the summers, and I'm like, "I like it up here. Let's think about moving up to Utah." We move to Ogden 2006. HKB: How would you describe your current work? TF: Well, we basically buy historical buildings and redevelop them. I say we buy bird cages, 'cause most of our buildings are very, very dilapidated. They're full of broken windows, and pigeons and animals living in them. They haven't usually been occupied for years. Then we rehab 'em. Our first building we bought was on Washington Boulevard, and that one wasn't really a bad rehab. Ogden City had bought it and pretty much done substantial amount of the redevelopment of that building. But I knew that if I was going to live and work in Ogden, I want to have my own office building, so that was our first purchase. Shortly thereafter, we ended up buying most notably the old Star Noodle Parlor, which had been there on 25th Street for 50, 60 years, that had the big neon dragon on it. We started buying some historical properties. We looked at location, and then I just really liked the architectural style of some of the buildings that we were buying. Even though they were really dilapidated, you could tell that 8 these used to be really cool buildings. That was our first project that we actually purchased outside of our office building. The market changed on us in 2009, so we really didn't start any physical redevelopment until about 2011. We bought an old bookstore, and when we tore off the front of that building, we realized there was a tremendous beautiful brick facade there and it was a gorgeous old building. The more we started peeling back the layers of it, the original building became more and more exposed and it was really beautiful. That was our first actual redevelopment project, which was 2432 Washington, and the Imagine Ballet was our first tenant. We did that, then shortly thereafter we had a restaurant come in called Soul and Bones. That was probably 2010 and '11, and it was pretty good size redevelopment, but it wasn't as significant as the Star Noodle. That's really when people took notice on our first major project, because it was a major project from a renovation standpoint. One, the sign was iconic, so when we took the sign down, Ogden kind of took a deep breath and, “Oh my God, what's gonna happen? Are we ever gonna put the sign back up?” We always had the intention of putting the sign up; we just needed to start peeling back the layers of that building to see what was underneath. After the market started correcting itself in 2012-13, that's when we decided that that would be our first project, so we did that and we completed that. I think we started it in '13 and we complete it in 2015. From 2015 until today, we've successfully renovated and stabilized probably about eight to nine old 9 historic buildings. We just kind of fell into a niche of doing historical buildings. Ogden's historical legacy or their architectural legacy is so amazing. The community impact that the Star Noodle had on 25th Street was something that we didn't anticipate, but when we put the sign back up and opened the building, the community came out. There was hundreds of people that came out that night, and there was a lot of people that were emotional about it. It was just really nice to see not only we did something that we felt—[His light turns off] [Turning it back on] So, you know, long story short is that the impact that we felt that we made and the fact that we could make a living doing this was something we have said, "Let's do more of these." We've kind of carved out a niche of historical and community impactful buildings. We do a lot with historical tax credits and other different types of—they call it tax incentive financing, TIF. But I don't think we've done a building that wasn't pre-1930s. We've done quite a few on Washington and 25th Street. HKB: How do you determine which buildings? TF: Price, location. Those are probably the two biggest factors. We really have to buy buildings that are in bad shape, because we completely renovate 'em. I say we don't put lipstick on a pig. What we do is we come in all new electrical, mechanical, structural upgrades, seismic upgrades. The only thing that we really keep original to the building is the old brick itself and the architectural design. Pretty much everything else is updated and renovated. 10 Some buildings, if we do it with tax credits, we have to do it to the Secretary of Interior standards in order to get tax credits. Those get a little bit more complicated. Some, even though they would qualify based on their age, sometimes there's not enough, I would say, cool historical features, and the Secretary Interior won't accept your application because it doesn't have enough significance. Because the building maybe has deteriorated so much, there's just not enough there to make it historically significant, they won't allow tax credits to be done. We still do 'em, and we bring 'em back to what we envision they look like, and we have photographs, etcetera, of those buildings. But primarily, a lot of it has to do with the price and the cost, the location. That's probably the two biggest factors, initially. Then how we feel we can program 'em. It's one thing that we can renovate 'em. Most people can buy and improve a building, but when they're done improving it, who's gonna occupy it? Who's gonna bring the life to it? What's it gonna be? What's its second life gonna be? We're pretty good about finding businesses, or understanding what type of businesses would like to go into these buildings. We've been pretty excited about stabilizing the buildings after we renovate 'em as well. HKB: Did you ever have any issues with Ogden City's government or anything while you were redeveloping these historical buildings? TF: Oh, absolutely, and they've had issues with me [laughs]. Yeah, I mean, it's like any relationship, you know? It's a give and take. There are times where I've worked through the historical landmarks where we do not see eye to eye. 11 I always feel that there's a lot of good intention behind the decisions that have been made by Ogden City, or by the landmarks association. Even though that intention may not fit with what the outcome wants, or they don't make sense to me, the intention I felt has been—you know, when I cool off and really think about it—the intention is always pretty good. But there are times where I think it's unreasonable, doesn't make sense. It's not their money, they're not doing it right, they're not moving fast enough for me, I'm not getting my way. Developers can be babies as well. I have to recognize that in any relationship, there's a give and take. But yeah, I've definitely had issues with Ogden City and some of the decisions they've made, and I think they've had issues with me and how I do my business. I think it's just that natural struggle between private and public sector. HKB: You recently helped with the redevelopment of the Monarch, correct? TF: Yes. HKB: What inspired you to take on that project? What did you envision for that? TF: Well, that project, we bought that project in 2011. It's funny, we originally bought it… We had put the Bigelow Hotel in escrow I think in 2007 or ‘8. When we put it in escrow and we looked across the street, we saw that there was this old historic parking garage that at one point had been together with the Bigelow Hotel. We thought, "If we're gonna put a bunch of money and redevelopment into the Bigelow Hotel, we might as well buy that building next to it, because that building will benefit from the redevelopment." Unfortunately, we weren't able to come to a positive conclusion with the Bigelow with that current ownership, but we did end 12 up closing and keeping The Monarch, that old auto garage. We end up sitting on that not knowing what we were going do with it for quite a while. I fly back and forth to Arizona still; I have a lot of business associations and friends and family that we still go see. When I was flying back and forth, I would look in the in-flight magazines, and there was an art fair that they do every year for four or five months under this massive tent in North Scottsdale. It started getting me thinking about, "Well, what if I converted the garage part into almost like farmer market spaces?" Then I started saying, "Well, what if I actually just did a farmer's market inside this building?" I mean, we could house 200 people in this building with small, 10-by-10 booths. That really started getting me thinking. The second thing that was interesting is that when the real estate fell off a cliff and then Amazon started sucking up all the retail online onto the internet, I started looking at, well, how do we program these buildings? I mean, are we gonna have retail in the future? Who's gonna lease these buildings? We started looking at the creative sector and the arts sector. One of the things we found—we kind of looked around, and I started spending a lot of time in New York City, and we looked and we found that there's never been an arts district in America that's failed. Ever. You look back into the 50s when the—and it's crazy. I mean, these communities usually start in some of the worst areas of your city, and if there's a failure, it's because they become so successful that the people that originally start 'em can't afford to live there anymore. 13 In my time in New York, I went to a place called Long Island City right outside of Manhattan, and there was a gentleman there whose name was Juvenal Reis, and he had one of the largest art studio concepts in that area, if not the U.S. I was able to form a relationship with him, and he just started coaching me on the entire, you know, how art and community, and it just revitalizes it. When he went to Long Island City, he came to New York to be an inspiring artist, and he was from Texas. He went there, and he couldn't find space in New York, it was too expensive, so he went to Long Island. He said, "Thiane"—this was a warehouse district—"there was crack addicts and prostitutes and drug deals going on and crime and murders," and he goes, "but I had this big space where I could create art, so I end up renting this space." Well, he rented it, and then he found other people that said, "Where are you creating your art? Because we can't afford space, but you've got space." So, he started chopping up this warehouse. He would rent more of the warehouse from the landlord, and then he would chop it up and sublease it out to these other artists. He just kept doing that, and he ended up with a building that's five, six, seven times larger than The Monarch. It's literally almost a quarter million square feet in Long Island City. All of a sudden this became this art community down there, and it spread, and now the PS1 MoMA is in Long Island City. The next thing you know, Long Island City is an incredibly amazing community and it's very pricey now. I flew him out to Ogden and we spent time in Park City and Salt Lake City and Ogden. We've looked at all the art communities and kind of, how did the 14 creative sector feel? He was like, "Yeah, I think this is an area that could be a really good creative district." He introduced me to an individual who was the executive director of the Queens Art Council in New York City, and I spent some time with her. She was saying, "Listen, if you can actually get a geographical district, the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, can then step in and help fund." She was giving me some ideas, and that was all back in probably 2014 and 15, maybe 16. It really started getting me thinking about how to program part of The Monarch. That's kind of right when we started a nonprofit called Ogden First back in 2012, which was really meant to be an independent arts organization that would be independently funded outside of the county or the city and the usual philanthropic donors. We wanted to make sure that if administrations or county commissioners ebb and flow—different administrations and different commissioners will prioritize arts. We really didn't think you could run a successful business or nonprofit understanding that financial commitment would ebb and flow. We actually started looking to more of the outside private sector to help give funding to this, and myself and four of my partners out of Arizona helped fund the first three years of it, and that got that up and running. About the same time, Jake McIntire introduced himself. We had purchased an apartment community across from The Monarch called Perry Apartments, and that was really run down. In fact, the city canceled their housing contract with that current owner, and it got put up for sale on the courthouse steps and we purchased it. That lot right there on the corner in front of it, unfortunately there 15 was a young lady that had passed away there, she was murdered, and there used to be a little memorial that would go up once a year there. It was just a really tough part of town. Jake came to me and said, "Hey, we'd like to do a mural." We were like, "Okay." Ogden First at the time had a, initiative, it was Walls, Panes, Platforms, and... There was four of 'em, and I'm forgetting the other one. But it fit in with the initiative of Walls to do a mural, so we agreed to let Jake use that wall. He went out and raised the money from Weber County and through his own sweat equity and really hard work. He engaged Rachel Pohl out of Bozeman. I think it went out for a call for artists, so it wasn't just he made a decision. She won the award, and that was, I would say, one of the first major murals as well as major steps in forming the District. I mean, it was a flag in the ground. The Monarch wasn't 100% on its vision yet, but we knew. Jake and a bunch of us were all looking and saying, "We need to have either an art mile, an art district," and that was one of the first flags in the ground. After that, I end up bringing in Scott Patria, came in for two to three years with Ogden First as the executive director, and then that transitioned to Venessa. Venessa came in, and we end up forming a board with some generous help from the Dumke Foundation and Eccles Foundation and some other foundations in Ogden City and Weber County. Really that whole thing was is, how do we bring our private money in first, get it situated? Ogden Contemporary Arts—or it was Ogden First. 16 You know, it's funny, because there was an attorney, myself, and one other individual that started Ogden First. We said, "Well, this is gonna be the first independent arts organization, so let's just call it Ogden First." Well, then when we actually got real creative people, other than a businessman, an attorney, and I think it might have been a photographer, I can't remember. But Venessa's like, "Thaine, you sound like a bank. You got to change the name." I'm like, "Okay." We end up changing it to Ogden Contemporary Arts which, depending on who you talk to, it's OCA [pronounced oh-ka] or O-C-A. I call it OCA, but I don't know if I'm right. But Ogden Contemporary Arts is the new name. That's had some great support, but we were first in with our capital, and then it's been supported through grants and donations from other philanthropic organizations and individuals. The Dumke Foundation was really what allowed us to create where OCA's home is today, which is the Dumke Art Garage, and it's part of The Monarch. HKB: Was there any relationship with the Nine Rails Creative District? TF: When you say any relationship, clarify? I'm not quite sure of that question. HKB: You know what, I'm not either. Can you tell me a little bit about the role of the Nine Rails Creative District, and did you have any role in its development? TF: There's been a lot of people that have had roles in the Nine Rails Creative District prior to the Nine Rails Creative District. I mean, you look at the Eccles Community Art Center, which has been there on 26th Street and Jefferson for decades. 17 Probably in 2010 or ‘11, there was this vision of having what we called an arts mile. We actually started a group that would just say, "What would it look like?" Chris Parker, who's made an investment into the Creative District, and myself, and Pat Poce, there's several individuals that said, “What if we did a physical mile of art from Union Station?” How do we connect Union Station to the Eccles Community Arts Center and make this an arts mile and put in physical— whether it's sculpture or wayfare signs, etcetera—to let people know that this is a arts mile, and there would be galleries and there would be things to see on this arts mile. We raised a grant from the NEA for like $50,000 back in, I don't know, 2010, ‘11, ‘12, somewhere in there. Unfortunately, those funds didn't go where we thought they were gonna go, and I think it discouraged some of the people around the arts mile side of this. Really, there was Chris Parker, and actually at the time, his partner Paige, myself, Pat Poce. There's always been this desire to have this arts district. I will say that flag was really taken up when Jake came in, I think in about 2015, and started working with a city council that was receptive and progressive and understood the value of the impact of arts and a creative community. Our physical investments came in prior to the formation of the Nine Rails Creative District. You know, The Monarch, The Argos, Chris Parker and the redevelopment of the old Gold's Gym area, Portland Place, etcetera. Those physical improvements and capital investments came in prior to the actual formation, and we were very supportive to the city council and the efforts that were being made in order to have a physical arts district. 18 But as far as the conversations, I wouldn't say I was heavily involved in those conversations other than, you know, when asked, I would support 'em and say it's a great idea. I might've had some input on some of the geographical boundaries, but that was really formed and created by another group of people in conjunction with the city council. HKB: Let me take a little turn here. For your redevelopment projects, how do you evaluate the impact of them? Do you measure it in any way? TF: Well, The Monarch is absolutely measured. We used a TIF product called New Market Tax Credits, and it's a federal-funded program. New Markets are a tax credit to help incentivize developers to redevelop in really hard to develop areas. They've gone around the United States and decided census tracts. They look at income poverty rates, they look average median income, they look at crime, there's a whole different array of data points that they look at to determine whether it's gonna be a census tract that they will allow for New Market Tax Credit investment. Ogden happens to be in a census tract. Once we realized that there was this funding source out there, we went to a company that specializes in these, and that was Dudley Ventures. They are one of the leading New Market Tax Credit investors in the U.S., and they've done over a billion dollars in that type. We presented our project to them. Now, to put it in perspective, we all believe in unicorns, we just never have seen 'em. We all have stories about 'em and we give 'em to our children as gifts, so they do exist, but no one's actually seen one. That is about how hard it is to get New Market Tax Credits. New Market Tax 19 Credits are very, very difficult to get. They're very competitive. Over a seven-year period of time, I presented multiple times to this company, and this company finally chose ours. When we were awarded it, it comes with a lot of strings and a lot reporting on the impact. We chose arts to be our community impact, so we had to show them what our plan was that we would have artist studios, that we would be doing an art gallery of some sort, and not really a gallery but a place for a nonprofit to live. We have to show how much employment, we have show them rate wages. There's a report that I have to do every January, which after this call I'll be working on, that we have to give the federal government to say, "This is the impact that we have made into the community." You know, there's construction jobs created, and again this gets above my pay grade. We have people that help me compile this report that we pay, but yeah, they measure it quite in detail. That is one of the one of the impacts, reports that we say, "Yeah, we can measure." If we're not using those, we measure our impact by what we do in the community. If I can take a building or a piece of property that someone was killed at and it's all full of graffiti and there's monuments from where there was bad deeds done and broken windows, and now it's a thriving cafe or a thriving bookstore or thriving ballet studio. I mean, most of our businesses are all creative in nature that are inside our buildings. They're not our businesses, but our buildings are home to a lot of creative businesses. We really like that sector, and that was kind of the decision we made back in 2010, ‘11, that the creative sector is something that we wanted to be part of. 20 So yeah, there's a technical side of measurement, which are the federal reports that we have to give to comply with our tax credit investments, but there's also just the visual and watching other buildings pop up after we go into a neighborhood and redevelop a building, and then we see other development happen right afterwards on other old buildings. I mean, we've done some, but there's some other really amazing—Jared Allen's done some incredible buildings on 25th Street, Dan MacIntell has done some great building redevelopment on downtown, Kym and Pete with Roosters, you know, they're more of an owneruser. There's just been a lot of people that have started to take on or have taken on these buildings over the last decade or two. We just happened to probably do a lot in a small period of time, and then the impact of The Monarch, especially in the area that we did it. I mean, it was such a bad area, and it was across the street from the Courtyard Motel, which was just a really challenging motel from everybody's perspective, and that whole area now is cleaned up. You've got the Dumke Arts Plaza there, which was a $6 million-plus investment. There's The Monarch, there's The Argo House, there's Cuppa and Thai Curry Kitchen that was part of Chris Barker's development with all the new multifamily. There's just millions and millions of dollars that is now being invested in this creative district. That's why they're created. They're amazing. Again, it goes back to I've never seen an art district in America that's failed ever. They're an incredible tool to connect creative people, but also will have a significant economic impact in your community. 21 HKB: What is the single thing that your enterprise has done that you are most proud of? TF: Didn't quit. I'm most proud of the fact that when things really, really were difficult, my wife and I and my partners, we didn't quit. The Monarch is something I'm just extremely proud of. But I'm also really proud of the way we've been able to impact the community from restoring the Star Noodle sign and the buildings on 25th Street, to some of the buildings that we've done on Washington Boulevard. I'm just proud of the way that my girls are probably, you know, hopefully one day they'll drive around Ogden with their kids and say, "Yeah, your granddad did this 40 years ago." That makes my wife and I feel pretty good. We've been able to do it in a way that I think has respected the original architect's vision for that building. I mean, I get a lot of credit for commercial redevelopment, but we have to remember that these are none of my designs. These are all the designs of an architect over a hundred years ago. All we've done is brought those back to—you know, we kicked out all the birds and the raccoons and brought in artists, just a different type of tenant. We're just basically honoring the people that had come here before us and giving it another life. I think we're proud that we know how to reprogram old buildings. We're really good about reprogramming, and we do it with businesses that I think are complimentary to Ogden. We try never to do 'em with businesses that were in Ogden; we usually try to bring 'em from outside Ogden and bring 'em to Ogden, versus just moving a business within Ogden. We're proud of that. 22 HKB: Do you envision some way for individuals to help with Ogden's redevelopment and growth? TF: Well, I've made this statement, and it's if there were 10 individuals like myself, and we all did 10 buildings in the last 10 years, that would be 100 historical buildings redeveloped in downtown Ogden. I say that to people not to say, "Look, I did 10 buildings in 10 years." I say that to people to say, "Come on in, the water's warm." I'm hoping that people will see that you can buy old buildings in Ogden and not just try to lipstick 'em and flip 'em, 'cause we've never sold anything in Ogden. Whatever we redevelop, we keep, we hold for the long term. But I hope it's inspiring to where if there are people out there that truly love the historical architectural style of Ogden and that downtown, old charm, that they'll come and join us. It's not been an easy road, I'll be honest with you. We timed the market as bad as you could time the market, but we stuck through it, we had some incredible partners, and we've carved out a niche and we've had an impact. But we're hoping that there'll be 10 more of me in the next 10 years and what we'll see is 100 of these incredible buildings in downtown Ogden get redeveloped, and redeveloped in a way that you can be proud of, not just... There's some stuff that I get very frustrated when I see, because I don't think they're honoring the architect, the community, or the building. HKB: In your ideal scenario, what would you envision for the future of yourself, your business, and for Ogden? 23 TF: Well, the future for myself is we have one, two, probably three projects we currently own that we haven't started on yet, and we want to complete those in the next five years. We've drafted a five-year plan, and we would like to see those come to fruition in the five years. I'm not actively out looking for more projects just because, you now, my children are 13 and 14, and they have roughly five years, six years left at home, which is in that plan. Once the kids are hopefully in college, my wife and I, we'd like to spend some time together and travel. She's been as much a part of this business as I have. She works for Corporate America and has her own gig going, but she's literally—our family's invested, she's financially invested, and she's put money and our company as well. She's like, "Okay, it's time for you to take a break, and you and I are gonna go travel a little bit and spend time with the kids." I just need to take little bit of a—I keep saying that I'm gonna take a break. I told her when I did The Monarch I needed two years. Think of me as on deployment, think of me as a medical residency, but I'm just gonna be focused. But unfortunately, we opened four months before COVID, and now we've had two years of COVID, so that two years has now turned into four years, and we still have these other projects that I'm dedicated to. My promise to be done or take some time off in two years hasn't been kept, so I'm trying to finish my five-year plan, keep some promises to my wife and my family. That's really for me personally. I'd like to see that get wound down from a development standpoint. I want to probably wind down doing some of the historical development in the next five 24 years, and hopefully other people will be inspired, and they are. There's some amazing people. The Make Ogden plan that we've seen is very exciting, and I hope they keep the quality and the standards at a high level based on what we've seen. There'll be some people coming in, developers that are above my pay grade that I'm sure'll do a great job. For the Fisher Regan, our company, I mean, we don't sell anything. We're gonna have a nice portfolio of historical properties that will be managed. We wanna bring businesses into these properties, we want 'em to be businesses that the community will use, we prosper and keep our portfolio. In reference to the vision for Ogden, that's a big question. We moved—my vision was that Ogden would really be an outdoor, recreational type, ski town community, because of the proximity to incredible ski resorts. I always liked, you know, ski towns I thought were cool. I lived next to one growing up in Whitefish, Montana, Whitefish Mountain, so I always love the vibe and the energy of a ski community. There was just something about it that I thought was fun. I also love the vibe of a college town. Having Weber State here I think is something. It's an incredible asset for our community. If you can get the ski vibe with the youth, get the young people coming out of the colleges, I think it's a recipe for an amazing, amazing community. But, you know, there's obstacles. I don't know if I'll be the one that removes those obstacles, but I think it takes some of the leadership, the business leadership and administrative leadership in our city and Weber State and some other sectors to come together and say, "Well, this is what the vision of Ogden 25 should be," or at least needs to be. If it was mine, if it was like this was my community and I could do it, I would want to see it be more of an outdoor recreational hub, and keep it clean. Technology businesses would be welcome. Businesses that are clean would be welcome. I'd hate to see it—not that manufacturing [isn't], you can have incredible manufacturing, but I think the future needs to be clean and outdoor recreation, and then, obviously I'm biased, arts would be a part of it. I'd like to see us as the number one arts place in the Western United States. HKB: I would also love to see that. TF: Well, we're getting there. I mean, at the end of the day, I would say that we have some amazing visionaries and leadership in the arts community, and Weber State's part of that. They've done some stuff that I'm very proud of. I think that Salt Lake City has an amazing arts and creative community, but I think it's getting outpriced, and I don't wanna see those people leave the state. I'd hate to see 'em move to another state. I would hope that they would say, "Wow, let's go to Ogden. They have a really, really cool creative community. Let's create a life in Ogden." We would love to grab a lot of market share of the creative sector out of Salt Lake. That's another strategy I have. I don't know if it's working, but I always tell Salt Lake how great we are. HKB: I'm afraid we're running out of time for recording, so are there any closing thoughts that you would like to share? TF: You know, I don't even know who's gonna be listening to this, if it's just you and I and it's one thing. I don't know what you're gonna end up [doing] with this, but 26 from a closing thought standpoint, I really would love to see Weber State downtown in as much capacity as possible. I think that the youth of a university is so positive for any community. They're definitely a destination that attracts— college towns, university towns, attract people. Now that I'm getting interviewed by you at Weber State, my message to Weber State is come on downtown, the water's warm. We'd love to have you. HKB: I'll be sure to pass that along. TF: Would you? [Laughs] HKB: Yes [laughs]. Thank you so much for all of your time and your insight. TF: Well, thank you for having me. The questions were very good. They were insightful; I had to actually think. Thank you so much, and good luck. HKB: No, thank you. 27