A Conversation with Laurel Bailey of Industrial Properties of the South

Industrial Properties of the South (IPS) has been a key player in shaping Huntsville’s industrial real estate landscape since 1982. IPS founders Dr. Jerry and Charlene Graham moved to Huntsville in the 1960s to work on the Apollo space program. The Grahams began developing commercial real estate in the late 1970s, starting with warehouses, then experimenting with hotels and apartments before focusing on industrial properties.

In 2004, their daughter, Laurel Bailey, joined the business and today serves as Chief Operating Officer. Under Bailey’s leadership, IPS has expanded its portfolio to 1.3 million-square-feet of industrial, office, and warehouse space strategically located near Huntsville International Airport, with approximately 60 tenants, including several prominent government contractors.

Despite semi-retirement, Bailey’s parents remain actively engaged as advisors and maintain a close connection to the company they built. Bailey recently sat down with the Huntsville Business Journal to talk about her experience leading the family business and some of the valuable lessons learned from her parents.

What do you enjoy most about owning your own business?

The flexibility, for sure. I don’t have to be at a desk eight to five, but I do go to the office because no one’s going to keep an eye on your properties better than you are.

When people come in looking for space, and they say “Wow, your office is in this building?” And we say, “Yes, our office is in this building.” If something is out of order, we’re here. We still answer our phones. We’re not an absentee out-of-town landlord. I like working with the tenants, and we have good tenants.

How do you balance personal and business life?

Balance is tricky for everybody, whether you own your business or not, but there’s a higher accountability if you’re a business owner. I like to stay busy. I’ve found that if I have too much free time, I’ll fill it with something, so I try and fill it with things that I know are rewarding, like WEDC (Women’s Economic Development Council) and Momentum and spending time with my family.

What is a challenge that you have faced, and how did you overcome it?

In a family business, you have to learn how to dance around so many things and have good boundaries. When I got into the family business, I read a book called “Boundaries,” and I thought, “Wow, I really need this,” because lines can get blurred and toes can get stepped on. Now that I’m older, it’s not as much of a problem for me, but in my twenties and thirties, it was definitely a challenge having boundaries and separation.

The other one is definitely being a woman in a male-dominated field. Commercial real estate is 95 percent men. They do their deals on the golf course. So I’m carving out a niche for myself as someone with expertise. I’m often asked to be a speaker at different events. People call me looking for advice. I wish more women would go into commercial real estate. That’s why I try to help younger women coming up.

What is the secret to your success?

The feedback that we get is that we give really good customer service. If a tenant comes to us with a problem, we go out of our way to help them solve the problem. We don’t just say, “Oh, it’s too bad for you, so sorry you’re having that problem, you’ll figure it out.”

Whether it’s a facilities problem, or a tenant needs more space, less space, or just having a problem, like somebody hit the gate and they couldn’t close their gate. I’m going to send my guys over there to help them. They may stay after hours. If you go the extra mile, and people know that you care, it comes back that they say, “Hey, these people do give good customer service.”

I often hear feedback that other companies in town maybe wouldn’t do that. We invest a lot of money in our properties. They’re clean, they’re nice. They make a good first impression. And I get a lot of brokers and potential tenants come through and say, “Wow, your space is so clean.” And I say, “Am I going to show somebody a dirty space?” and they say, “You wouldn’t believe. People do.” I think the first impression is so important.

I try and think if I were the tenant and I walked into a space, or I was a potential customer, and I walked in, and the toilet hadn’t been cleaned in a month. I would think,” Wow, these people just don’t care. They’re not here.”

What is something you learned from your parents about operating a business?

When I first came to work, my parents still had a lot of debt from the buildings that they had built. And then, when I came on, we built more buildings and added more debt. My dad always said, “You pay the bank first.” Before you pay yourself, before you pay the bills, you pay the bank. Because if you don’t pay the bank, big problems happen.

About ten years ago, my dad said, I really think we need to get out of debt or get out of debt faster, because when you have less debt, there’s not as much looming over you. So we worked really hard to just pay off and pay off and pay off, and now we’re free of a lot of that, and it gives us a lot more flexibility to be pickier with the tenants that we have. And if some big tenant moves out, it’s not the end of the world, because we don’t have so much debt and overhead. That was a very wise saying. You pay the bank first.