Chamber award honors Steve Clark as 'Uncommon Citizen'

Steve Clark got into the real estate business early in life.

At 18, he became a licensed Realtor, and bought his first house that he refurbished himself and converted into a rental property. With the equity from that first house, he acquired three other houses, also converting them into rental properties.

Today, Clark Investment Group has a portfolio that comprises 5,000,000 square feet of industrial, office, retail and hotel properties, owns and operates 65 self-storage facilities and more than 35,000 rental units, and does business in 23 states.

The Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce will recognize Clark as its 2015 Uncommon Citizen, which the chamber said is its highest individual honor.

Clark will receive the award at the chamber’s Honors Night, set for 6 p.m. April 21 at the Beech Activity Center.

Q. What does receiving the Uncommon Citizen award mean to you?

A. Well, the chamber is, I think without question, the preeminent business organization in the community and when you look at the list of past recipients, why it’s a very special award. And I’m just appreciative that someone would think I’m worthy of joining that list. So it was quite a shock, but we all like to get recognized for things and like to think we’ve made some difference.

Q. What about the real estate business initially attracted you and what about it today keeps you engaged?

A. With my father’s involvement years ago I had an affinity towards real estate. I mean it’s tangible. It’s a hedge against inflation. It’s what we call a hard asset, as opposed to say, stocks and bonds. … There’s a certain sense of satisfaction in being able to create something. I can tell you those rental houses I had in college, I was quite proud of them and making sure they were taken care of properly. It is a hard way to make money but it is, what I say it’s a sure way to get rich slowly – slowly is the key word – if you’re disciplined and willing to work hard.

Q. What projects are you working on now?

A. Generally speaking 80 percent of our business is real estate or real estate related, either lending collateralized by real estate or real estate development projects and the other 20 percent is various things we have substantial investments in. We have investments in some ethanol plants, we have investments in operating businesses. We’re now building a chain of express car washes in southern California. And we have other business out there as well. We have a lending company out there. And then we have new development projects now, warehousing in Texas, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Q. What’s your take on the local economy?

A. We’re facing some very strong headwinds now obviously with the loss of probably 20,000 or 30,000 jobs in aircraft the last few years that haven’t been replaced. There was a comment I saw the other day … that kind of epitomized our situation and it says, ‘We’re no longer the Air Capital, so what will we be?’ And we really have to figure that out, what we’re going to be. The pattern has not been encouraging. There’s only three things that I see right now that provide some upside for the community. That’s Wichita State under Dr. (John) Bardo’s leadership, Koch Industries – thank God for Koch Industries – and Spirit (AeroSystems) is doing well and trying to expand out there.

Q. What do you think is needed to accelerate economic growth locally?

A. I think we need a change of leadership, someone that can get the community behind a vision that’s realistic and achievable and considers our limited resources.

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Chamber award honors Steve Clark as 'Uncommon Citizen'."