The son also rises: the father of Keyes Company CEO Michael Pappas can be credited with making the firm a major local player. Now the son is taking the real estate brokerage into a new, high-tech universe - Real Estate

South Florida CEO, July, 2003 by J.P. Faber

Branding is one thing which Keyes Company CEO Michael Pappas understands. You might say it's in his blood--or at least woven into the history of his company. Individuals have come and gone, but the company name has stayed the same.

The Keyes Company is, in fact, one of the more storied real estate firms in South Florida, from its founding in 1926 through its acquisition by Michael and his brother Tim (the company CFO) in a leveraged buyout ten years ago. Along the way it saw such names as Allen Morris Sr., the firm's president in the 1950s, and Joseph Klock Sr., the father of today's managing partner of law firm Steel Hector & Davis, who worked there in the early 1970s.

"It's the oldest realtor organization, residential and commercial, in South Florida," says Michael Cannon, managing director of Integra Realty Resources-South Florida "A lot of the realtors that have succeeded down here are Keyes alumni."

The name most associated with Keyes, however--aside from founder Kenneth Keyes--is that of Michael's father Ted, who joined the firm in 1962, and took control in 1969. His community presence is still legendary. "Ted Pappas is a tough act to follow," notes real estate analyst Cannon. "But I think Michael Pappas is one of the few successors to a father's empire that has taken the company to another level."

Indeed, these days Keyes is on a tear. From overall sales of $1.6 billion in 2001, the company's 1,800 agents expect to reach $2.3 billion in sales this year. Most of it is residential, with 15 percent to 20 percent commercial. "We think we have the entrepreneurial spirit," says Michael Pappas, 44, who relishes his firm's role as the largest independent real estate brokerage in South Florida. Going up against such national competitors as Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and ERA, says Pappas, "We're the local team, and we feel there is room for that." As for the name Keyes, he says, there are no changes planned. "What the public wants is a personal relationship with a brand that is not going away," he says.

What Pappas is doing is re-inventing his company with an array of technology upgrades and marketing alliances. Marketing ventures include the weekly AM radio show "Real Estate Hour" and an alliance with 12 Latin American real estate firms. Other deals include co-marketing with the Florida Marlins, booths set up in Costco stores and a promotional push with El Dorado furniture that gives new home buyers up to $500 in discounts on furniture.

It is in technology, however, that Keyes is most innovative. The firm is engaged in a series of data mapping initiatives, including an aerial mapping of every condominium from Jupiter to Homestead. The firm's website also lists every single property for sale in what Pappas calls "Keyes Country"--all of South Florida, with Martin County tacked on. Keyes has also instituted a program called "profit farming," in which 150,000 letters are mailed out monthly to homeowners. Each letter, personalized for local Keyes agents, includes information on home sales in that neighborhood. "They [our agents] become the hometown realtor," says Pappas.

Pappas, who predicts his firm will sell $50 million in homes through the internet next year, says it's all part of the shape of things to come. "Our industry is in tremendous change, operationally, in terms of information," he says. "Today, everyone is sharing information. But you have to have the technology to deliver it."

Pappas is also busy filling his father's civic shoes. He was recently elected president of the Westminster School, and he is on the board of SunTrust Bank, South Florida. "Mike is definitely an up-and-coming leader in our community," says Tom Cornish, president of SunTrust Miami. "He is taking over the leadership role his dad so deftly managed for years."

As for the future, Pappas is firmly planted in South Florida. A marathon runner (he attended Wake Forest College on a track scholarship), he knows something about staying the course. "I'm doing everything I want to do," he says. "Why should I retire? To get into asset management?"