ICO Celebrates 30th Anniversary
Sugar Land, Texas – August 2022 – ICO Commercial ("ICO") is celebrating the 30th anniversary of our company's founding in Houston, Texas in September of 1991. Our founding principal, Larry Indermuehle, recognized ahead of most Houstonians that the growth potential of southwest Houston and Fort Bend County was viable and worth betting on. Today, 30 years later, ICO is a full-service commercial real estate services company offering an end-to-end, real estate lifecycle platform in the Houston, Texas region.
What began as one individual, who wasn't planning on being in the commercial real estate brokerage business, Larry Indermuehle started his career in 1969 as an engineer for Bendix Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri. The introverted, highly detailed, plant manager was given an opportunity to be the facility manager for Weedeater in Houston, Texas. This role put him in a position to kickstart his experience in commercial real estate when he consolidated Weed Eater facilities with Skil Corporation and then closed the smaller manufacturing facility. With three young children, he took the plunge into brokerage knowing the challenges, as well as the upside of the business and joined Fuller Commercial Brokerage (now Fuller Realty) as a Vice President in 1981.
Tawnya Dornak, a University of Texas graduate with an accounting degree, had been working as the Director of Leasing for Kinghorn Driver when she moved to Sugar Land. She was approached to work on a sizable retail transaction, and she decided to reach out to the main real estate contact that she knew in Fort Bend County, who also went to her church, Larry Indermuehle. Tawnya joined Larry at BRIO, the predecessor to Indermuehle & Co., and the two of them worked on office, retail, industrial and land for the next 30+ years together.
Mike Gornek, with a degree from Drake University in Biology, got into the commercial real estate business in 1977 and joined United Equities in 1984. While there, he was handling the leasing for an industrial park near Glenmont Drive in Southwest Houston. Larry was hired to sell the neighboring FedEx building, but needed to relocate an existing tenant, Arvey Paper Supplies, and reached out to Mike who had space available. Larry and Mike worked to relocate the paper company which allowed Larry to successfully sell the FedEx building.
While selling the FedEx building, Larry and Mike worked with the soon to be fourth member of ICO Commercial, Mickey Guice, who handled the property management for the FedEx building. Mickey, a University of Arkansas graduate with a mathematics degree, was working at the Murphy Company at the time but transitioned to RW Management Company, which Mike Gornek joined in 1995. During this time, Larry decided to leave Fuller and start his own company with a partner, who coincidentally, was the owner of RW Management Company. It was only a matter of time, before Larry, Mike and Mickey knew they wanted to work together in brokerage for the long haul. Mike moved over to join Larry and Tawnya in 1997 and Mickey followed shortly thereafter. These four industry pioneers have all been working together for over 25 years and they have the deals to prove it. We celebrated Mickey's 80th birthday this year and he will be on the starting team at our Badminton and Pickle Ball company event this month (a facility joint brokered between Larry and Mike).
The stories of slide rules, faxing flyer books, helicopter contract deliveries and pay-by-the-minute cell phone bricks still resonate throughout our office. There may be more details left to be remembered and then argued about, but the spirit of what these four brokers started as a small shop in Sugar Land, Texas has laid the foundation of who ICO Commercial is today. The work ethic, integrity, and desire to build lasting relationships with clients is engrained deep into ICO Commercial's foundation and that legacy continues to be passed on to the next generations of ICO brokers.
In 2000, the foursome decided to bring on a young, head strong, broker who had been building his industrial brokerage business at Insite Realty Partners. Little did they know, Lang Motes, a business graduate from The Citadel Military College, would be just the thing they needed to turn a small mom-and-pop into the largest brokerage firm in Fort Bend County. He deployed his talents in technology and background in systems to build the first website, CRM system and an internal infrastructure for future growth. It wasn't long before others wanted to join ICO and expand the brokerage division from four to twelve brokers.
Larry's dream of developing his own office building was accomplished with the land purchase and office construction of The Offices of Creekside, a 10,741 SF office building located at Highway 6 and Highway 59, where ICO corporate offices are still located to this day. Many greats have walked through our doors, including Jennifer Raymond, Jim Shaw, Jeremy Lumbreras, Payton Indermuehle, Nick Peterson, Gloria Casimir, Daniel Myers, Wendell Nault, and Kole Girard who are still in the business today.
We are excited for the future of ICO Commercial and the next 30 years! We have incredible talent in the team we have today. Mindi Sanders who started in 2006 has been running administration of the company. Jane Nodskov is Senior Partner and has been at ICO for 14 years; Danna Sossen has been with the company for 13 years; Peyton Easley has been working diligently for 6 years to build our industrial services business; Linda Larabee has tripled our property management division; Seth Green brings his oil and gas background to his land brokerage business and Costa Bajjali is building out our development services platform. And none of this would be possible without the amazing support of our marketing and transaction associates that work tirelessly to serve all our brokers and clients. With the expansion of our second office in Greenway Plaza, we are positioned to continue expanding our team for years to come.
The original five that began it all are still active in the business, because their passion for real estate and serving clients still gets them out of bed everyday (or keeps them up at night!). That is what the past and future of ICO Commercial is all about: serving clients really well and loving what we do. To every client, tenant, landlord, business owner and real estate owner, we sincerely appreciate you and the longevity and loyalty of our relationships, and we look forward to continuing to serve you with excellence, creativity, and enthusiasm for the next 30 years!