Denise Ost, Vice President of Operations, Celebrates over 30 years with RA Management

It is our pleasure to celebrate the voyage of Denise Ost throughout Royal American over the past 32 years. We were honored to have the opportunity to learn her story and we are very excited to share it with you. Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for an interesting read.

Denise Ost began working for Royal American in 1980 as a Property Manager during the construction of Palmetto Apartments, a HUD property in Tallahassee. There she worked on the lease up of Palmetto from the office of Mission Hills Apartments, another HUD property managed by Royal American. Five years later, once the property was in good standing, Denise made use of her talents at a smaller management company. That same year, she moved back to Panama City, where she was born and raised. Denise spread her wings and ventured outside of management to work for Nerving Travel Agency for 5 years as well as working in the Insurance world with her brother. She then spent 6 months as a stay at home mom.

Around that time in 1992, she ran into Frank Johnston and he asked if she had ever thought about coming back to work for RAM and after some discussion she agreed that she would be interested if something ever came available. Well, as you might have assumed,  he soon contacted her and asked her to fill in for the manager at Stanford Pointe Apartments who was going on maternity leave. That was the same day Denise found out she was pregnant with her first child. The property was going to be in lease up and ready for residents to move in while the original manager was out.  Denise agreed to look after the property while she was out on maternity leave and for a month or so after she returned.  Frank kept her on as long as he could but there were no positions available so Denise left in August of 1992.  Within a few weeks, Lauren Wallace, the Vice President of the Conventional Division as we used to call it at the time, called and offered her the position as the Property Manager at  Hunters Run Apartments  in Gainesville.  Denise and her husband went to check out Gainesville and they decided it was a good move for her to accept the position. She moved there in September and lived in the model unit until an apartment was available. Dont forget what we said earlier when she was covering the office at Stanford Pointe-by this time she was about 7 months pregnant! As many of you may remember, Mr. Frank was nothing short of kind, chivalrous, and caring.  Denise fondly recalls Frank calling her almost every day to make sure she was using the golf cart when she was on the property instead of walking because he was worried about her overdoing it while she was pregnant.   She welcomed Ashley Ost into her family in November and returned from maternity leave in January 1993.

In February, Lauren and Frank asked Denise if she would consider transferring to Blairstone at Governor’s Square Apartments I & II in Tallahassee.  In March 1993 she moved back to Tallahassee and became the Community Manager of Blairstone at Governor’s Square Apartments I & II.  At that time, Blairstone I was a bond property and there was not a compliance department in the Royal American Corporate office like there is now so the site staff had to do all program reports and make sure files were accurate for each annual Florida Housing inspection.  It was a lot of hard work on the entire Blairstone team, but they turned it around. Around that time the Reserve at Northshore Apartments was being built by Royal American Construction in Lynn Haven, FL.  With much success in Tallahassee, Denise and her family decided that they would like to move back to Panama City so when The Reserve at Northshore Apartments was ready to bring on a manager she would be  moved back to Panama City, settled,  and ready to begin the lease-up at the Community Manager. It wasn’t too long after she began her lease-up at Northshore that she was promoted to Area Manager as well. This meant she was also responsible for keeping up with the other local Royal American properties that were a part of her Regional Manager’s portfolio.   Denise joked that “with a lot of help they were able to lease up Northshore, even though her mortal enemy, Kerri Toth at Eagles Landing Apartments, did everything she could to make us look bad! That was a lot of fun; I had never worked at such a beautiful new community before.”

Kerri Toth(now RAM President) who had also worked for Royal American in the past and had eventually came back to RAM and had a plan in store for Denise Ost. Denise recalled at that time saying “I just knew she would fire me, but she didn’t, instead she tricked me into “helping” out as a Regional Manager for a short while in 2000, before I knew it she had me moved up here at the Corporate Office as a Regional Manager.  She is very sneaky!” From the corporate office she was Regional Manager over Tallahassee and Panama City for several years. In 2004 , Kerri and Frank approached her yet again with another position. They  asked her to take on the role of  the Regional Vice President for North Carolina………. well…… the word “ask”  is used loosely  here .  So as the story goes,  she became the Regional Vice President for North Carolina until 2008. One day in 2008,  Frank called her into his office. When she arrive she found both he and Kerri were in there. Frank then told Kerri and Denise that he was retiring from Royal American Management and Kerri would succeed him as the President of RAM and Denise would succeed Kerri as the Vice President of the  Conventional Division for RAM. This put her in charge of the operations for all of the the conventional properties in all six states. ” Again, choice was not really an option” she laughs with a smile of contentment and happiness .  When the company reorganized in 2011 to merge the HUD, RD, and Conventional Divisions, Denise was recognized as the Vice President of Operations and now oversees all operations of the Royal American Management apartment portfolio (162 properties) , Regional Managers, and regional offices (6 satellite offices) to put it briefly.

Denise continues to reside in Panama City, FL where she enjoys cooking, reading historical, crime, and mystery novels, playing with her two Papillions and sitting on her dock watching the mullet jump. We asked her a few more questions that she answered for us below.  We hope you enjoyed her story as much as we have! Congratulations Denise for making it so far. We are all very lucky and proud to have you in the Royal American Family. You truly are an inspiration as to how far hard work can get you.

A Few Questions:

What is your favorite memory working for RA?  That is a difficult one, but I guess I would have to say I had the most fun at Blairstone.  We had a good team, we worked hard and played hard, and I really learned what being a property manager was all about. Except for the time Pauline threw me off the new golf cart and I busted my chin and had to pick gravel from the parking lot out of my chin and knees, needless to say she didn’t even realize I had fallen off the cart until she was at the other end of the building!  The other favorite memory was taking a business trip with Kerri and running out of gas when she was my Regional Manager and I thought she was a dumb blonde! Look at her now!

What was your greatest achievement?  I do not think I have accomplished that yet!

What is the most rewarding thing that has happened to you while working for this company? On a professional level,  I think seeing people who worked under me at some point in time rise up through the ranks and become outstanding RAM employees in different capacities and feeling I had some small part in helping them achieve their goals.  On a personal level, giving birth to my beautiful youngest daughter, seeing my two older children marry wonderful people and enjoying my two wonderful grandchildren.

Thank you again for sharing Denise. You truly have a lovely story.