My Eagle Story

    I discovered Eagle on a Summer Saturday in 1999, when my son (a real piece of work! I volunteered to show the boy Boise, a city I really liked, during a fly/drive vacation we took during a "between colleges" period in his life in 1997. Anyway, when I took him to see Boise State University, he came back out to the car after a long admissions office visit and announced, "thanks for showing me Boise, dad. When you get home, please ship all my junk up here. I'm staying. Forever. Bye." Nice kid....) took me to Hidden Springs during a promotion there. I needed to use the bathroom, but the one men's restroom open had a very long line, and my son said he knew where there was a clean bathroom just a few minutes away. We drove for awhile and he pulled into a beautifully landscaped area and parked in front of a clean-looking restaurant (I had been on the phone back to my Cali..., er, "State C" office and hadn't been paying attention). "Wow-a designer McDonalds!" Then I looked around at the commercial development and was amazed how pristine everything looked, even the Albertson's across the street.  I announced, at that moment, "We're moving here; what's this place called...?" Well, it took five more years, but better late than never!

    About a year before I actually moved here, I joined the Eagle Chamber of Commerce. It wasn't well organized or very responsive until Teri Bath took over. She's great.

    My wife and I made several house hunting trips in the year before we got here (thank goodness the Hilton Garden Inn finally opened). We did not want to pay Two Rivers or Island Woods prices, but we really liked Brookwood better anyway. Leann is the most enthusiastic, helpful and honest subdivision representative we have ever met, and she lives in the development to boot. Fittingly, she is now the homeowners' association manager (FYI: over the 7 years or so I looked at homes in Boise, Meridian and Eagle, the best, most helpful agents I found are Scott Bishop of GroupOne, Janis Ogawa of Holland Realty, Eagle resident Darrin Jaszkowiak of ReMax West, Jacque Neef of Holland Realty, and Kristi Knowles of the Woodhouse Group). Our first Brookwood home was a small, empty nester house built by Mike Marrs. Mike's quality is truly outstanding (I have been a building contractor in "State C" for over 25 years, and this $198,500 house had better construction quality and materials than anything I'd seen back in the old country for under $800,000+). In my professional opinion, Mike Marrs built top-quality homes in Brookwood (FYI, Bill Davis is another outstanding, quality homebuilder who is easy to work with). Bill McMillan built our present home.

     About six months before moving here, I needed to open several business and personal bank accounts. I saw a bank around the corner from Albertsons. Did I luck out! The people at Idaho Banking Company are wonderful. The first time I walked in, I was warmly greeted by a lady sitting at a "new accounts" desk. Denise was helpful, very friendly, and made me feel special, even though I opened each of the accounts with just the $100 minimum opening balance. She took me around and introduced me to everyone there--even some customers, as I recall. Everyone there is great (even the other customers). I was so impressed with Denise and the rest of the staff that I expressed an interest in possibly investing in the bank's stock. Then-Manager Dave Dickey put me in contact with the bank's shareholder relations person (even the corporate head shed people are great; I have subsequently met Mary Brimson, Don Madsen and then-CEO Mike Johnston. Hmmm...me thinks that I have invested in a winner, as the stock increased in value for more than 2 years before beginning its downward spiral...). During a later visit about a month before moving to Eagle,  Dave Dickey, who was active in the chamber, put me in touch with several business people who may have had rental office space available.

     Mark Butler is a good businessman, but, unfortunately, he didn't have rental office space available when I needed it (FYI, his wife, Linda's, consignment store, Second Avenue, has good stuff, er, antiques available (one person's junk is another person's treasure...)). I went back to "State C," and we packed up and moved up here. On June 7th or 8th of 2004, I was looking hard for rental space when someone told me that the insurance agent across the street from the Wild West Bakery may have space available for rent, and I went in there. A man in that office told me that there might be space available in the building, but that I needed to talk with Penny Schaal in her accounting office down at the end of the ground floor.

     Now the ugly: I am fat (the medical term is gravitationally-challenged, er, morbidly obese), old (I was only 58 then) and double ugly, and apt to stay that way (old and double ugly anyway...). I waddled, er, walked down to Penny Schaal's CPA office. That seemed fortuitous, because I was also looking for a CPA, hopefully in Eagle, to handle my complex and time-consuming business planning and taxation matters. There, I explained to a woman that a man in the insurance agent's office had sent me down to see Ms. Schaal about rental office space that may be available. Additionally, I explained that I was also looking for a CPA to handle "my accounting and complex financial matters." The woman, who was unsmiling and appeared to me to be giving me a disdainful look (the evil eye) turned and spoke to Schaal, who, after also giving me what appeared to be the evil eye, whispered to the woman to tell me that there was nothing available for rent and that I should look somewhere else for a CPA (I heard what Schaal told the woman to say). I said "thank you," and left her office.

     I needed some attorneys, too, so I walked across the street to the old Eagle Hotel building. As I was about to enter, I noticed a well-dressed woman with a cup of coffee in her hand, so I smiled and held the entrance door open for her. I followed her up the stairs, where she unlocked the office door, entered and quickly closed the door behind her. I knocked, and then opened the door, but the waiting area was empty. I heard noise in an office, and said "hello." The woman for whom I'd held the downstairs entrance door open, emerged. I explained that I was a new business owner in Eagle, and that I was looking for a law firm to handle some of my legal work. As Yogi Berra would say, "it's deja vu all over again!": "Not taking new clients." was the refrain that time. We live and learn (gosh, moving to a new state and starting some new businesses resulted in some rather large personal and business accounting and legal fees in 2004...). We now have a great accountant and two great attorneys who value our business (Eagle attorney Sandra Clapp is outstanding; if you need top-notch estate planning, I highly recommend her and her staff. I also cheerfully recommend our downtown Boise business and real estate attorney, and our Boise CPA and his accounting and consulting firm. It is too bad that not all of our money could be spent here in our town...).

We have some awesome (one of Bob Wright's favorite terms) people and businesses here in Eagle. Please click on the link below to read a synopsis of some great Eagle businesses that I have discovered...
Some Great Eagle Businesses (Page 2)
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Steven T. Older
 PO Box 1715
 Eagle, Idaho  83616
 E-mail me