Orr

Personalities

r r O y l l o D d n Harold a

by Faye Ahneman-Rudsenske

Dolly and Harold Orr with their stallion RSD Dark Victory.

T

“

o know you is to love you,” could have been the theme of Harold and Dolly Orr’s love song. From the wicked sense of humor to the business acumen they share, their rapport is easily discernible.

They are, perhaps, two of the most unpretentious people you will every meet. Their ability to make people feel comfortable — a friend forever type of thing — may provide the answer to their own personal and business success. In the year 2000, they will celebrate their silver wedding anniversary, not such an outlandish length of time, but they dated 14 years before getting married.

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“I was career oriented,” Dolly concedes.

Dolly grew up in the small town of Clintonville, Wisc., about 35 miles west of Green Bay. “I loved horses since I was a small child,” she says. “My parents tried to discourage my interest, but I did everything possible to be around horses, oftentimes cleaning stalls just for the opportunity to ride at the local academies. When I left Wisconsin, horses were put on the back burner — a girl had to make a living and there wasn’t enough money to support a horse.” After graduating from high school in 1956, she and a girlfriend left Wisconsin and traveled throughout the United States for

five years, working at odd jobs, seeing the country, and eventually reached Scottsdale, Ariz. Dolly didn’t care for the hot Arizona climate, so when her friend got married, she decided to move on.

In 1962, the dashing blonde bombshell made a decision that would affect the rest of her life. The World’s Fair was in Seattle, Wash., and to a small town Midwestern girl, it sounded like an exciting place. As she expected, it also offered plenty of jobs for unskilled people. Seattle proved to be all she thought it was, and it was also in Seattle that her future husband awaited. At that time, Harold Orr had recently opened his ARABIAN HORSE TIMES • MARCH 1999

Personalities first three H & R Block offices, and she was the first receptionist that he hired.

According to Dolly, he spent 20 minutes during the interview explaining that if he gave her the job, fraternizing was not allowed in his organization and there would be no dating of employees.

“I never give 20 minute lectures,” Harold intervenes with a twinkle in his eye. “All of my lectures are at least 45 minutes.”

Dolly continues without missing a beat.

“When he finished, he asked me what I was doing for dinner that night. That was our first date.”

“Well, we were both hungry,” Harold interjects. “When you talk a lot, you get hungry.”

Their lively bantering is par for the course, yet it’s obvious to see their devotion to each other and that they both enjoy it. “Harold has a good sense of humor, and he’s not boring,” inserts Dolly. “Life has always been interesting with him. He’s very intelligent and an extremely honest man. I’ve always been able to trust him implicitly — he’s just a solid individual.”

Dolly continued to work for Harold for two years, and they became best friends.

Once she got her feet on the ground, she went to beauty college and became a hairdresser, as well as styling and selling wigs. She soon discovered that her true

talents lay in sales, and decided that she wanted a job as a sales representative for a radio station. “In those days, women just didn’t get hired for those positions,” Dolly remembers. However, her unshakable determination resurfaced, and she convinced Bill Boeing Jr., who owned a radio station with a format called “Music for Woman Only,” that he needed a woman sales representative.

Dolly got her way and became the first woman sales representative in radio advertising in Seattle. She admits, quite modestly, that she did very well at that.

Although Dolly enjoyed selling radio advertising, she also obtained her real estate license. A close friend reveals that she was probably one of the highest rated real estate agents in the business.

“She was a big time real estate gal,” he imparts. “She could probably have married any billionaire in town!”

However, the Orr’s 14-year, on and off again courtship was not without its speed bumps. “Harold was a very busy man,” Dolly excuses him. “He would occasionally call me for a dinner date, invite me on a nice trip, to a horse event, or an air show. One of my interests was skiing, so I taught him to ski as well. We had a lot of common interests and got together whenever we could.

Sometimes, we wouldn’t see each other for months and, then again, we might go

out ten times the next month.”

On half of their dates, they drove over the mountains to Ellensburg, Wash., where Harold told her that some day he was going to buy a farm and retire.

About five years before they even got into the horse business, he talked her into buying that farm.

“When I bought this property 14 or 15 years ago, Dolly couldn’t figure out why I wanted it. Now members of the Mariner baseball team are all buying ranches over here,” says Harold triumphantly, knowing that once again his intuitive foresight made an excellent investment.

In 1975, just before Christmas, Harold proposed. Dolly said “Yes,” but later changed her mind. Obviously upset and disappointed, Harold told her he would never propose again. Dolly admits she had never thought about marrying anyone, but credits her mother with pointing out just how much a part of her life Harold really was. On Valentine’s Day, Dolly proposed to Harold, and he gave her a few days to change her mind before he answered.

“She chickened out when she found out what she was getting,” he teases. “After she realized what she was turning down, she proposed to me over the phone. She was doing without me in Seattle, and I was in Sacramento on business. She told me that she had been thinking about it

Dolly and Harold’s Orrion Farm.

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Personalities

Left: Dolly at the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.

Below: Dolly as a young child.

and had turned down a real good deal, so maybe we better get married. She was an intelligent gal, and she liked the horses too, so I said, ‘Well, have at it!’ I told her that we would give it a twomonth trial. We’ve been married 24 years now. She gets along real well with my kids, and I get along real well with her family. We found out we just couldn’t get along without each other. I don’t rock her boat, and she don’t rock mine.”

After a big wedding in May, which Dolly describes as wonderful, they spent five weeks honeymooning in Spain and Africa. During the early years of their marriage, they traveled extensively to jewelry, boat, horse and cattle shows.

They toured the Volvo factories in Sweden, and they attend the H & R Block conventions every year. Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, South America, Australia and the Cayman Islands are just part of their 42 NORTHWEST

travel itinerary. While they don’t travel as much as they used too, they still get around.

After their marriage Dolly took up oil painting and traveled to art shows, but after the horses, all of her other interests fell by the wayside. There just wasn’t time.

She has also been known to dabble in matchmaking, although she downplays her role. “I hired Stacy Sinnema in 1986 to train and market our horses when we still lived in Carnation,” reveals Dolly.

“We get along extremely well, and she’s like a daughter to me. After she worked for us three years, we introduced her to the neighbor fellow, and they got married. Her husband, Jay, now runs our cattle ranch in Ellensburg. They are both dedicated and do a wonderful job for us.”

Apparently, the Sinnema’s loyalty has not gone unrewarded. When the house on

the cattle ranch burned down, the Orrs built them a new home.

Although Harold and Dolly never had any biological children together, Harold had three children from a previous marriage. His oldest son, Ron, works in the banking business in California, while his youngest son, John, runs the family business in the Seattle area and his daughter, Sandy, works for their software company Orrtax. Both of them emphasize how instrumental John and Sandy are to the success of the company.

“John does a wonderful job,” they add.

“His diligence enables us to enjoy our life with the horses and not worry about the business.”

“I’ve known Harold’s kids since they were in grade school,” says Dolly, “and we are very good friends. I had a little hand in raising them since Harold had custody of them from the time we dated.

“We’ve had a good time — a good life together,” Dolly reflects. “We share many of the same interests. We’re both ambitious; we both like to work hard; and we like to play hard. We’ve had an extremely busy life together. The horse business got a lot bigger than we ever thought it would, but we’re enjoying it.”

Described as an old style entrepreneur, who had his fingers in the pie of several extremely successful business ventures, Harold could have retired 30 years ago, but he chose to stay in the hub of things.

A friendly, gregarious businessman, who, nevertheless, is a very private person when it comes to talking about himself, he has captured the respect of both employees and friends. One of Harold’s employees Mike Keller, their corporate advertising manager, has been with the company since 1969.

“He hired me to run the print shop for one of his little H & R Block offices,” says Keller. “I met his son, John, a few days later walking through the building with a mop and bucket. John, who is probably my best friend, now runs the organization, but he started out scrubbing floors.” Keller also hints that ARABIAN HORSE TIMES • MARCH 1999

Personalities you don’t want to get on Harold’s wrong side, as both he and Dolly have the necessary skills to be effective leaders.

“He’s one hell of a guy,” continues Keller. “I look at Harold as one of those from the generation that set this country up, and you don’t see those kind of people anymore. He’s an old style American entrepreneur — one of the old school. This country’s going to lose a lot when they lose people like him.

Everybody wants to retire early, but Harold has always been the kind of guy who seeks work. He never sat on his butt counting his money.”

And it’s highly unlikely that Harold will ever stop long enough to count his money. He doesn’t have the time.

Currently, Harold owns 135 H & R Block offices in the state of Washington. It began in 1962, when he and a friend secured the franchise for western Washington. In the meantime, Harold developed a computer tax program, which naysayers told him wouldn’t work.

“I said, ‘Well it sure looks like it will work to me,’ so we hired some programmers to do all of our program.

That was in 1985, and Orrtax Software is still in business,” he says a trifle smugly.

The company is, in fact, doing so well that employees are required to wear name badges due to the large volume of people who work there. An extension of the software company, Trancenda International, now in its third year, has gone international. Why such a heavy investment risk on his part? Keller speculates that it’s just Harold’s nature.

Impressed and amazed about the creation of jobs, literally the livelihood of hundreds of people over the course of the years, Keller also explains that Harold is constantly reinventing the company, constantly dumping money into it, and constantly improving employee benefits.

“If he only wanted wealth, he wouln’t have done half of the things that he’s done,” explains Keller. “It’s like their farm. They do everything first class. They have even built houses for three of their ARABIAN HORSE TIMES • MARCH 1999

Right: A photo of Harold during World War II. Below: Harold as a toddler.

employees, which I find unusual in the world today. They don’t even have a house for themselves. They live in an apartment on the farm. I tell him that he’s virtually homeless,” jokes Keller.

Over the years, Harold also had a jewelry manufacturing business called Continental Jewelry where Dolly held the position of national sales manager for three years, retiring from that position a year after they were married.

“We had a beautiful line of jewelry, but we couldn’t keep up with the cost of gold and the changes and fluctuations,” he says, although he indicates that he would like to get back into it because his company developed a computer program that prints the labels and prices, which is a desired commodity for jewelry stores.

He also owned a boat company in Sacramento, Calif., where he built one of the best ski boats in the industry. “Great

boats,” he emphasizes, named Orrion Boats, a name that later carried over onto their farm. Perhaps just as importantly as knowing the opportune time to start a business, Harold is also adept at knowing when to pull the plug.

“We sold the boat business too,” he shrugs, citing water and money shortages among other things. When the opportunity arose, he came to Seattle, and obviously found his niche.

Harold was born in Bay Point, Calif., now known as Port Chicago, which is located across the straits from Vallejo.

His family moved when he was a baby.

“My dad was a railroad engineer, and we moved around a lot,” he explains.

“I was born and raised in California until I went into the Army, and then I really got raised,” Harold jokes and then becomes more serious. “I was just a young kid, and that was part of growing NORTHWEST 43

Personalities

The happy couple on their wedding day in 1975.

up during the war.”

He served 52 months in the Army during World War II and saw combat action in the South Pacific. Like many war veterans, he prefers not to talk about it. Again, that’s part of Harold’s demeanor — he’s a very private person.

The horses didn’t come until much later. He originally bought an Appaloosa for Dolly and then later purchased an Arabian mare in foal, with a colt at side.

In 1986, they decided to get serious and started buying better quality mares, starting with Crown Amber (*Muscat x 44 NORTHWEST

Jewel Drift) and a share in the *Muscat Syndicate.

“Dr. Howard Kale was the family physician, and he told me that I had to get rid of my belly,” acknowledges Harold. “Dr. Kale was always in good [physical] shape, and he kept trim by riding three times a week, so he tried to talk me into buying an Arabian. I told him I couldn’t afford to buy an Arabian, and anyone who paid more than a $1,000 for a horse should have their head examined.” Apparently, Harold had his head examined because he bought

Crown Amber and eventually eight more horses from Kale. “I thought nobody would ever pay that kind of money for a horse, but Doc Kale is a pretty good salesman and I paid one heck of a lot more than a thousand dollars,” he adds wryly.

They also bought a 37-acre farm in Carnation, Wash., with a 16-stall barn and lush green pastures. After 11 years, they moved to their present 160-acre farm, which is located about six miles from the small historical college town of Ellensburg. The picturesque property is set against the backdrop of the Cascade Mountains, and Dolly admits that after a year and half of living there full time, she loves the warmer, drier weather of the region and the seasonal weather. They have both discovered that their horses are much healthier and happier away from the damp, wet weather they encountered at their previous farm.

Construction started in 1995 on the horse portion of the farm, and the 90,000 square foot facility consists of a 72-stall barn, an indoor arena, two covered round pens, hot walkers, a state-of-the art laboratory with semen freezing and storage capabilities, a large sale center, as well as three guest apartments, one in which the Orrs temporarily reside.

“Just building it was an amazing feat,” says Keller. “Dolly was the driving force behind the farm and undertook the task of making that dream come true. She had never done anything like that before, but she’s worked hard her entire life and has been very successful, regardless of what she does.”

While Dolly admits that she doubts it will ever be totally “finished,” she has some definite ideas of building their new home on a hill overlooking the barn and valley with a roof-top, walk-out garden.

“We’re still arguing about where we’re going to built it,” Harold laughs. “One of these days, we’ll settle it.” Regardless of where it’s built or how they reach an amicable solution, it will, undoubtedly, be first class, just like the owners.

ARABIAN HORSE TIMES • MARCH 1999

Personalities Orrion Farm is now home to more than a 100 head of Simmental and Black Angus cattle that the Orrs breed, market and show, as well as 80 horses, a few burros, dogs, cats and a recently departed pot bellied pig, who took a liking to the heels of her intended victims. The entire operation hums like a well-oiled machine with the capable assistance of 15 employees.

They stand four stallions, of which Dark Victory (Bey Shah x Kamasi Sabaha, by Khemosabi) is the primary one, as well as DVT Bey Shahs Fax (Bey Shah x LL Lovelin), Famous One (Fame VF x Satin Silver [dam of Amber Satin and Mikhail One]), whom they are just starting to breed, and Fames Mahogany (Fame VF x O Mi Mahogany). In the last several years, the Orrs have had several national winners and have exported horses to Europe, South America and Saudi Arabia. They are very proud of their horses and breeding program.

Although Harold jokes that Dolly has warned him not to brag about her horses, he sneaks in a tidbit about the filly they sold last year that received top European scores.

Somehow or another, Harold always manages to come back to his favorite subject — Dolly. His tone may be light, but the underlying pride stands out when he talks about her attributes and show wins at Canada and Scottsdale. “She tried to get me to show too,” he relates, “but I said not until I lose a 100 pounds.

It wasn’t hard putting on the weight, and I don’t understand how that scale works,” he sighs patting his ample belly.

“Maybe in about five years I’ll be able to show one of my horses, but Dolly’s such a good cook. She likes to entertain and cook for about 12. I just tell people to stop by any night if they’re hungry because there’s enough food for half a dozen people.” His only complaint is that she works too “damn hard,” an affliction

they both seem to share, which is abundantly substantiated by their lifestyle.

“Their whole life revolves around their business,” affirms Keller. “They never really totally stop working. They are both entrepreneurs and have a lot of respect for each other. Yet, without it they would never have accomplished what they have. They spar a lot, but they were made for each other. Dolly has a great trucker to a priest sense of humor and everything in between. She can deal with anything. Her only problem is that she spoils everybody too much, including the horses. But, she’s like Harold. I’m kind of like an adopted son, and they have always been there for me when I’ve messed up. They just can’t seem to get rid of me. It’s about time they are recognized. Harold and Dolly are two of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known in my life.” q

Dolly and Harold enjoying their honeymoon in Spain.

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