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OBORNY OBORNY

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Clearing the Path

Clearing the Path

ingness and ability to help others create their own positive paths forward.

That’s exactly what Gary Oborny does each day.

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As CEO/Chairman of Occidental Management, Inc., Gary has a true

Comprehensive Success

That comprehensive approach to success is reflected in the extent of what Occidental Management, Inc. is involved in today with its commercial real estate operations in Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado. The company handles a full range of office deals, industrial and land development with departments dedicated to development, construction, property management, legal, human resources, accounting and marketing.

“If you’re in the real estate business, you always love doing deals. I love to work with new opportunities … either purchasing a property that needs to be developed or purchasing a value-add property, one where we need to use our creative talents to come up with a development opportunity that we think will be successful,” Gary says.

“It’s working with all our team members to locate opportunities and then take that opportu nity and come up with a value-add creative way to make it to be an amenity for the future.”

One of those proper ties is Wichita’s Union Station. Gary and his group bought the property after it had set vacant for a time.

“That was a fun one to be involved with,” Gary smiles. “We re-did it as a historical prop erty, but put a slant on that property.”

Another success story is the office building Gary and his team call home today — a threestory, re-purposed brick ice house.

“We took that building and put a very contem porary slant on it,” Gary smiles. “We like to take a lump of coal and turn it into a diamond.”

Active Impact

It’s all part of a conscious and active effort to make an impact on the community in a number of positive ways. Gary is on the Executive Board for the Greater Wichita Partnership, a group of local CEOs and business leaders.

Gary is heavily involved with youth entrepreneurship, as well as supporting people as they start and scale their own businesses. Along the way, they have become part of around 40 companies, including a bank, manufacturing companies, wholesale distribution and more.

Nick explains. “Being around the action degree’s worth of information throughfits of entrepreneurship: time flexibil- that connects resources and knowledge with entrepreneurs so that their businesses grow and last. It began in 2015. Gary sits on the Board of Directors.

The Create Campaign

Christina Long is Founding President and CEO of The Create Campaign and has seen, firsthand, the drive and follow-through Gary brings to those around him.

“Gary has been a supporter literally from day one. He brought me in to a group of business owners at that time who were interested in activating more diverse entre preneurs. We had a half-day event that first year and we had twice the number of participants we anticipated,” Christina emphasizes. “Gary has also served as a coach and a mentor to our organization. We were gifted a property, and I had never gone through a renovation project. Gary got his team involved to serve as consul tants and volunteered that knowledge to allow us to work with contractors with more confidence to help turn this into a jewel into our city.”

Entrepreneurial Task Force

Gary is Co-Founder of the Entrepreneurial Task Force in Wichita, with the goal and mission to create a system for entrepreneurs to activate their business and then going through an accelerator process through NEXTUS, a group that provides capital to support those newly minted companies as they take their next steps forward.

“We bring that element to our real estate business,” he says. “We really try to understand their business and help them with con tacts and sometimes with mentorship and assist ing them with their business plan.”

The spark that Gary brings to those around him has long been part of the Wichita native and graduate of Kapaun Mt. Carmel High

School, and then attended Wichita State University, where he studied entrepreneurship.

“As I was growing up, my parents had a couple small businesses and we were always talking about those at the dinner table. I went on to do my own thing, but that process made it systemic to my DNA. It was natural for me fairly early on to be self-employed,” he remembers.

During his freshman year of college, Gary’s drive was undeniable. He started his first business—a landscape construction business. In 1989, during the savings & loan crisis, Gary

“During that time, you could buy property for 10 to 20 cents on the dollar… so I bought apartments and townhomes as an investment for rentals. In 1997, I sold the landscape construction business that I had and I also sold a fairly large oil and gas project that I had developed with some other partners. In 1997 and I decided to take the capital from that sale and created Occidental Management with my wife, Gretchen. We started in the commercial real estate business at that time as owners and started off with purchasing an office building downtown and then a shopping center in Wichita. We owned and managed real estate and that morphed into Occidental Brokerage, LLC, when I got my Broker’s license in 1999.”

Today, Occidental Management continues to grow, with 34 employees in Wichita, and another 50 in Kansas City.

Family Fulfillment

Gary’s world is made much richer by family. He and Gretchen trea sure time with their sons — Kit and Lad — who are both deeply involved with playing USTA tennis on a national level. As part of that, Gretchen home-schools the boys and they spend a lot of time on the road at tournaments and events around the country.

In addition, Gary and his wife put their rich volleyball playing exper tise to work — creating the Wichita Flyers Volleyball Club — a USA juniors program that went on to help 40 young ladies develop their games to the point where they each played at the Division I level in college.

In their free time, they have a passion for scuba diving, hunting and travel. Plus, Lad is also in a band, so one of

Debbie Kennedy is CEO of the Wichita Children’s Home. She has been thankful for Gary’s involvement.

“Since our start 135 years ago, WCH’s legacy has been built on a foundation of community partnerships, enabling us to serve nearly

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