Andy Cohen

this one's about my dad

My mom and dad are the two biggest fans of this blog, so we can all thank them for providing the motivation to make this happen everyday for the last several months. There were many times when I felt like quitting but then couldn’t bear the image in my mind of my parents’ empty inboxes in the morning.

In this post, I will highlight my Dad, Andy, because I shadowed him at work on Thursday and went to his 60th birthday party yesterday. Before starting Rock Properties in 1995, Andy worked as a waiter, AMC hut-boy, teacher, bartender, urban planner for the city of New York, ambulance medic, auxiliary police officer, and the property manager for a Hasidic orthodox Jew in Brooklyn among other kooky jobs. Now, Rock Properties owns and manages apartments for over 1500 tenants across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Shadowing Andy for the entire day gave me the chance to meet Rock’s different stakeholders: the office team, building managers, tenants, handy-people, and investors.

I’m always astounded by the diversity of New Jersey when I come back to visit and was proud to see so much diversity just within the Rock Properties staff. The office team is mostly latino. The longest standing office team member, Ivan, is originally from Panama and used to be a professional paintball player. Now he’s obsessed with cycling and recently won a race in Puerto Rico for his age bracket. When I asked him how he got into cycling, he pointed at my Dad and said, “I was looking for a new way to stay fit after paintball ended, and when I saw your Dad biking to work everyday, I looked into cycling.” He has far surpassed Andy by this point.

We toured a building in Newark managed by a Tibetan man, Nyandak Nyandak and his wife. As far as I understand, many Tibetan people just have one name, so when they immigrate, the US gives them the same first name and last name. Nyandak and his wife are the sole on-site staff members responsible for 150 tenants. I can get tired after hosting people for a couple days, so I can’t even imagine being the permanent host for 150 people. Nyandak said that locked-out tenants call him in the middle of the night at least once a week and often multiple times on the weekends. At Amazon, we invested a lot of time in reducing the volume of night-time pages and tracked these numbers week to week; Nyandak’s night-time call volume made my old team’s look like peanuts. Andy urged Nyandak to replace the key locks with combo locks on all the doors so that tenants never get locked out again.

Nyandak was born in a Tibetan settlement outside Bangalore. India granted land to Tibetan refugees in the 1960s, which had as many as 150,000 Tibetans at the peak in 2011 (now down to 85,000). We went into a vacant apartment getting renovated where a hispanic worker painted. The man didn’t speak English, so Nyandak spoke to him in rudimentary Spanish. Then, I tried talking to Nyandak’s wife, and it turned out she only spoke Tibetan and Hindi, no English. Crazy how all these different people with different languages can communicate and keep the business operating smoothly.

From Newark, we went to Jersey City, and toured a building managed by another Tibetan man, Wangdu Wangdu. Wangdu met us with a spark in his eyes and pep in his step. I felt invigorated shaking Wangdu’s hand and had the thought that I was in the presence of a rich man, full of life force. He may have been born in India and spent most of his adult life in the New Jersey, but he appeared as if he never left the Himalayas of his people. Wangdu is a talented carpenter who has renovated much of the building he manages. He also got very into cycling recently and this fall biked 100 miles to Bear Mountain and back in one day with his son. I couldn’t believe this blue collar employee of Rock overflowed with so much power and happiness, like a sage.

Finally, we had dinner with a couple of my Dad’s investors, which was fascinating. They came armed with notes on Andy’s most recent financial report and got straight to business, asking hard-hitting questions. It was like hand-to-hand combat— one of the most intense encounters I’ve experienced in a while. Nelson said that Rock is one of the few true win-win business models he’s ever seen. Rock buys properties to hold them, not flip them. They buys buildings that have been poorly managed and need repairs, then they stabilize the buildings and constantly do fixes/renovations to improve the lives of tenants, and ultimately they generate more profits for investors. Afterwards, I asked my Dad if the dinner felt intense for him, and he said no, that it was a typical dinner with Wall street people. The investors may have had millions of dollars, fancy houses, etc, but the richest person I met all day was Wangdu Wangdu.

Andy’s 60th birthday party gave me another perspective on his life from his friends. His friend Mike wrote a beautiful note that depicted my dad as an adventurous and creative risk-taker whose life has created constant entertainment for his friends over the years. His friend Chris described my dad as a model friend; he seemed on the verge of tears when he told me that the only reason they’re still friends is because Andy makes a real effort to stay in touch. Sue said that she had the biggest crush on him when they were 23 and started working at the restaurant together, and someone interrupted, “Didn’t we all? He was adorable!” Others talked about him as a connector who constantly brings people together, and over the years his friends from different places have gotten to know each other and formed their own friendships. I got emotional hearing Andy’s friends talk about his positive qualities, as I realized he has been my greatest teacher (tied with my Mom). I learned unconditional love, community, being a good friend, taking risks, and to chase adventure from him.