<\/p>\n
In hindsight, it\u2019s really no mystery. The world of high-end real estate investors is as small as Twin Bridges, Montana, where Swan was raised. In little towns and small circles, news travels fast and reputations matter. Swan sold Fonda\u2019s New Mexico ranch in October 2015.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swanlandco.com\/app\/uploads\/2016\/01\/pages_from_mike_swan_land_broker_spotlight_winter_2015_2_page_2-300x181.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all comes back to who you are and what you stand for,\u201d Swan said. \u201cNo matter how much success you enjoy, you have to remember where you came from, the lessons of your upbringing\u2014and to do the right thing every day for every client in every situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re sitting down with business executives in a corporate board room or ranch families at the kitchen table, if you\u2019re not a person of your word, they will see right through you,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a team, we serve a very selective, exclusive niche. We do what we say we\u2019re going to do\u2014and work day and night to perform for our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swan\u2019s personal work ethic again reflects the lessons of the land. As youngsters, Swan and his brothers were expected to be working on the family\u2019s ranch when they weren\u2019t at school or at sports practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad believed in hard work and instilled a strong, strong work ethic in us\u2014nothing is given, but everything can be earned,\u201d he said. \u201cGiving up was not an option\u2014we learned to persist through some very challenging circumstances. You find out what you are made of at a young age.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe handed us tremendous levels of responsibility at very early ages. It shaped all three of us into the men we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Production agriculture is a tight-margin business. When a family has three strapping boys like the Swans did, it doesn\u2019t make sense to hire help. So the youngsters took on the real-world responsibilities of tending livestock, growing crops and running machinery at the time other kids were learning to make their beds and mow the grass. Their efforts directly contributed to the bottom line of the family business. It was not made-up work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times when I was a teenager that I didn\u2019t appreciate the way I was raised, but now I wouldn\u2019t change one minute of it\u2014one lesson from it\u2014for the world, \u201d Swan said. \u201cWe were taught that we were responsible to the land and our livestock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swan and his wife, Nancy, have chosen to rear their children on a small ranch on the outskirts of Bozeman, just a mile from his parents. Life revolves around school, sports, church and 4-H. As a family, they raise, show and sell club lambs in order to teach their ninth-grade daughter and sixth-grade son how to be responsible and work hard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
THE ROUTE TO REAL ESTATE<\/h6>\n
When your roots are sunk deep in the rich Montana soil and you\u2019re anchored in the West\u2019s rich ranching tradition, it\u2019s not easy to consider the possibilities of life beyond the gate. As a recipient of a grand legacy, the emotional benefits of the lifestyle can cloud the financial realities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved the livestock side of the ranching business,\u201d Swan said. \u201cAs a teenager, it was hard to imagine doing anything else\u2014except sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once again, his dad and his mother, Betty, who worked as a nurse in the local community, were clear-eyed and wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents insisted that we all go try something else,\u201d Swan said. \u201cThey told us to spread our wings for a while before deciding whether or not we would ranch. They promised, if after we\u2019d flown solo, if we wanted to come back to the ranch they\u2019d do everything in their power to help us get established.\u201d<\/p>\n
The elder Swans were both collegiate athletes. Their sons followed in their footsteps. Rory played football for Carroll College in Helena, Montana, while Steve and Mike were track and field athletes at Montana State University in Bozeman.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgriculture and athletics were what I knew and enjoyed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As a freshman at Montana State, Swan found a passion for both coaching and athletic management. He focused on becoming a collegiate athletic director. Doug Fullerton, who was then athletic director at Montana State and is now the Commissioner of the Big Sky Conference, took Swan under his wing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked two part-time jobs while I was a sprinter for the track team and an intern in the athletic department,\u201d Swan said. \u201cIn all of that chaos, Doug not only showed me the ropes of athletic management, but really taught me how to use them without getting myself tangled up.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a knee injury ended his athletic career, the university kept Swan on as a sprint\/hurdle coach. Upon graduation from Montana State, he enrolled at Idaho State University in Pocatello where, while interning in the athletic department, he earned a Maste![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swanlandco.com\/app\/uploads\/2016\/01\/broncos_game.jpg\")
r of Administration in 18 months instead of the expected two years.<\/p>\n
In 1992, three weeks from completing his Master\u2019s program, a friend pointed him toward an assistant sports marketing director job in the athletic department at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Swan flew from Pocatello to Colorado Springs for an interview on a Wednesday, was offered the job that Friday, and flew back to Pocatello on Saturday where his dad met him with a horse trailer. Together, they loaded up all his worldly possessions and drove back to Colorado Springs so the younger Swan could begin work at 8:00 a.m. Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called my professors at Idaho State to tell them that I wouldn\u2019t be coming back to school because I had a job,\u201d he said. \u201cThey helped me wrap up school with phone calls and the U.S. mail \u2014I was walking on air I was so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three months into his new job, Swan got a phone call from the athletic director who was a full bird Air Force colonel. Swan, who was \u201cinvited\u201d to meet him at 8:00 a.m. the following morning, was understandably nervous. He didn\u2019t need to be. The colonel, noting Swan had \u201cmade a big impression in a short time,\u201d promoted him to assistant athletic director giving him responsibility for sports camps, event management, eight staff members and 27 traveling teams. Swan was 25 years old.<\/p>\n
At the Air Force Academy and in subsequent athletic director positions in Montana and California, Swan developed a management philosophy that would later shape his real estate business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen your job is to compete every day, you have to prepare better than everybody else; anticipate the intangibles; constantly reevaluate your strategies; and make sure that everyone places the team ahead of themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cTo win in athletics and business, it\u2019s not about developing independent superstars, but team players with specific skill sets who fulfill their roles with professionalism, dedication and pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2001, the high-pressure job was taking its toll. As athletic director at Humboldt State University in northern California, Swan was leaving the house at 5:30 a.m. and getting home long after dark. It left him little time with Nancy, who he identifies as the best thing to happen to him while in Colorado Springs, and their newborn daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were praying about making a change and getting back to Montana, but I didn\u2019t know what I would do professionally,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t too keen on selling feed or ag pharmaceuticals.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they traveled to Montana on vacation in June of 2001, he told his father what he was thinking. His dad promised to make a few phone calls. One of them was to Patrick Bates, broker-owner of Bates Land Consortium, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bates had handled the sale of the family\u2019s ranch when the elder Swans retired.<\/p>\n
Bates and Swan connected on all levels.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A NEW CHALLENGE<\/h6>\n
On September 11, 2001, the world changed. Bates called to say the timing was wrong for a new office. Swan responded he was going home regardless\u2014and would find a way to make a living. They agreed to proceed with their plans.<\/p>\n
In February, 2002, Swan obtained his real estate license, rented an office in Bozeman, and spent one long week waiting for the phone to ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked Nancy, \u2018What did we just do!?\u2019\u201d Swan recalled.<\/p>\n
According to him, she replied, \u201cI\u2019ve got faith in you. God will provide because you work hard\u2014and you\u2019re going to make good things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cHer faith in me and our faith in God has made all the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the first week of waiting, Swan decided to make things happen by reconnecting with landowners and business professionals who were family acquaintances throughout Montana.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, my parents\u2019 devotio![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swanlandco.com\/app\/uploads\/2016\/01\/msu_game.jpg\")
n to keeping our good family reputation paid off for me. I was welcomed at kitchen tables, auction barns, cafes\u2014wherever I went,\u201d Swan said.<\/p>\n
Because he was engaged in the landowner community, he caught wind that the owners of the historic Cal Creek Ranch, a 28,000-acre property in the Ruby Valley, were considering changing ranch brokers. He secured an interview with the owners who were based in Chicago and California.<\/p>\n
The owners were taken by the combination of Bates\u2019 experience and Swan\u2019s go-getter enthusiasm. The duo got the multi-million dollar listing. In 18 months, they sold the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cPat taught me a tremendous amount about the real estate business,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I still had to prove myself. After I handled the first couple of deals, people knew that I could deliver.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, and after handling numerous transactions, your reputation develops,\u201d Swan said. \u201cSatisfied clients lead to more clients\u2014and it\u2019s all grown from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
His upbringing, combined with his market acumen, landed Swan the opportunity to represent the 124,000-acre Broken O Ranch in 2012.<\/p>\n
A large pool of potential ranch real estate brokerages from across the Rocky Mountain West had been whittled down to three. Swan found himself in a 14th story board room of a San Francisco high-rise pitching to attorneys, accountants and trustees in well-tailored suits.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later as Swan and his family were en route to Colorado Springs, his phone rang. It was the attorney representing the Broken O\u2019s Trustees. In the parking lot of the Flying J Truck Stop in Casper, Wyoming, Swan received the news he would be at the helm of a deal that was to be listed for $132.5 million. As fate would have it, the attorney was a Casper native.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cYou\u2019re our guy. Your closing comment about your work ethic and focus made the difference because we knew where you came from\u2014and knew that you meant it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November of 2012 Swan sold the Broken O Ranch to Stan Kroenke. That winter he opened Swan Land Company.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no surprise the foundation of the hard-charging exclusive firm is personal integrity and hard work. Swan and his team have developed a reputation for handling high-profile, and often times, complex transactions: most notably the Broken O Ranch, Lazy J Ranch and recently Fonda\u2019s Forked Lightning Ranch, among others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI surround myself with good people\u2014people of high personal integrity,\u201d Swan said. \u201cI can work with about anybody to help them learn real estate, but you can\u2019t teach integrity and work ethic. When I find those rare individuals who have high character and drive\u2014those are the people I want to associate with.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past three years, Swan has expanded from a one-man operation based in Bozeman, Montana to offices in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Buffalo, Wyoming. Licensed in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska and New Mexico\u2014Swan has expanded his firm\u2019s reach across the entire Rocky Mountain West. His roster of trusted professionals has grown to include: Tim Anderson, Sam Sanders, David Lowry, Stephen Leibinger, Scott Williams, Leo Lane and Annie Leibinger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am extremely proud of our team. We work very hard but have a lot of fun along the way,\u201d Swan said. \u201cWe continually communicate and collaborate on how we can better serve our clients\u2014strategizing is one aspect of our profession that I really enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Swan, though, the business is really all about the people, especially the people of the land.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about the Rocky Mountain West is the people,\u201d he said. \u201cI love the people\u2014their quality is second to none. In these long-line ranching and farming families, generations have worked to build a legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I get invited to sit down at their kitchen tables to discuss representing them, all of that financial, historical and emotional responsibility rests on me. It\u2019s an honor and a privilege that I take seriously\u2014often times I\u2019ve developed close personal friendships during the process\u2014friendships that I will carry with me for a long, long time.<\/p>\n