President, Guaranty Commercial Title Inc.

Wendy Ethen followed her gut in 2004 when she acquired Minneapolis-based Guaranty Title Inc. and changed its name and focus from residential to commercial real estate. She says that move saved the company because the residential market crashed faster and harder than the commercial sector.

Guaranty Commercial Title Inc. saw 2010 revenues climb 20 percent over 2009, and Ethen expects 2011 to top that by another 15 to 20 percent. She has grown her team to 10, adding three employees in 2011. Guaranty is the only woman-owned commercial title insurance company in the Twin Cities, all of Ethen's employees are women, and nearly all of her closers are attorneys.

Ethen started her career in the title business at a temporary agency. She later earned a law degree and practiced for a few years before heading back to transactional work, working as a closer at two big firms before buying Guaranty.

Guaranty was recently selected to participate in the U.S. Small Business Administration's E200 Emerging Leadership Initiative, which selected 19 local businesses with high-growth potential. Ethen graduated from the program in November.

Why was shifting to commercial so important?

"If we had not switched, we would have been out of business," Ethen said. "The residential just totally fell off a cliff. The other good news is we have a pretty heavy niche in multifamily, which has been performing really well."

Part of the success, she said, was that "when traditional financing sources dried up for other types of projects, Fannie [Mae], Freddie [Mac] and HUD money was still available for multifamily, so that kept sputtering along. The other thing is the market has been really tough. The deals are just kind of gross, so it really matters what title company you pick because we gotta drag these things across the finish line."

Was being an all-female company planned?

"I say it wasn't, but maybe I had a little bug in my ear," Ethen said. "All of the people I wanted to bring on have just been really talented women."

Asked what drives her, Ethen replied: "It's fun to be on the front end of projects. And I love the bigger and messier, the better. I love to take a bunch of parcels and help people put them together and redevelop them."

LIZ WOLF

Liz Wolf is an Eagan-based freelance writer.