captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicrgap.org-- >> business ws from the capital region. this is "washington business report" with abc7 national correspondent rebecca cooper. >> think you for joining us for a looat business and financece here in the e washington region. mamarion barry ifeelining the backlalash. businesses and wonder how the gsa deals with its vendors. and whether the real estate letdown is really over. we want to spend a few minutes with a ceo with a blockbuster.

the move goes downhill fast than to movers stealing alcohol and a movg bus. a hugelyy s successful company attrting attention for t the rapid grth rate. foununder d ceo of jk moving and storage, charles kuhn, welcome towashington b business reporort." we set up the stage. your parents always lived in northehern virgini you hid a mover and it was disastrous. >> absolutel i was a young child.d. it w was snowing. theyey showed up and they were rude andnd intoxicated. lfway tough, my pararents had

to call the police. it was a dister. >> in the interim you lived with an unclee who had a moving company and taught you a thingng or two about the business. >> when we cam back, we were very young, seventh h or ehth grade. we worked witith him and a small lolocal moving company he had in maryland. >> he reaeally tried toto emphasize making every me a pleleasant expeence for t cusmer. > he did. >> y you got a loan for $5,000 to y your first truck. >> i was 16 year o old, gogoing to high school at the time. i had a very limited budget.t. i started doing mvovoes on weekends and then it went to full-time jk moving and storage.

>> did you cut se cornerers sincyou were 16? >>i was on a shoestring budget. >> what were some of the keys to success? handing g out flfliers door-to-doo beming the second largest momoving company in the entire washington region -- h how did you grow? >> hiring good people, training well, and exceeding expectations. >> never turning down a client, one incident leading to big contract. you had a major contractit with the bank moving to the region. you goto work that t night. >> i didid. it led to a major accot for us and changed our busins. take the cal >> you also talk a lot about

having balanced. that it is important to you to have a quali experienc witith your family. your wife has b been a big part of you succeedi. you are a y who shows up at the office at 6:00n t morning an leaves at 6:00 at night. >> it works great. my wife does a great job taking cacare o t kids and the housuse. i come home all around 6: and sitdowown at dinner every night.. i cann sll make sportsvent and have the evenings with the family. >> that is pretty much your model. happy customs, unhappy employees, at the moving. how do you keep your employer -- happy customers at the employees, happy movin >> we share the profits with

the employee's. in 2011, we contributed $1.5 million into o pensions for the employee's. >> now you are up to 650 employees. some of your employees havave been with you for two decades or more. talk a about profit sharining. when didou start that part of the prram? >> about five years into starting the business, we set upup a pension and p profit-sharing plan. >> what led you to that? did you see otherusinesses doing it? >> when i i first target, i did not have a business for myself so i wked wh another moving d storage company. i cannot underand why some of these guy, 70, 75 5 year

old were still moving furniture.. i we home and my father explaineit t m me. they had to continue working until life was over. i thought toyself tt was no way to live. as soon as we got to profitabability, we put the profit sharing into effect. >> a lot of nice guys are nning businesses simply y they cannoafford it. how do you makake a profit and still alallow the employees t to share in that profit? >> we run it as a true partnership. everne hasas a vested interesest in the comny a the customer. en youou focus in on the customomer and the emploloyees, the ofits come. >> what did you do wrong that others could learnrom? >> i made a lot of mistakes.

not paying attention to cash ow. a comny that is profitable and growing and you are investing you still have to watch the cash flow. >> what werere some of ththe things that y you caught dodoingrong in that arena? >> we were focused on residential moving. cash flow was very strong. as we e branchched out and we stararted getting into cocommercial moviving we carried accnts receivable. that is when we startedd learning abt casash mananageme. >> we appreate y you coming inin today. we c congratulate you on your success. there is more to comome after the break. stay with us.

>> we have lots to get to i in our roundtdtable.. charles howell fm mcenenearneyey associes a company listed as one ofof theest placess to work in the washington area. doug fruehlingng andan sernovitz from the "washington businesss jojournal." dan, i want to start wityou. good news, bad news scenario. good news for real-estate but bad news for commercial real-

estate. you sayy the washington market was hammed in the first quarter. why was it so dismamal? >> there was about 1.7 million square feet of office space that came back onto the mket. that is a pretty sable chu of now vacant spapace. a lot of that was in northern virginia and places likike crystal city. some of those moves started to takeke place. >> we always end up at the top of the list whent comemes to al-estatate. this landed us dead last in all the major markets. >> that is right. lost the amount amount of n net lease space out of all the major markets around the country. >> it is the federal government that has pled out of so many

places >> a lot of it is federal contractio so much emphasis these days placeded on being leaner and smaller square footage. with a all of the uncertaintyty and e federal government, that ha an eect on the private sector and the private e contractors because they do not wa to expand. theyey do not knowf they are going to get more work. there is a major uncertatainty and virtuall no one is wling to take a bet on taking space f for 15 o or 20 years. >> t gsa scandal only adding to that uncertainty. first, let'surn the good news in real-estate. that is residential l real-estate. david,ou putut out -- every

month, you look back at the year before. you save for the month of marcrch, greaeat news because of t imprement in homes und contract. in northern virginia, 28%8%. ere do you give the credidit for all that good news? >> buyer confidencece. they are starting to come back. there are also fewer listings on the market so buyers have fewer choices. it has made for a preretty tight mamarket in some a areas. we can say there are pockets that now look like seller's market. arlington, montgomery county, northwest d.c. if you have a condo for sale in d.c., it is a pretty good time toe a seller.r.

>> i read that. what end of the mararket is it? is it acrosshe board? >> generally speaking, i it is across theoard. the upper end is doing better than it was this s time last year. there is almost no inventory ofof homes undnder $300,000. the market is absorbing 75% of its every month. >> good news bad news, you heard it. commeral real estate iss a driver for many factors. and commercial real-estate continue to grow if we are seeing the cuts that we are? >> a a lot oit depends on what the federal government does wiwith the budget and spending next year. if we do see those cuts, it is

going to be ver damaging to the local economy. will probably see an negative growth next year if they do not do something about eliminating the cots. > backo yo you did have a littlee bit of a glimmer of hope cong out of this scandal. people wle wried i it would put a total freeze on a any activity. you say not so o lookining at some of the bsagsa bids s out there.. theyey say perhaps willing to build fr the ground up. overall, what is this scandal going to do to gsa activity? >>hat isis an excellent question. a lot of it, we do not know yet. the vast majority of what comes rough the gsa from a realilistic perspective is th smaller

spacaces that can g approroved thout the signing g of the officials. that work i suspect will still get done. the bigger question is whatat happens to those prospective size leases. just this wk, there were a couple of solicitaons that were issuedn leases that are expiring next year. on the surface, it looks like those things that were in the pipeli befe t the las vegas scandal broke, it lks like those thingsre still going to move through the pipeline. >> david we have been talking about the scandal so much in the media business. it was the resignation of the

administrator and several people at the top as the result of a jaw dropping conference that theld for employees out wewest. themployees ent ridiculous amounts of momoney onon ridiculouss items. huge parties come up big bills. as a taxpayer, what was your reaction? >> pretty offensive. >> i was offended. i was a a federal employee. i never got any conferences. there is a lot of consternation among peoe. a t of people were shohocked to find outut. i never knew ese types of conferces were going on. >> bot the administrator and the head of the public building that held the conference were very respected people and were doing the right things in th government -- >> we think. >> we think.

up until this happened. they were taking the right steps in at the ancy itself and they we very respected for doing the right things. this is a huge psychological blblow for the whole community. >> we have to take a quick break and then we will come back. travel advisories to small siness loans. student loans to taxes on-line.

whether you have ininformation to get or ideas to give usa.gov is the official place to connect with your government. from surplus car auctions finding a new job our new mobile apps will keep you updated on the g so, check out usa.gov. because the coununtry runs better when we st connected.

>> welcome back. i want to get back to the topic we have all been discussing because there wewere people stunned abouout whwhat we learnened that was going on at the gsa

conference and a lot of people losing the jobs. someone verery well known in this town not only because of hiss power r being in charge of public buildings for gsa but he was president othe greater washington boardf trad is a matter of whoou know and what t yo know. >> he was well-connected and wewell likeded. jajaws dropped all over town this week. peoplele are still talking about it. they find it harard to believe that he approved it and they find it ha to believe he is taking the bulk of it. >> there will not be any conferences any time soon for gsa. what do you expect in termrms of gsa leasing e they going to titen the screwsws because of this? >> well, not anymomore so than

what is alrey in place.. you have to remember tha president obama and congress haveve both been looking very closely at how much theederal governmentnt spends on its al- estate. in particular, infnfrastructure and the transportation commtee, there has been an awful lot of ba-and-forth between the gsa and the committee to scale down on the amount of spspace that the federal government is loing g to lease. i expect that procecess is going continue on the same course. but, yes, obviously these leases cost a significant a amount of money and there is going to be that much more scrutiny in terms of what comes forward. >> they were dng this i guess in the name of eloyees' happiness.

you also landed on the list of great places to work. what do you all to for employ happiness?s? what do you think is the key to employee satisfaction? >> wlearned a lot from the gr days in the market. it ultately b boils down to respect, treatingg your employees with respect and dignity. >> it also comes down to things li benefit. what c canou do duringng tough times to maintain the right level of benefits?s? >> we have made an absolute cocommitment to ourur staff to ve an appropriate level of health care benits whether obamacare does or does not conontinue to be the law of the land. that i is the main concern.

>> marion barry -- any job security, he made some vy candid remarks when he won his bid saying he wants to get rid of asian businses and bring in more black busesses. >> he is one of f thonly politicians can say what he says n do what he does and stitill get reelected. the fact that he tried to explain on election night will help him a little. sometimes, politicians he the right idea but say it the wrong way. he is trying to raise his ward with more sinesses thatater toto residentsf the ard in a respectful way. >> there is s this levelf resesentment but the asian busisses are there to h help the

community. hopefully they can find a way so we can all get along.

>> welcome back. our number of the week, 20, the number of dollars per person that americanspent on easter this year. easter is the second biest

confectionery holiday after halloween, ahead of valentine's day. that is all for travel advisisories to small business loans. student loans to taxes on-line. whether you have formation to get or ideas to give usa.gov is the official place to connect with your government. from surplus car auctions toto finding a new job our new mobi apps will keep you updated on t the go. so, check out usa.gov. because the cotry runs better when we st connected.