- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS.

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- How do we measure a life well lived?

Is our community and the people whose lives we touch better off for us having been there?

Tampa's Mandell Hinks Shimberg certainly had that impact.

In November 2021, Hinks Shimberg passed away at age 92.

Over more than 60 years, Shimberg and his partners built communities that house thousands of families.

He was a leader in the arts, education, professional sports, and economic development.

Along with his wife, Elaine, brother Jim, their children and extended families, the Shimberg legacy is an important part of Tampa Bay's quality of life.

In 2008, the "Suncoast Business Forum" did a profile of Hinks Shimberg.

And as a tribute to his life well lived, we rebroadcast this profile of Hinks Shimberg, in his own words.

- [Narrator] "Suncoast Business Forum" brought to you by the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, all with the commitment to putting client's financial wellbeing first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

(melodic music) (bright upbeat music) - A lot of great things have been done to improve the quality of life in Tampa Bay over the past 50 years and Mandell Shimberg, who's better known as Hinks, has played an important role in many of them.

He and his partners were the original developers of Town 'N Country Park, one of the first planned communities in Tampa Bay.

Over the years, he's developed thousands of acres throughout the region, all the while playing a leadership role in the community from economic development to the arts, and from healthcare to education.

Hinks, welcome to the "Suncoast Business Forum".

- Thank you, Geoff.

And thank you for inviting me.

- It's great to have you here.

You came to the Tampa Bay area in the late 1950s.

You were a young man in your twenties.

You were just really getting started as a home builder.

What brought you here and how did you find this area?

Because within 10 years, you were the largest home builder in the market.

- Well, I guess you could say it was opportunity.

As the old saying goes, "Go west, young man."

In this case it's, "Go south, young man."

- [Geoff] Mm-hmm.

- So we came to Tampa.

Actually, we were home builders north of New York City in Westchester County and wanted to look for new opportunities.

So we came down in 1957 to Tampa.

Actually, we came down to Sarasota to look at a particular opportunity between Sarasota and Bradenton.

Didn't care for that too much.

But in going in and out of Tampa, going back to New York, my partner, Charlie LaMonte and I both said, "This Tampa, it looks like a good city."

And so we started to look around and from there things happened.

- What was it that made you say that when you looked around in Tampa in the late 1950s, that you know, this is a good city.

- Well obviously, the weather was better than it was up north, but we saw something in a southern city that had the advantages of the weather in a Southern climate, but also was a business city, not unlike the business cities that we were used to in the north.

So we saw that and we thought that that was where we wanted to start our business.

- Now you've had a couple of partners over the years, particularly this period we're talking about.

Charlie LaMonte was a partner, but you're also partners with your brother, Jim.

- [Hinks] Right.

- Tell us about your partners.

- Okay.

I guess you'd have to go back to the point when I was in graduate school at Columbia University after I had gotten out of the Marine Corps and I needed some spending money.

And so on weekends, I worked for a home builder, Charlie LaMonte, in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Selling homes and doing his books.

Charlie LaMonte was a client of my brother, Jim Shimberg, who was an attorney in New York at that time.

So when I finished Columbia and got a Master's Degree in Business, Charlie said, "Would you like to come and be full time in the building business?"

I thought that was a good opportunity and so I joined Charlie.

We built for a couple years in New York and the Westchester County area.

Then in 1957, as I said, we came down here.

We looked around, we found some things in Tampa.

And Jim joined us as a partner in 1959, leaving his law practice in New York.

- We're gonna talk about Jim in a few minutes, but let's go back to your childhood.

You were born in Syracuse, am I right?

- Syracuse, New York.

That's right.

- [Geoff] Well, tell us about your family life.

- Well, I was born in Syracuse, New York, too many years ago to think about it at this point.

And my father was a doctor.

At that particular time, he left Syracuse and went into the veterans administration.

So during my childhood, it was almost like being in the army.

We were transferred from one city to another.

We lived in New Jersey.

We lived in Louisiana.

We lived in Illinois.

We lived in Kansas.

We lived in New York City.

And so over the years, I got a varied education of various parts of the country.

- Now you moved to New York City though, when you were a young teenager, am I right?

- I moved to New York in 1941.

I was 12 years old.

Just a few months after we moved to New York, World War II started.

I can well remember going to a football game on December 7th, 1941 at the Polo Grounds, New York.

I've been a sports fan since I was a very small child.

And they started to call on the loud speaker, general so-and-so, admiral so-and-so.

And all of these people were called, later we found out why.

It was the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

- And New York, you were first really exposed to theater, am I right?

- Well, the theater story basically goes back to a relative of mine.

My mother's brother, who was in the theater business from the early 1900's.

And he became very well-known in the business end of the theater business.

So when we moved to New York in 1941, this exposed me to the theater.

I started to meet all kinds of famous people that were in the theater.

I went to almost all the Broadway shows and I just became a lover of the theater, which has stuck these many years since then.

- Now was it as a young boy that you got the nickname Hinks?

How did that come about?

- Well, that's a good question and I'll have an answer.

I think it's the right answer.

Unfortunately, my mother and brother have passed away so they can't tell you whether it's the right answer.

But my real Christian name is Mandell.

And so I'm Mandell, Jr. And apparently, two Mandells in the house were just too much in one household.

So the story is that a maid gave me the name of Hinks.

I don't know if that was from "Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo" or where it came from, but it stuck.

And so through school and thereafter, and certainly now, I'm known as Hinks.

- And I've never met another Hinks.

- No, well that's right.

I say to people it's kind of difficult to remember, but once you know it, you won't forget it.

- Now after high school, you went to college in the Midwest, am I right?

- Yes, I started college in 1947.

That was two years after World War II ended and getting into college was quite a chore then because all the veterans were coming back.

Actually, I was admitted to Cornell University in New York.

I was living in the New York area at the time, but that wasn't until the February term.

And I really wanted to start in September.

So I was very fortunate in being able to get into the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which I understand you went to.

- I give indeed - (Hinks laughs) as an undergraduate, that's right.

But I understand that you had second thoughts about Broadway, whether you should be going to college or dive into Broadway.

- Well of course, when I was in college, I continued my love of Broadway.

And after it was my sophomore year, after my second year of college, I said to my parents, "You know, I would really like to stop college and go in with my uncle."

Who apparently would have had me at that time.

Fortunately, my parents persuaded me that that was not a good idea.

And so I finished college and ultimately later, went to graduate school, but I never lost my love of the theater.

And throughout my life, I got involved in various ways.

- After college, you were drafted, am I right?

- Right, that was a big step in my life.

The Marines had lost over like 100,00 men in the recent past then.

So one out of every three, at the time I was drafted into the service, were put into the Marine Corps.

And I was one of those lucky individuals, which I believe I was lucky to have been drafted into the Marine Corps because I have very good feelings about it.

- And after the two years in the Marines, you did get your degree in Columbia.

- Then I went back to graduate school at Columbia in New York and got my degree in Industrial Relations in Business and then went into the building business with Charlie LaMonte and my brother, Jim.

- Right and you were building up in New York and then in '57 you came to Tampa to look at real estate and Sarasota, ended up building in Tampa.

Do you remember your first project?

- Oh, absolutely.

The first project was 30 lots that we bought in south Tampa on Everina and Beaumont Street.

And we bought it from a home builder here in Tampa and built those 30 homes and then went on to Brandon and then went on to Town 'N Country Park.

- Mm-hmm.

Now in '57, you did this first project.

In '59, you started Town 'N Country Park.

- That's right.

- You went from 30 lots to several hundred acres, am I right?

In a course of a couple of years.

- That's correct.

- Pretty ambitious.

- Yeah, well I was a young man and ambition was what you wanted in those days.

- [Geoff] Was it easy to get financing?

Was it- - No, it was definitely not easy to get financing.

As a matter of fact, we went at that point, to every bank in Tampa and they were very nice to us and they turned us down, every one of them.

Finally, we went to a gentleman in Tarpon Springs, Al Ellis, who's well known in banking circles and he seemed to see something in us.

And he gave us our start from a financing standpoint and we stayed with him for a number of years.

He was very good to us.

- Now, we're going back to the late '50, early 1960s.

Do you remember what your houses were selling for?

- Yes, well, I do remember for sure that when we opened Town 'N Country Park in 1959 and we marketed it as the community of tomorrow, our houses were selling for $9,150, $150 down and a 40-year government mortgage.

So that was pretty reasonable at that point.

And those houses I've gone back and looked at them and the south side of Town 'N Country Park, they're selling for several times more than it has.

(Geoff and Hinks laugh) - Yeah, to say the least.

Now this project was an important project for you for quite a few years.

How long did you and your... And let's talk about Jim and Jim really entered your partnership with Charlie LaMonte at this point.

- Jim came down here in 1959, which is when we started Town 'N Country Park and Jim and Charlie and I were all partners in the company.

Charlie was a old time home builder and new home building, I guess you would call my role a marketer.

I was from business school and had marketing and other selling experience.

And Jim was a lawyer, so he took care of the legal end.

So it was really quite a good trio front there.

- Now your partnership with Jim lasted many years, am I right?

- Well, first Charlie LaMonte left the partnership, left the company in the late '60s.

He had some health problems and went out and was building in Brandon for the rest of his life.

And Jim and I stayed in partnership until 1969 when Jim formed his own company in and around the town and country area.

- Mm-hmm, and during the '60s and the early '70s, you were the largest home builder in the Tampa Bay area.

- We did.

We became the largest home builder.

At that particular time different from now, there weren't the national home builders that in effect are so prevalent now.

Everybody was local builders and so we became the largest local builder.

At that time, another large local builder was Matt Jetton who built Carrollwood, which was a planed community.

- Mm-hmm.

Now in 1970, you sold LaMonte-Shimberg to MGIC, - That's right.

- which was a company out of the Midwest.

- Out of Milwaukee.

Interestingly enough, I went to school in Madison, Wisconsin and sold the company to a Milwaukee company.

MGIC was the largest private insurer of homes in the United States.

And I sold them and I worked for MGIC for five years in running this company and a few other of their companies.

For five years, I was vice-president of MGIC.

- And how did this period, now part of a large corporation, shape your career?

- Well, it was an interesting part.

I certainly enjoyed it and I have nothing but good to say about the five years with MGIC, but it also showed me that I really wasn't the corporate type.

I was the individual type and after five years, I really wanted to start my own business again, which we did.

- And now you talk about being the individual type, the entrepreneur.

What in your mind are the qualities that differentiate that kind of personality, that kind of business person from someone who could have fit into a large corporation?

- I suppose the most important word is risk-taking.

If you're an entrepreneur, you've got to take the risk that goes along with it, which I was willing to do.

- Now, after leaving LaMonte-Shimberg, you formed a new company, Shimberg-Cross Ventures.

- That's right.

- We formed a new company, Shimberg-Cross, which is still in existence.

My partner there was Glen Cross who had worked for me in the LaMonte-Shimberg MGIC days, and Glen and I formed the company in 1975.

And we decided we didn't wanna be home builders.

We wanted to develop land and sell to home builders.

We were tired of getting woken up at two o'clock in the morning with somebody's plumbing problems.

(Geoff and Hinks laugh) And so that's what we did.

In various areas of Hillsborough County, we bought land, got the governmental approvals, put in the roads and waters and sewer, and then sold to builders both local and national.

- And this is a period of time in which the Sunbelt Sun Belt migration was really beginning to pick up.

- That's right, that's right.

In the late '70s and through the '80s and '90s, you got more and more national builders.

You got a lot of local builders being sold just as I sold my company to MGIC.

That was a very normal thing to do.

And so the trend of the business became much bigger.

It wasn't the local situation, it was the massive Wall Street public builder.

- Mm-hmm, is that the biggest change you've seen is the rise of these national home builders over the period of time that you've been building and developing this market?

- I would say so.

I would say that that probably was the biggest thing that changed in the home building.

Of course, the financing changed.

And we're now going through a period where financing and things, you know, homebuilding at all has been cyclical.

And right now we're going through, I would say, the worst cycle that I've ever seen in my 50 years of being in this type of business.

- What makes it the worst cycle you've seen?

- I think probably two things.

One, the financing that was created mainly through Wall Street, where packaging of mortgages was done and people were given loans that never should have gotten loans.

And then we're seeing the foreclosures that are existing today and then the emergence of the investors buying the homes and trying to resell them, which for a period of time, they did very successfully and then it just all stopped.

And those two things together really has created the worst housing recession that I've seen in 50 years.

- Let's talk about 50 years.

Even though this is a tough time, there have been a couple of tough times.

What are some of the business lessons that you've taken away from being an entrepreneur of this 50-year period of time?

- Well, I think one thing that's very foremost is things never happen as fast as you think they're gonna happen.

You put together a plan and you think it'll happen in five years or seven years, and typically, it'll take maybe double that.

So I've also learned that don't be greedy.

When you're in business, try to basically get a number of investors or partners, put in your own money because you have to put in your own money in your own projects, but don't hang out there with your credits so that it can be taken away and you can go into some very bad problems.

I never made as much as I might've made, but then again, I didn't lose as much.

- And you were able to play another day.

- That's right.

And do all the other things that I liked doing.

- Well, you and your wife, Elaine, have been very active in the community, not only from a business standpoint, but also philanthropically.

Tell us about Elaine.

- Well, Elaine is the best thing that ever happened to me.

We were married in 1961.

So in a few years, God willing, we'll celebrate 50 years together.

We have five wonderful children and 12 grandchildren.

So that's been a marvelous and certainly the most important part of my life.

But Elaine has had a wonderful career.

In her own right, she's written over 20 books.

All non-fiction books, many of them on medical subjects.

So she's been a very, very busy lady.

(Hinks chuckles) - Well, you both are very busy.

What drives you're involvement in the community and what also drives your philanthropy?

- Well, community involvement in both of our cases, I think comes from a couple of things.

One, we were fortunate enough to, business-wise, be successful and therefore be able to make a good living and have some reserves put away.

And I think we both feel that we owe the community time and money.

Money is not the only thing.

It's time that you put into those community activities that you really are passionate about.

I really believe philanthropy and passion go hand in hand.

- Mm-hmm, now the arts and performing arts have been a passion of yours, but you've also been an investor in Broadway and in London.

Tell us about those investments.

- Okay, well actually, I've been a producer.

There's a difference between a producer and an investor.

And because of my love of theater, I have produced on Broadway.

As you say, I was fortunate enough to receive two Tony nominations for one non-musical, "A Life", and one musical, "Starmites", and then produced several other shows on Broadway.

And in London, I was more of an investor where I was associated with a producer in London who became a great friend of mine, John Gale, and who is still involved in my life because we set up a program at USF in the theater department, which is called the British Theater Program, where mainly through John Gale and now his son, bring over actors, directors, writers, voice teachers of the British stage to teach at USF.

So that's been very good.

- Mm-hmm.

- In sports, I was always a sports nut.

And so when I moved to Tampa, I was very pleased to have ultimately, a national football league team here and was also very fortunate to be appointed to the Hillsborough County Sports Authority, which I served as chairman of.

And then after my chairmanship, I also served as the head of the football committee.

And I was given the job or the responsibility along with the County Administrator, Dan Kleiman, and the then mayor, Dick Greco, to negotiate the deal with the Buccaneers, which was a difficult deal.

And at times, we thought we were going to lose them.

But I think that in effect, we finally were able to secure a long-term, 30-year non-cancelable lease with the Buccaneers.

And then later from that came the stadium situation.

And I was very involved in the passage of the community investment tax, which the stadium was part of, but was a very, very small part.

And fortunately, because I think it was a part of it, the vote passed.

And 95% or more of it was used for roads and schools and infrastructure, which if we hadn't had it, I'm afraid we'd be in dire straits right now.

- Well, Hinks, I'm afraid we're out of time.

- Oh, my goodness!

- Goes fast.

I wanna thank you for being with us.

It's been great having you as well.

And if you'd like to reach us or get more information about "Suncoast Business Forum", you can go to sbf@wedu.org.

Thanks for joining us.

(melodic music)