Charles’ Business Story
After speaking with Charles O’Dell for just a matter of moments, one word comes to mind: integrity. This man has it in spades, and that’s saying something if it’s noticeable so quickly after first meeting him. The next thing you realize about Charles (Chuck) is that he is full of passion; his emotion is evident when he speaks about his family and work. He prioritizes them both and is clearly able to balance each side to the best benefit of everyone.
Chuck received both a bachelor and master’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University. After college, he began working at the national accounting firm of Touche Ross in Phoenix, during which time he became a CPA. While working in public accounting, he also developed a love for marketing and analytical work.
He parlayed that experience into a consulting role and for a three-year period worked as a traveling analyst for a national consulting firm. In that position, he analyzed financial statements and trends to identify strengths and weaknesses of businesses, with the goal of securing the company as a client. During his three years there, he closed more than 97% of the companies with which he worked, the highest close rate of any analyst in the company’s 70 year history.
Following that position, Chuck moved over to American Express as a financial advisor. In his first year, he received an award as the top-producing rookie for all of American Express nationwide. He also was honored with an award for finishing second place in his second year for advisors nationwide. He continued to receive their highest performance designations each year for the eight years he spent at American Express. Eventually, because of his accomplishments there, he was recruited to be part of the national training program, spending one week each month training new advisors on how to communicate difficult financial concepts to potential clients and then close those prospects with suitable products and services.
Charles first started investing in real estate back in the late 1980s. A few years out of school he had purchased a number of rentals. He got his real estate license in 1987 and used this to buy and sell properties as a side business. As the real estate market boomed, Chuck saw an opportunity and began to apply his acquired financial and negotiation skills to buy and sell properties.
He has profitably rehabbed and flipped over 100 properties since 2003 for himself and investors. In 2003 Chuck joined Re/Max and started working with retail buyers and sellers as well; receiving an award for being a top producer every year he was there from 2003 to 2009. Chuck is now an agent at Ensign Properties where he is part of a team of highly specialized agents.
Chuck has always been able to secure and help clients with both simple and complex financial situations, whether real estate, financial planning or business analytics and finance by making strategies and concepts easily understandable. His passion to help people get what they both need and want, along with his ability to design and implement plans and strategies effectively, has helped him achieve success. Chuck believes that being transparent, being ‘real’ and being genuine with communication is the key to developing long-lasting and successful relationships with his clients.
See more about Charles O’Dell on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckodell/
Chuck’s Personal Story
As a youth, Chuck was always energetic to get out in the world and get started with life. During most of high school, his main group of friends were a year older than he was. When he started his junior year, he decided to complete his junior and senior years of school in one year. That was a busy year, as he attended high school during the day, took night classes, and a few correspondence courses (nowadays that would be an online course). He successfully graduated a year early and decided to attend BYU-Hawaii for his freshman year of college. There was a lot of beach time that year, and more than a few wet textbooks with sand between the pages.
Chuck met his future wife Toni during his high school years in Spanish class. They dated all through high school. At age 19, Chuck was privileged to serve a two-year religious mission for his church in Mexico. He loved the Mexican culture and people, and has a deep affection for them to this day. After returning from Mexico at age 21, Chuck and Toni got married and it has now been 39 years. They moved to Utah where Chuck worked on a bachelors and masters degree in accounting and financial audit.
Chuck and Toni had 2 boys and a girl, loving every minute of raising them. They now have 7 grandchildren. Scott, their oldest son works with Chuck in the real estate and mobile home business. The family loves vacationing in the cool white mountains about three hours from Phoenix. They love to ski during the winter, and often will make trips to Utah to take advantage of the great skiing conditions there. They also love vacation in Mexico, go on trips to Disneyland, and hit up the cruise lines for a relaxing vacation.
About 10 years ago, Chuck got into scuba diving and enjoys this immensely. On one trip to the Honduras, he was able to go on a shark dive without any cages. Although it was a bit nerve racking being within an arm’s length of over 20 circling sharks, it was exhilarating! Chuck also loves music, piano, anything automotive, physical fitness, gardening, home improvement, and spending time with family and friends.
