In 1986, after working my way through college and law school and holding down jobs in virtually every conceivable field of construction and real estate in the process and coming to understand, first-hand the issues facing everyone trying to navigate the complex governmental maze of bureaucracy when it came to the permit and entitlement processes, I opened a one-man practice in the then-small, Southern California town of Palmdale, California specializing in Real Estate, Land Use and Governmental Affairs helping people solve their issues.
With degree in-hand, I started building a team of the best and brightest minds I’d met in my earlier years; professionals in real estate, law, finance, engineering, mechanics, law enforcement, fire suppression, botany, biology, zoology and even psychology who’d agree to advise and assist me, on-call, in addressing virtually any objection that local, state or federal authorities could possibly lodge against my clients’ developments.

For 6-years, we successfully represented  a number of local developers navigate the administrative process before Planning Commissions and City Councils until one day, the City of Los Angeles Airport Commission attempted to unfairly and illegally evict a small Catholic charity from their property that was literally in the middle of nowhere and that it had leased from them to minister to and service the needs of the poor and underprivileged for more than 4-decades; an attempt that was made for no other reason than “accounting convenience” for which they were offering the missionaries just over $33,000 in relocation assistance. After taking the case pro-bono, two months later, the Commission ruled in favor of the Ministry allowing them to either remain in residence or, given the size of their operation for the needy and their residence on the property for more than 40-years, accept the revised relocation assistance payment of  $893,256.00 that we had negotiated for them . The Ministry accepted the payment and then used that money to expand their outreach program. It has now relocated to Arizona and is providing assistance and education to the empoverished in more than 100 countries around the world as All Nations Ministry.

As a result of the press coverage of that decision, the following year, the growing firm went on to move to downtown Los Angeles offices, expand into real estate sales and investment and represent more than 1500 clients, from first-time home buyers to high-profile developers including Kaufman and Broad, Griffin Homes, Ritter Ranch and dozens of other developers.

After retiring in 2016, I un-retired in 2020 to join my wife of 31-years, herself a 40-year veteran Level 4 appraiser, the highest and most trusted designation available in the industry as well as a real estate agent since 1978 in our real estate sales and acquisitions company, The AmesGroup. Allied with real estate powerhouse Keller Williams, ESO Realty and R-MAC Properties, we represent the interests of homebuyers, investors and sellers both here in California and in beautiful Baja at the wholly-unique and unparalleled private, gated, luxury home community of Rancho Costa Verde where, given our history, we provide our clients with, admittedly arguably, a level of education, experience and skillset unparalleled in the international property investment and real estate industry today.