While Ellis Gardner was learning how to be an electrical engineer, he was also learning how to sell real estate.
“An engineer is trained to be a problem-solver,” says Gardner, who’s a little more than halfway through his one-year term as president of Greater Chattanooga Realtors (GCR). “And in real estate, if you can’t solve a problem, you don’t make the sale.
“There’s a big difference between ‘can’ and ‘do,'” he adds. “Competitiveness, work ethic and not giving up have served me well.”
Growing up, those qualities were a way of life for Gardner. He was the youngest of four boys, each of whom were standout athletes and, curiously, drawn to engineering. Their mother had been a teacher before her divorce from their father, and went to work afterwards selling World Book encyclopedias.
“We knew she couldn’t send us to college,” he says, adding that two of his older brothers earned athletic scholarships and all three completed engineering degrees. When Ellis Gardner finished his high-school football career at the McCallie School in 1978, he was a 6-foot-5, 215-pound offensive lineman who’d gotten the attention of, among others, University of Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
“Turned him down,” Gardner recalls. “I turned Coach Bryant down.”
When he asked Bryant whether he could study engineering at Alabama, the legendary coach said he couldn’t — but he could get an undergraduate degree in business and then study engineering in graduate school. Gardner says that when he declined that offer, Bryant asked a favor.
“He put a hand on my shoulder,” Gardner recalls, “and said, ‘Just don’t go to Auburn.'”
He didn’t. He made what he called “the natural choice,” opting for the Georgia Institute of Technology, popularly referred to as Georgia Tech, in nearby Atlanta. He distinguished himself in the classroom, twice earning Academic All-American honors and graduating with a 3.5 average. On the field, he was good enough to be taken by the Kansas City Chiefs in the sixth round of the 1983 National Football League draft.
“I hadn’t even considered pro ball,” Gardner says. “I wanted to be a professional engineer.”
He played 17 games in the NFL, going from the Chiefs to the Houston Oilers, before that franchise relocated to Tennessee and became the Titans, and, finally the Indianapolis Colts. He says that when a torn muscle cost him the 1985 season, he decided it was time for a change.
“I’d dragged my wife, Kathy, through three different cities,” he says. “We had an apartment in Indianapolis, and she’d gotten a job there.”
So Gardner left football behind and leaned into his chosen career and education — he took a job with Southern Engineering, working with rural electric utilities in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. He earned his professional engineer’s license and left Southern Engineering for Scientific Atlanta, where he spent 12 years in sales, traveling the Midwest.
During that stretch, Kathy graduated from the University of Indiana law school, later accepting a job in Chattanooga, clerking for the late Ted Milburn, a federal appeals judge. Ellis continued traveling for Scientific Atlanta during the week and spending weekends here; and in 1991 the family settled in the Scenic City.
“I’d been gone most weeks,” he says. “My office was a suitcase, and we had a 4-year-old son (Spencer) and 2-year-old daughter (Mary Rebecca) who didn’t know who I was.”
When Kathy, who’d taken time off to have her children, went back to work in 1998, he became a stay-at-home dad. And after two years in that role, he started searching for his next professional stop. By that time, several of his Georgia Tech contemporaries had gone into commercial real estate.
He earned his real estate license in 2000 and started in residential (real estate) with Crye Leike, where he spent eight years, later moving to Jason Farmer’s ReMaxx Renaissance office for a decade. For the past six years, he has been an affiliate broker for Keller Williams.
“I’ve seen slow markets and big markets,” he says. “Income’s unlimited — that’s on the low side, too, but we were able to send two kids to out-of-state universities.”
Gardner, who turns 64 in September, says he’s earned 13 industry certifications and a half-dozen more designations. He is a certified residential specialist for the national Residential Real Estate Council and a National Association of Realtors Commitment to Excellence ambassador. He says only 108 of nearly 3,000 GCR members are Commitment to Excellence ambassadors.
He says he’s started “backing away” a bit and is aiming to build a real estate sales team — a collective of three to five individuals who are younger and on roughly the same footing professionally.
“I don’t want one rainmaker” carrying the business, he says.
Carol Seal, GCR’s CEO, writes in an e-mail that those younger agents are a priority for Gardner’s GCR presidency.
“His passion is in engaging our newer and younger members, to get them started early on their leadership development path and to increase their engagement with the association,” Seal writes.
Gardner says that in 2021, he chaired the Tennessee Realtors Young Professionals Network (YPN) forum. He says he went to YPN meetings “as far as I could drive.”
“It helps Realtors who are under 40, or have been in the business for fewer than four years,” he says. “The challenge is helping them to sell one house – make sure everybody gets that base hit.
“This is our year, our time to do (YPN) in Chattanooga,” Gardner says. “The focus is on getting the next generation up and running. It’s all about finding the next leaders, finding those stars that really shine.”
ELLIS GARDNER, president, Greater Chattanooga Realtors
* Age: 63
* Job: Affiliate broker for Keller Williams; current president of Greater Chattanooga Realtors (GCR)
* Education: The McCallie School, 1979; electrical engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1984
* Career: Professional football player (NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Oilers and Indianapolis Colts), 1983 to 1985; electric utility industry, 1985 to 2000; residential real estate sales since 2000
* Civic Involvement: Sits on the board of directors of the Mountain Arts Community Center on Signal Mountain; also works in Chattanooga Connected, a nonprofit seeking to improve race relations
* Personal: A Chattanooga native, Gardner and his wife, Kathy McCallie Gardner, live on Signal Mountain, have a grown son, Spencer; daughter, Mary Rebecca; and granddaughter, Aiden