CLAIM IT! – Wall Street has been for years!
Well, to be honest, I actually wanted to be an architect – but didn’t get the marks.
My brother-in-law, who was a property developer, saw that I liked construction and that I was good at maths so suggested that Quantity Surveying might be a good fit.
The year was 1989 and off I went to UTS for a couple of years. 
But, for those of you too old to remember the late 80’s, interest rates were at 17% and property development ground to a halt.
So like many other hordes of Aussies I thought I’d see the world and went backpacking through Europe.
On this journey I quickly learnt that working for the minimum wage was not the future I aspired too.
One day while walking to a fairly crappy part time job on a dark winter’s day in London, I calculated that the cost of travel, a packet of cigarettes (I’m an ex-smoker – one of those annoying ones) and a can of coke was equivalent to my daily take home pay and right there and then I decided it was time to come home.
I was 22 and thought I was TOO OLD to get into the property industry. (Now I get CV’s from 22 year olds and think they are kids!)
But I did go back to Uni.
And about halfway through the year I saw some ads around Uni call for a “Cadet Quantity Surveyor for Washington Brown”.
Wow, I thought that sounds like a big company. 
So I ran around campus and ripped down all the flyers that had been spread throughout the Uni.
Surprisingly I was the only one that turned up for the job.
More surprisingly was that Washington Brown wasn’t a big company – It was a one man band run by Mr. Antony Brown.
I was desperate to get into the industry – so I offered to work for a year for free.
Which I did and can now say proudly that I own the company and we are far from a one man band!
That’s my story – What’s yours? I’d love to hear in the space below.
About Tyron Hyde
Tyron Hyde is the CEO of Washington Brown Quantity Surveyors. He is regarded as one of the industry's leading experts in property tax depreciation, is regularly quoted in the media & asked to speak at conferences.
Learn why more Property Investors Choose Washington Brown to prepare their depreciation reports.