LAKELAND – From his corner office outfitted with a river-recovered cypress wood desk, Dean Saunders took stock of his time in commercial real estate on the eve of yet another milestone in his career.

The Lakeland-based real estate company SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler, with Saunders as the founder and his managing partners Gary Ralston and R. Todd Dantzler, celebrated its 25th anniversary.

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With his experience in Florida politics and some of the largest land sales deals in the state and the nation, the company founded by Saunders has grown to include more than 60 real estate professionals in Florida and Georgia and a dozen other staffers.

The firm he founded in 1996 has had more than $3.2 billion in transactions. It started as Saunders Real Estate, LLC, which originally specialized in land and conservation easements.

Entering politics was also among the career moves for the Clermont-raised son of a citrus grower, whose ancestors include fishermen and shrimpers.

Before his graduation from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in citrus management, he obtained a real estate license as a senior.

He relocated to Lakeland in 1983 to work initially in sales of agricultural products. Within three months, however, Charles E. Canady, a relative of the Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles T. Canady, read Saunders' resume and asked him to be a liaison with the farmers in Florida for then Gov. Lawton Chiles.

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His official title was Agricultural Liaison, Special Assistant, and Director of External Affairs. Saunders who is an eighth generation Floridian said Chiles was looking for someone to cover the needs of the growers of citrus, timber and cattle, among other commodities throughout the state.

“It’s a state of mind,” Saunders said of his multi-generational heritage.

Then came several disastrous freezes in the 1980s, which killed whole groves of trees as far as the eye can see, a dystopia-like landscape of frozen fruit and trees, as he described the scene.

“It’s tragic,” he recalled telling his wife Gina. “This will all be houses someday.”

He took a pay cut at his government job and dusted off his real estate credentials. As citrus growers decided not to replant their groves, sales quickly made up the difference in his pay. He has sold ranch and farmland ever since.

“So I didn’t look back,” Saunders said. That was until he received another call from an aide to Chiles, who had left politics years earlier in the 1980s but decided to run for governor in 1990. Saunders was asked by the Chiles campaign to help fundraise. Chiles defeated the incumbent Gov. Bob Martinez.

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Eventually, Saunders would run for office himself and from 1992 to 1996 serve in the Florida House of Representatives.

Saunders, who is an authority on conservation easements, remains most proud of his work on the state’s 1995 Bert Harris Private Property Rights Protection Act, which affords property owners remedies when a government law, regulation or ordinance would reduce the value of privately owned property.

Of the massive amounts of development in Florida, Sauders said, “I loved this state 18 million people ago.” He explained that although development was inevitable, “I have a vested interest” in land conservation.

Another important achievement he cited, was his work on the 1996 Bright Futures Scholarship Program with the goal of retaining the best and brightest high school graduates in the state with scholarships for postsecondary education in Florida.

“That was an uphill battle,” Saunders recalled of the program funded by the Florida Lottery.

He is also proud of several career milestones that helped launch his company to the top of the land sales charts. He recalled a sale he brokered with Pat Wilson for the Latt Maxcy Corporation in Lake Wales. The company namesake, Latimer Maxcy once owned and operated the largest of several fresh fruit packinghouses in Frostproof, the company’s website stated. The company operated cattle ranches, a bank and other enterprises.

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“That really propelled me,” Saunders said of the 27,000-acre real estate transaction, which all started at a social gathering in 2000 after talking with Wilson and eventually led to the closing around 2005. The deal not only cemented Saunders as a top commercial broker in Florida, it gave him a financial boost for his budding business.

In another transaction, a 2016 profile of Saunders in Florida Trend magazine reported, his firm “represented AgReserves, the tax-paying affiliate of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormon Church, when it bought 380,000 acres in northwest Florida from St. Joe Co. Reportedly for more than $560 million,” the magazine reported.

As a marketer not just a salesman, Saunders also seeks to innovate. “I am always looking for ways to do things better,” he said.

Aerial cameras were one such innovation but recently he and his partner Gary Ralston produce data driven market reports with a proprietary program, which compile economic data and real estate reports with the push of a few buttons.

Across the U.S., industry publications and groups have noticed his progress, especially in recent years.

He was recently placed on Florida Trend magazine’s Florida 500 list for the third year in a row. The list highlights the state’s most influential business leaders in all industries.

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Saunders also received the Realtors Land Institute APEX Awards program’s most coveted and prestigious award, the APEX 2020 Top National Producer. The four-year-old award was announced in March, the group’s magazine reported. The award recognizes the applicant with the highest overall qualifying transaction volume across the nation. This is the second time Saunders earned the top honor among national land brokers. He won previously in 2018.

For performance in 2020, he was the No. 2 advisor in SVN franchise among 1,620 advisors. He was their No. 1 advisor in Florida among 198 advisors, earning the SVN Partners Circle award.

Saunders also received the 2020 National Association of Realtors, National Commercial Award for his service and contributions to the industry. With a two-year revenue growth of 51%, SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler Ranks No. 210 on the Inc. 5000 Regional List.

Even the building at 1723 U.S. 98 South was recognized by the Lakeland City Commission for the June commercial beautification award. On receiving the award, Saunders credited architect Marlon Lynn with the vision to remove the roof and “return to the old Gene Leedy look of the 1965-era building."

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In looking back, Saunders said, “If there is a secret sauce, its good people; my staff and salespeople.”

Beginning in 2006, Saunders began an affiliation with Coldwell Banker Commercial, a company press release stated.

In 2011, Saunders, Ralston and Dantzler founded a brokerage to serve clients interested in office, retail, industrial and multi-family properties.

In 2019, the company joined the SVN (Shared Value Network), a global commercial real estate brand, and unified the firm under the brand name, SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate.

Paul Nutcher covers business and industry for The Ledger. He can be reached at pnutcher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Award-winning Lakeland real estate firm turns 25 years old