For Chickie Grayson, the opportunity could have ended right then and there if she had given the wrong answer to a simple question.
"I had to be interviewed by one person, and that person had to approve me in order for Jim Rouse to say that I could be hired," Grayson said.
That person was Lee Rosenberg, the head of Howard Homes, who had built thousands of residences in Howard County and was a confidant to Rouse in the heyday of formulating Columbia.
It was 1987, and Grayson was interviewing for the job as project manager for Enterprise Homes Inc., founded in 1985 by Rouse and his wife, Patty, to build affordable housing.
"He asked me lots of things, and we got along very well. Immediately, there was a lot of rapport," Grayson said. "The one question that he asked me was if I had worked on a house and somebody called me with a plumbing problem with water overflowing and it was an emergency. What would I do?
"So, I would tell them to shut the water off."
Good answer.
"He didn't want to hear me say, `I'm going to rush out there and go see what the problem is.' That's the next step," Grayson said. "The first thing is tell them to turn the water off. It's common sense."
For the past 15 years - the last five as chief executive officer - the woman called "Chickie" (her given name is Marsha) has been mixing common sense with intellect, determination and compassion to run a firm with a main mission of developing high-quality, affordable housing that creates mixed-income communities.
From market-rate housing to rental units to senior living, Enterprise has been responsible for building more than 2,500 units with another 2,000 in the pipeline for people in the mid-Atlantic area who might never have had the chance to live in modern housing.
Tomorrow, Grayson will be at Heritage Crossing on Baltimore's west side to celebrate National Homeownership Month with the opening of the model home. The $60 million development, which broke ground last year and is a partnership between Enterprise and A&R Development Corp., is a mix of 75 low-income rental and 185 moderate- and market-rate townhouses with prices ranging from $73,000 to $100,000.
Landscaped among the homes will be trees, pathways, grass and open space all surrounding a 19th-century gazebo that survived the demolition of the high-rise Murphy Homes and Julian Gardens - yesterday's symbols of public housing gone bad.
"I never probably dreamt that it has turned out the way it has in terms of the work that we have been able to do and the communities that we have been able to change," Grayson said. "The people's lives that we've been able to impact has been tremendous.
"I was interested in creating homeownership opportunities. I was interested in creating a better quality of life for people. And I also liked doing the work. I like the challenges that it presents."
The challenges that Grayson, 55, takes on are unlike those of any other developer working in Baltimore. This is not the sizzle of the Inner Harbor or the sexiness of Canton. It's not suburbia, where buyers select sun rooms, marble countertops or other upscale options that together can cost more than an Enterprise home.
No, this is dirty, hard, urban work - work where buyers are thankful for having three bedrooms and two baths, work that few developers want to take on.
"I'd say Chickie has a commitment to a love of urban life and the city, and a commitment to rebuilding that is unparalleled and that you won't find in most developers," said Bart Harvey, the chairman and CEO of the Enterprise Foundation, which oversees Enterprise Homes.
"She has got to be one of the top people around," added Rosenberg, who said he knew he needed someone at the start who had a good grasp of building. "But of more importance, she was very bright, a sharp learner, somebody who was a very quick study. I thought I saw that in her, plus a great dedication.
"This was not, and still is not, just a job by any means. Her work is incredibly important to Chickie. An obvious sense of dedication and a belief to what Jim Rouse wanted to do, build these communities."
Linked to the city
For some people, there's a plan. For Grayson, "a true Baltimorean," there was just opportunity.
"I haven't been trained for anything that I have done," Grayson said. "I'm not saying that necessarily in a proud way. My guess is that I like to learn. That is what challenges me. If I don't, then I get bored."
She earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Maryland and was doing research on bureaucrats' attitudes toward the people they serve.
In 1975, the public health school at the Johns Hopkins University was looking for someone to run a research project on doctor-patient relationships. She got the job and began a 12-year tenure at Hopkins, teaching doctors how to communicate with patients.
"At the same time, I started to really get into being involved in the city and the growth in the city and doing rehab in communities," Grayson said.
