2011 Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key Citizen of the Year: Sue Wolverton

Sue Wolverton has crossed off 44 of the 100 items on her bucket list.

She’s gone whitewater-rafting and scuba diving. She played a mascot — specifically, the Oklahoma Sooner Schooner, and even did the chicken dance in front of a crowd of 90,000 a year-and-a-half ago. She holds a pilot’s license (which sounds like quite the feat if you believe her husband, Woody Wolverton, who claims that she “can’t tell her right from her left or her north from her south).”

But Wolverton’s latest accomplishment wasn’t listed on her bucket list: She’s the 2011 Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key Citizen of the Year.

“I’m shocked,” she said. “I’m very proud.”

Wolverton, 63, is best-known in the community for her career. She is Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate’s senior vice president in the Southwest Florida region and oversees 22 offices and 1,200 agents from Manatee County to Marco Island.

On the job, she’s known for her focus, insight and ability to bring out the best in her agents, according to Bob Stanley, branch manager of Coldwell’s Longboat Key office, who has known Wolverton for more than two decades.

“She likes to win,” he said. “And she likes to do it with a smile.”

Off the job, she’s pretty much the same way.

“She’s intense about everything,” her husband says.

She taught herself to play the piano for the Miss Louisiana contest and won second prize. She wakes up by 4:30 a.m. and seems only to require four hours of sleep. She can drive a golf ball 250 yards and also makes one of the best carrot cakes you’ve ever tasted.

“She works really hard at everything she does,” Woody Wolverton says.

That includes Kiwanis Club, for which she is tireless in her efforts to find sponsors, organize events and put her creativity to use. The putting contest at what is known the Longboat Key Gourmet Food Fest (formerly known as the St. Jude Gourmet Luncheon) was her idea. So is the silent-auction prize of a dinner trip for two in Key West, for which the Wolvertons will personally fly the lucky winner to their destination, offered at the Kiwanis Valentine’s Day Dance.

As this year’s recipient, Wolverton feels a desire to do what she has spent her whole life doing: aiming higher.

“I sure had no conception that this would ever happen,” she said. “I feel a responsibility to get more involved to make more of a difference on the Key.”

Changing the course
If you believe the aptitude test Wolverton took in school, she was most suited to become an airplane mechanic. That was a course she never seriously considered.

Born in New Orleans — or “N’Awlins” as she, like any true native, says it — she was the second of six children born to parents who were both teachers. Despite the family tradition, Wolverton never seriously considered a career in education. She majored in chemistry, planning to take the premed track at Southeastern University, in Hammond, La. Instead of medical school, she wound up in Atlanta, working for the state of Georgia in the Office of Consumer Affairs under Jimmy Carter. She went on to work in the research department of the State Crime Commission. But she felt limited in the job — like there was a cap on what she could achieve. So, in 1976, she decided to change careers and start selling real estate for Burton & Ludwick, which was purchased by Coldwell Banker in 1979. Wolverton became the top agent in her office, but she learned quickly that selling wasn’t her true passion.

“I realized that, as a sales associate, the success of the agents around me was more important than my own success,” Wolverton said.

Within three years, at the age of 30, she became manager of the office. She brought that office from the last of 18 in the area to No. 3; within eight years, she brought a different office in Marietta, Ga., to become the top Coldwell branch in the nation. Wolverton credits her success with listening to people and understanding what motivates them.

She worked to motivate agents by showing them that they could accomplish more through teamwork — and, as part of that effort, she frequently organized retreats that included survival courses.

During one retreat 22 years ago, she asked agents to quickly make a bucket list with 10 items — an instruction Wolverton gave them because she found that in the demanding field of real estate, agents often chose business time over personal time. The agents turned the question around on Wolverton, so she made her own bucket list.

Since then, Wolverton has been accomplishing the items on her bucket list at a rate of about two a year. She also has continued to climb the career ladder, transferring in 1997 from Atlanta to South Florida, where she became regional manager for the Miami/Dade and Fort Lauderdale Beach offices, before transferring in 1999 to the Sarasota Bay market, at first to manage the Longboat Key office.

Locally, Wolverton reached another milestone that wasn’t on her bucket list: meeting her husband, Woody. He came into the Longboat Key office to discuss a business issue. Three years later, when she was going through a divorce, Wolverton remembered Woody for his gentlemanly qualities and his blue eyes. She learned that he was single and asked him out on a date. They went to Pattigeorge’s and learned that they both were pilots and that Wolverton’s daughter, Jessica, attended Woody’s alma mater, Oklahoma University. Wolverton also has a son, Jason.

The couple married in 2006. Today, Wolverton thinks of him as the most inspiring person in her life — and one of the few people she knows who doesn’t need a bucket list. For instance, he played football for Oklahoma University for all four consecutive years during which the Sooners went undefeated.

“Woody doesn’t need a bucket list because he’s done everything,” she said of the man who put the Space Needle in place in Seattle, played Sooner football and has been a pilot for 52 years.

Still, he helps her to achieve the goals on her list. The next one she accomplishes will be aerial ballet — thanks to the lessons with famed trapeze artist Dolly Jacobs that he bought her last month. He’s also the person who got her involved with the Kiwanis Club in 2004.

Wolverton appreciates the programs that the group provides and the fact that they stay in the community and benefit local children and students. She also likes the club because it emphasizes one of the principles she stressed years ago during retreats with agents: teamwork.

“Individually, you can achieve some things,” she said. “Together, you can achieve more.”

A night to remember
At press time, less than 10 tickets were left for the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key Valentine’s Day Ball. The event takes place from 6 to 11 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, at the Longboat Key Club and Resort Harbourside Dining Room, 3000 Harbourside Drive. For information, contact John Wild at [email protected] or Bob Gault at [email protected].

Quality quotes
“Her position as branch manager has always had her in the top echelon of managers in the country. Not only does she not hold herself to any glass ceiling but she doesn’t let anyone else hold themselves to a glass ceiling.” — Bob Stanley, managing broker of Coldwell Banker’s Longboat Key office

“I tell her she ought to run for president. She’s an asset to the community.” — Woody Wolverton, husband

“It’s incredible how involved she is in getting sponsors involved with events. She’s done a great job with the Valentine’s Ball and coming up with all kinds of silent auction prizes. I just see her everywhere in the community doing that kind of thing. She shows a lot of leadership in caring for the community.” — Bob Gault, Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key past president

Bucket (list) brigade
Since she encouraged that first group of agents to make bucket lists 22 years ago, Wolverton has seen many agents achieve their dreams. There was an 83-year-old agent who dreamed of riding an elephant and booked a flight to Thailand to fulfill that dream shortly after she made the list. There was a young woman who wanted to have a baby — and accomplished the goal less than a year later, sans husband.
But often, according to Wolverton, agents discussed their bucket lists and realized that they had the same personal dreams — then made plans to make them happen together.