EDITOR'S NOTE: Face Time is a feature profiling local business people in a first-person format. It's published every other week in the Business section.

I was born and raised in Southern California. I spent most of my years there and went to school in Southern California. My father was a self-employed person and he eventually moved up to Yakima in the early '60s after my parents divorced.

I used to give my mom a hard time about the fact that she didn't care for us boys because we would be sent up to Yakima every summer, during summer vacations and every other Christmas vacation.

I got to know the Yakima area a little bit that way. I met my wife, Ronda, in 1976, in Yakima on one of those trips. We didn't reconnect until 2004 and we were married in 2004. She's also a Realtor here at our company.

When I was young, I raced motorcycles. After I grew up, I said that was a little too fast and a little too crazy.

But, it kind of spilled over in my adult life. I snowmobile. And I'm an avid snowmobiler and it works real well with the career that I have because the winters tend to be a little slower.

It's really hard for me when the weather's nice like it is now to be out playing, so to speak. But, in the winter time, I get an opportunity to go out and hit the slopes.

I grew up in San Bernardino. The weather, with the exception of the fact that we occasionally get snow in Yakima, is a lot like Southern California.

Both my father and my stepfather were self-employed entrepreneurs.

My father, who is a business owner (Nob Hill Auto Wrecking) here in Yakima, flew to Southern California for my high school graduation and I literally came back with him to Yakima to go to work.

I eventually went back to Southern California and opened my first business venture in Southern California, which was a Volkswagen/Porsche repair shop.

I've always had a love for the old classic Volkswagens and old classic Porsches. I had a '57 Volkswagen bug with a sunroof and a '70 Porsche 911e. I was kind of hooked on the Volkswagens and the Porsches.

From there, I actually went into the earth-moving business, where I had wheel-loaders and six-wheel-drive water trucks. When California kind of went through a recession in the late '80s and early '90s, I was looking for a new career and we really liked the Pacific Northwest and since we had family in the Yakima area, decided on Yakima.

When we were looking for a place to relocate to, we wanted to look at a place that we felt was kind of recession-proof.

Yakima has always been kind of an island of its own. It doesn't take the big dips and the dives.

We also wanted a climate that was similar to Southern California in a lot of respects. We like the sunshine and I love the mountains.

I got into real estate as a fluke. My younger brother, Richie, was in the construction industry with me in Southern California. He had pretty much decided wherever I was going to move, he was going to move.

He said, Dennis, 'You need to get into the real estate business. This is the business you should get into.' That was in the end of '91.

So, I called the Yakima Association of Realtors, and asked them how to get a real estate license.

They instructed me to get a hold of a gentleman by the name of Steve Davenport, who was a real estate instructor, who ironically, now works for me.

I took the courses from him, passed the exam, went to work in January of '92. I went to work on a Monday, sold my first house on a Tuesday and closed it that Friday and kind of went from there.

The first job I had was working on cars. My father owned a wrecking yard in Southern California and he raced cars. I've been around the auto industry all my life and so, I like cars.

I think (working with cars) has really given me a competitive advantage. I believe that I relate more to the everyday person. And that I can adapt. I'm just as comfortable with the guy in jeans as I am with the guy in the three-piece suit. I can be meeting with the governor on Wednesday and I can be meeting with the guy in a cowboy hat on Thursday. It works very well for me.

My mission is just to be my client's Realtor for life. What I want to do is make enough of a connection with them that when they think of me on real estate matters, that I'm top of mind. I'm the person that they're going to talk about to their friends. The majority of my business is referral.

The No. 1 thing that I value in life is friendships. If you have a lot of friends, you are truly blessed. There's no question about that and I work on that constantly. I work on those friendships.

I truly feel like I am blessed. I don't know who's going to call me next, I don't know where my next deal is coming from, my next sale, my next listing, but it always warms my heart when somebody says, this person recommended you or that person recommended you.

Dennis Rose

* Age: 51

* Business venture: Owner/broker, Rose & Associates real estate, 602 W. Yakima Ave.

* Web site: dennisrose.com

* Education: Graduated from Pacific High School in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1975

* Family: Dennis and wife Ronda, 51, have four children: Scott, 27; Dennis, Jr., 25; Brittany, 22; and Robyn, 22.

* Favorite book: The Bible

-- As told to Scott Mayes, assistant city editor