As EDENS Managing Director of the Western Region, Tom Kiler knows about enriching community through hard work.
Growing up in rural Maryland, Kiler recalls always having family around to lend a helping hand: an uncle who was a mechanic, another who was an electrician, an aunt who owned a hardware store and a father in construction who also built a community around wrestling. “It was something from nothing,” Kiler said. “Where I grew up, we didn’t have a lot, but there was pride in a day’s work. That’s in me – I take deep pride in what I do.”
Having watched his father build community through wrestling, he adopted the sport as his own. He admits to losing often in his early years, but developed courage and resilience – returning to face the mat again and again. With those lessons learned, he began to grow and come into his own.
With a foundation of support, his true path didn’t reveal itself until he was recruited by Harvard for wrestling. Excelling in academics and wrestling in high school, he traveled to the northeast to earn his degree. “I learned I could do anything with passion and hard work. That was a huge change – the idea that you could do more, be more than any preconceptions that might exist.” Having been only the third person in his family to go to college, Kiler’s world had just gotten so much bigger.
After graduation, Kiler knew he wanted to be in real estate and found his way to EDENS in 2006 after graduate school. He didn’t initially get an offer, but then president Jodie W. McLean saw something special. She invited Kiler back, and showed him another world of possibility, starting out in construction. After 10 years of growing his career at EDENS, he now oversees 17 properties in the Texas portfolio, and is tasked with leading investment and development in the region.
Never forgetting his roots, Kiler still exhibits that same respect for people today. “We create something incredible, and we’ve done it together. It’s how we enrich community. It’s the EDENS way.”
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