Lou Dempsey back at family firm
He will take over as Dempsey Auction Co. president for his uncle Lynn Dempsey, who is undecided about future plans.
Lou Dempsey has returned from a three-year stint away from the family business to become president of Dempsey Auction Co., 310 N. Fourth Ave.
“They needed some new blood and dad asked me to come home,” Lou said.
His father, Ray Dempsey, slides into the position of CEO. Lou’s uncle Lynn Dempsey’s status is unclear at this point.
Lou said his uncle sold all of his interest in the business back to the company in a deal that closed Friday.
Lynn said he has still not decided what he’s going to do in the future. He said on Friday he could not talk about the reason for his decision to sell out his interest.
Lou said he hoped Lynn would stay on to handle the calling of auctions and write up some sales.
“He’s world class,” Lou said of his uncle.
Dempsey Auction was founded in 1965 by Sproull Dempsey Sr., Lou’s grandfather.
Ray said he would still be coming into the office everyday and would be at virtually all of the auctions.
“It’s what I’ve done all my life,” Ray said. “I got my real estate license in 1965 and have been doing this full time ever since.”
“The main thing that we want to emphasize is that we’re going back to the conventional ways of selling land at auction,” Lou said. “Being on site with live auctions and meeting with our sellers and buyers face to face. We want to go to a more personal approach.”
“We’ll do some Internet stuff but will do primarily live, on-site auctions,” Lou said. He said that internet auctions were fine for people interested in acquiring property solely for investment purposes.
“A house, a recreational property, a second home, vacation home or farm, something like that, is an emotional buy but all emotion is lost in an Internet sale,” Lou said. “Anything that involves an emotional purchase needs to be live and onsite.”
The changes became effective as soon as the stock sale closed Friday morning. “I went from auctioning with Keith Baldwin Thursday to becoming the president of an auction company at Friday at 11 and putting up auction signs at 12,” Lou said.
Lou had worked for another auction firm in Alabama for the past three years. “You know in a family business, sometimes it’s best to get some space at some point,” Lou said. “I had an opportunity to work with American Auctioneers in Centre and that was a great thing for all of us. I enjoyed working with the Baldwin family.”
This week he’s back at home leading the third generation of Dempsey auctioneers.