Real-estate auctions pioneer Chuck McAtee dies at 41

Pacific Auction Exchange founder and CEO Chuck McAtee, who passed away last week.

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(FORTUNE Small Business) -- Charles (Chuck) McAtee, the founder and CEO of a real-estate company that helped popularize home auctions and pioneered a franchise business around the concept, died Tuesday in a car crash in Santa Maria, Calif. He was 41.

A real-estate broker and auctioneer from Paducah, Ky., McAtee started the Pacific Auction Exchange (PAX) in 1999 in Bakersfield, Calif. Two years later, he and co-founder Jim Pennington launched a franchise division, creating what is widely believed to be the first real-estate auctions franchise business in the country.

PAX now boasts more than 40 locations in California and Nevada. Fueling its rapid growth was McAtee and Pennington's evangelism about their belief that auctions - often viewed as the last resort for real-estate sellers - can generate market-rate prices or better for homeowners. PAX's franchisees helped spread that vision: Revenue reached $3.5 million in 2007.

McAtee's sudden death stunned his family and business associates. No decision has yet been made as to the future of the business.

"He's left us all with a good foundation to continue doing what he thought was such a great idea, which was franchising the auction business," said Marti Barajas, PAX's director of franchise operations.

Much of the company's growth, acquaintances say, can be attributed to the personal attention McAtee devoted to PAX and its franchisees.

"Chuck was the kind of guy that would do anything you asked," said Ken Tippitt, a PAX franchise owner in Pasadena. "I remember an auction I had near San Diego - he came all that way and stayed the night to be the auctioneer."

In fact, McAtee spent so much time on the road visiting franchisees that he invested $200,000 in kitting out a 41-foot motor home. (Fortune Small Business had been preparing a story on McAtee and his unusual office environment.) Complete with a 30-inch satellite television, a washer and dryer, a full kitchen, two bathrooms and a driver, the bus served as a conference room, bedroom and mobile billboard rolled into one, making traveling from franchise location to franchise location a more productive process.

"It's very efficient, and being able to support the franchises is priceless," McAtee said in an interview earlier this year.

McAtee's colleagues remember him as a salesman with a soft touch and a bedrock faith in his product.

"It was Chuck's policy to never use the word 'convince'," says Tippitt. "He never wanted to 'convince' a seller to sell by auction. He would present the concept, and leave it up to them whether they wanted to buy into it or not."

Franchise director Barajas first met McAtee as a client five years ago, when she was helping her mother sell her house. While Barajas was keen to put the house up for auction, her mother wasn't so sure. Unwilling to go ahead if a seller was not comfortable, McAtee encouraged Barajas to list the property elsewhere.

"He recommended that we didn't do it - he didn't want her to go through it," Barajas said. "I had so much respect for him."

McAtee is survived by his wife and two children.