The Rants Group Has Always Put Family and Community First

The July-August 2026 edition of South Sound Business is focused on local legacy businesses. We’re putting a spotlight on several in the area; read about last week’s subject, Tacoma Community College, here.

Real-estate firm The Rants Group is a testament to the power of not wanting to do something.

It was the early 1970s, and Ron Rants was working in Boeing’s Olympia offices. One day, Rants’ supervisors announced their intentions to transfer him to Saudi Arabia — and Rants, both attached to Washington’s capital city and chagrined by the thought of uprooting his young family, decided to decline the offer and venture off on his own.

That venturing-off resulted in Olympia-based The Rants Group, which remains notable for being the first Thurston County-based real-estate organization to do both property management and commercial real estate services.

Founded in 1973 as EvergreenOlympic Properties, the company was initially made up of just Rants and a couple other local real-estate professionals who concurrently owned Olympic Realty, which is today known as Coldwell Banker.

In the late ’80s it rebranded to its present-day moniker and now has a team of almost 30 people, several of whom are part of the Rants family.

Rants’ son, Patrick, who serves as the business’s CEO and its designated broker, began working with his dad when he was 12, pulling weeds, mowing lawns, and painting offices the way others might dutifully tackle household chores. He put himself through college, worked for a bit in California, and eventually came back to Olympia to work for The Rants Group in the late ’80s.

“It was never my plan growing up that I would work at The Rants Group,” Patrick said. “But when you’re younger, you’re not necessarily thinking a whole lot anyway, so it just became natural for me to come back after getting some other experience.”

Patrick’s daughter, Danielle — who today is The Rants Group’s managing broker and president of commercial leasing and sales — started young, too, filing papers and helping out with office tasks beginning around the time she turned 14. Compared to her dad, she felt more naturally drawn to the family specialty.

“As I went through school — high school and college — (I) started feeling like the finance, the economic, side of my classes was what I was most interested in, and that just kind of evolved into figuring out that real estate was going to be the right path for me, and, luckily, I had this opportunity,” she said, noting that she got her real-estate license in 2013 and joined The Rants Group a mere week after graduating from college.

Now 92 and referred to by his first name in a professional setting by his family members, Ron has taken a step back from day-to-day operations, preferring to limit himself to periodic stops by the office to say, “Hi.”

But his family and community values remain integral to The Rants Group’s work. It consistently supports and donates to a long litany of local nonprofits — among them are Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Hands On Children’s Museum, the Olympia Education Foundation, and the Thurston County Food Bank — and maintains a presence on several boards.

“We’re living in the same community that we’re doing business in,” Danielle said. “So we care a lot about all the different levels of business, nonprofit people.”

The Rants Group has also played a crucial role in general community upkeep. Patrick highlighted that, in the ’80s, his father was involved in the rehabilitation of three historic buildings downtown that are still in use today, and that, in addition to finding spaces for small businesses, the company has been involved with the construction and development of various medical, industrial, retail, and office buildings around town.

“All that small stuff, bit by bit, just helps build the community,” he said.