nyone who’s been alive long enough knows that life is full of twists and turns. Some are better than others. If you’re lucky, a few are extraordinary. Claire Shamsid-Deen’s journey has had unexpected shifts that fit into the latter category. Today, she’s one of the owners and the CEO of third-party management company A-American Storage Management Co., Inc. (A-American Self Storage). How she made it to that position is so impressive it will make you firmly believe that what’s meant for you will most definitely find you.
Those first few years, she lived in a rough neighborhood, yet it was the setting that taught her the wonders of focusing on achieving success. “My dad started his own business out of our garage,” says Shamsid-Deen. “He didn’t go to college, but he was good at sales and became very successful as an entrepreneur with MK Battery.”
When her father’s business took off, the family moved to San Juan Capistrano, an affluent coastal town in Orange County. She attended the high-end preparatory high school Santa Margarita Catholic High, a place where excellence is habitual. “I lettered in track and field and soccer,” Shamsid-Deen says. “Being an athlete was my identity, and my youth club team was one of the best in the country.”
And that’s not hyperbole. They regularly went to national championships and many of them got college scholarships. “I got a full ride to Pepperdine,” she says proudly. “I had multiple offers to go to other schools, but I didn’t want to leave the beach.”
After graduating college, she wanted to work in the entertainment industry. “I worked in small movies, wearing so many hats—art departments, on-set production assistant, stuff like that. I also needed a job that I could take the bus to, because I didn’t have a car.”
She eventually got a job answering phones at a talent agency, where her knack for working her way up shined through: Only two months into her job, she was moved to the commercials department, where she started signing and booking kids on the side. “I became a talent agent overnight,” says Shamsid-Deen. “They didn’t have a youth department, so I started one. Once they started getting calls from casting directors asking for me, they realized it was a good idea.”
Around that same time, she was dating a guy whose mother worked at A-American Self Storage. “She told me to start working with her while I got on my feet.” The move would be one of the most serendipitous decisions of her life.
Craig Olson, the then-president of the company, eventually asked her to work with him. “I learned a lot about the industry from him,” she says, adding that he and his father, Ed Olson, became huge career mentors.
She taught herself to do the role as she went along, not letting the fact that it was her first job at an office intimidate her. “I was always very confident, even in those early days. People would ask me, ‘What do you mean you’ll just go into Ed’s office?’ And I just did. If I had a question to ask or anything to say, I’d just go in and ask him. I think that’s part of the respect he had for me,” says Shamsid-Deen. “The key is to prove that you’re just as important to be respected as anyone else. I’m sure that my confidence with Mr. Olson made our relationship work well. I learned a lot from both Olsons about myself, about self-storage, and about business in general.”
She remained with the company throughout the entire ordeal, helping manage what was left. Despite the country’s financial hardships, a lot of the self-storage owners A-American did third-party management for held out. “They didn’t want to sell,” says Shamsid-Deen. “We’ve held on to those assets as clients for many years, even after Craig Olson had left and all the VPs were gone.”
Ed Olson hired another company to manage the clients that were left. After about a year, she asked him to give her, Josh Paterson, and Madelline Quijano a chance to rebuild the company. “He let us do it,” she says.
Slowly but surely, they started bringing in more deals for investors. “We grew and bought more properties. The three of us were running things, even though we weren’t the owners back then. We’d talk to Ed in Hawaii and get his approval for big purchases.”
At some point, Shamsid-Deen visited him in Hawaii. Even though he was in his early 90s, he continued working; during that trip, she drove him to his meetings. “He said he wished he had known earlier he had such a strong team. He was really proud of us.”
It wasn’t just something he said during a heartwarming moment. He actually included Shamsid-Deen, Paterson, and Quijano into his estate planning. When he passed away, the trio who had rebuilt A-American Self Storage became the owners.
“It’s been two years. The first one was really tough. There’s a large amount of assets where Ed was majority owner of, so we’re dealing with trustees,” she says. “We answer to a lot of owners, just like a lot of third-party management companies, but so far, so good. We just signed a new third-party management deal that puts us at 29 properties—slowly growing again.”
From temp worker to owner, it’s an impressive trajectory no matter how you look at it—one that surpasses all the expectations for great achievements from her youth. “I’ve been with the company for about 21 years now,” she says. “I started in late 2004/early 2005. And while we’ve been through a lot, it’s because of those challenges that I know I can get through anything.”
Her years of experience let her look at her story with the benefit of hindsight. “It’s been a privilege and an interesting journey,” she adds. “I remember vividly, in the early years, sitting in a meeting with about 10 male district managers and one of them telling me in front of all the other guys that I would never make it in this business because I didn’t know enough about self-storage.”
They love spending time at the beach and watching sports together. “We’re Arsenal fans. We also love the Lakers, and we’re UCLA fans. Those are the non-negotiable sports teams to follow,” she notes with amusement. “If they try to be USC fans, I will kick them out of the family.”