By DeAnn Rossetti

Bruno Lange has lived three lifetimes, he says, one in Germany, one in Canada and one in the United States.

Lange just published his second autobiographical book, “Dream for Fun and Profit,” which picks up where his first book, “Born into Turmoil,” left off, when Lange was ready to leave his native Dusseldorf, Germany, for Canada in 1956.

After reading advertisements, purportedly from the Canadian government, that offered free passage on a ship and the promise of a good job, Lange and his friend, Klaus Adrian, applied and were given ship tickets to this “golden land of opportunity.” Unfortunately, Lange soon discovered that the Canadian government, at least in Vancouver, had never heard of the deal being offered immigrants, and he was left to try and find a job in the depressed economy of the area. Lange heard from his friend Adrian, who had a job in Kitimat, British Columbia, with Alcan, the Aluminum Company of Canada.

Lange borrowed plane fare from his friend and flew up to Kitimat, where he worked as a crane operator. Alcan hired mostly immigrants who spoke only their own languages, so Lange was able to befriend several other German immigrants, including Fritz Mueller-Guthke, who wanted to learn English as much as Lange.

“We roomed together, and we only spoke English to each other,” said Lange. “We knew that we’d need to know English to get better jobs and move up in this new frontier.”

After making some money, Lange moved back to Vancouver and, since he’d been a ballroom dance champion in Germany, got a job teaching dance at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. It was there that Lange learned to use a system invented by Dale Carnegie, called “emotional selling” to sell dance lessons to everyone from lonely housewives to young men seeking social graces.

“There are five parts to it,” said Lange. “You gain attention, attract interest, convince the person that this product or service will solve their personal problems, close the deal, and then use reinforcement or post-sales selling to reassure the buyer that he or she has made the right decision.”

Lange used this technique later on to become a real estate salesman and successful entrepreneur. Following the demise of Arthur Murray studios, Lange, who was a popular teacher, opened his own dance studio at the YWCA in 1958. One of his students, Oscar McComb, suggested Lange become a real estate agent, and, after studying and passing the realtors test, Lange started work with Rutherford McRay, Ltd, a real estate company. While there, he made many real estate deals, some for the Vancouver teachers union that earned him an article in National Realtors Magazine entitled “Dream for Fun and Profit,” a line that Lange felt described his lifelong ability to turn his dreams into reality. He was doing well enough financially to bring his mother and brother, Dieter, from Germany.

After a disastrous marriage and two children, Lange got a divorce and moved to Seattle, where he was hired in1966 by Henry Broderick, Inc, a commercial/investment company with a property management division. Broderick’s became a legendary real estate company, and Henry Broderick himself was a well-known local philanthropist who worked nearly every day until his death in 1975, at nearly 100 years of age. Henry Broderick was purchased by Coldwell Banker in the late 60s. Lange went to work for Coldwell Banker in ’68, opening their new office on Mercer Island in 1972, and when that company was purchased by Sears Roebuck and Company, Lange opened his own real estate company, Bruno Lange, Inc, creative real estate marketing in 1976.

Lange and his second wife, Yvonne, had purchased property on Mercer Island 1972, and built and moved into their dream home in 1973 with their 3-year-old son, Kirk. Lange developed the Devington Condominiums on Mercer Island and was successful in the real estate market.

But then he began working on a shirt company that would sell custom-sized shirts by catalog. Called “DuLange,” the shirt company was ready to take off when Seafirst Bank, which had been willing to loan Lange the money to get his company moving, was declared insolvent due to defaulted loans in South America. Lange was forced to dissolve the company, and became the branch manager of the Redmond office of Coldwell Banker Real Estate. Lange had also tried to market and sell German cosmetics in the United States, and started a construction company in 1985, B & Z construction, after he’d learned to build a house by doing work on his second Mercer Island home.

B & Z Construction built the Summerwood Glen housing complex on Mercer Island in 1986 However, the Langes’ partner decided to dissolve the company after the complex was completed, because there were no more buildable lots available on Mercer Island. Lange became interested in real estate auctions, and took courses in the midwest to become a certified auctioneer.

“It always intrigued me,” said Lange. “I wanted to make auctioneering applicable to real estate. Ninety percent of residential real estate in Australia is sold in auction, and people will pay more because they get carried away and hate to lose.”

Unfortunately, the idea didn’t appeal to his boss at Coldwell Banker, so in 1997, Lange retired to Para Planes to write the first half of his autobiography, “Born Into Turmoil.” The last two chapters of “Dream For Fun and Profit” are a scathing attack on the Federal Reserve banking system, which Lange sees as a “scam” that controls America through money.

“If you don’t believe me, watch what happens after Alan Greenspan talks on television,” said Lange. “The stock market, interest rates and everything changes on his word.”

Lange said the book took him a year-and-a-half to write, because it was painful to relive the low points of his life.

“It’s an emotional trip writing about your own life,” he said. “But I tried to draw the reader into my circle of friends and family, and I wanted people to learn from all my experience. I didn’t want my book to read like a weather report, I wanted it be be lively so people would feel it as I did.”

Although he is thinking of writing another book, possibly a novel, Lange is currently busy negotiating with several real estate schools to teach his style of “emotional selling” to real estate classes. Lange said that honesty was the key to his success, and that no one ever lost money on any of the real estate deals he put together during his career.

“I’m a teacher and a problem-solver at heart,” he said. “I wanted to show in my book that if I can make it, anyone can make it. I hope young people will read it an realize that the only person they can ever count on is themselves, and that you have to take charge and solve the problems presented to you.”

Bruno Lange will be signing “Dream for Fun And Profit” from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Island Books.