Perseverance key for entrepreneurs
Duo celebrates almost 10 years of working together

By Kim Hughes
Houston Chronicle

Memorial Park resident Dana Gompers and friend David Zugheri are on top of their game as young successful entrepreneurs in Houston.
Gompers, 35, and Zugheri, 36, are the founders of First Houston Mortgage, 1990 Post Oak, and next year will celebrate 10 years in business.

Gompers, originally from Santa Monica, Calif., said he learned from an early age perseverance pays off. His teachers in those life lessons were, and still are, his parents.

“My Dad is a holocaust survivor,” Gompers said of his father, Lody Gompers, who lives in Los Angeles. “He was born in Amsterdam, and came over here when he was about 6 years old. My mother (Sandy) grew up in Boston, but picked up and moved her self to Los Angeles right after college. By herself.”



Gompers said his parents wanted to instill that same sense of independence in him.

“They were adamant about getting me away from home.,” Gompers said. “I was pushed out of the nest to go to college. They didn’t want me getting comfortable righ there in my own backyard. I always knew I could go home. That was instilled in me.

“But it was also instilled in me to go out and take risks, and try. Just try.”

While Gompers said he didn’t appreciate it at the time, he did end up leaving the nest for Colorado State University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in finance with and emphasis on real estate
After he earned his degree, Gompers found his way into the housing industry; not in real estate, but in landscaping.

“I purchased an existing landscaping company with a friend, and did that for a year,” Gompers said. “Even though you’re mowing yards, you’re still running your own business. Taking care of clients and doing the books.”

After a year, Gompers said he had the opportunity to move to Houston when he accepted a job with a mortgage company.

Eventually, Gompers met up with who is now his partner, David Zugheri.
“He is cut from the same cloth as me,” Gompers said.

Zugheri, a married father of one who grew up in the Heights, is president of First Houston Mortgage.

“My father instilled in me at a very early age that failure is not an option,” Zugheri said. “My father (Guglielmo) was born and raised in Milan, Italy. He met my mother (Betty) over there.

“They came over to the United States in 1968 with, I think, $20 in their pockets.”

Zugheri said it’s common practice in Italy to lear a trade, and for his father, it was making jewelry. The family opened Willie’s Jewelry in northwest Houston.

While his parents now live near Jersey Village and are happily retired, they instilled a lifelong work ethnic in their son.

“It was nothing to watch my parents put in a 12-hour day, every day,” said Zugheri, a native Houstonian and a 1992 graduate of Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

When you’ve got nothing to lose, and you start out as such, it catapults you to where you are today.”

For Zugheri and Gompers, “today” now means nine years in business together. Since 2003, First Houston Mortgage has closed more than $1 billion in loans.

“People will say, ‘you’re so lucky’,” Gompers. “No. It’s hard work that has opened a lot of opportunity. We were not successful overnight. This has been a 10-year run, and we have made a lot of sacrifices.”