- April 24, 2026
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Stan Stouder was driving a cabbage green Ford Pinto station wagon the day he first met Randy Mercer.
This was 1986. The two men were in their late 20s and in the early years of their real estate careers. Mercer was in a “poop brown” 1976 Monte Carlo.
Neither had a lot of money.
The pair met working on a deal for a piece of property on San Carlos Boulevard and what is now Summerlin Avenue in Fort Myers.
The details may largely be lost to memory, but the deal was the start of a 40-year friendship that, for most of that time, included business partnerships. For 37 years, says Stouder, the founding partner of CRE Consultants in Fort Myers, Mercer’s office was right next to his.
Stouder says, “My best summation of my sentiment for Randy Mercer is there were often times I didn't like him, but there was never a time I didn't love him.”
Randy Mercer, the founder of Mercer Investment Properties and a fixture in Southwest Florida’s commercial real estate industry since the 1980s, died in the early morning of April 5 after falling ill at his home. He was 71.
Mercer had spent the previous evening getting ready to sing, one of the great passions of his life, at Westminster Presbyterian Church later that Easter Sunday.
In the time that’s followed, he has been lauded for his integrity, calming influence and mentorship.
“Randy Mercer was a true gentleman’s gentleman,” says Randy Thibaut, who founded LSI Cos., a commercial real estate firm in Fort Myers.
They first met in 1989 and sat on several boards together over the years, becoming associates and friends in the process.
Thibaut says one of Mercer’s strengths when working on a transaction was getting people to move past emotions and focus on what was important to get a deal done.
But it wasn't just making “it work.” Mercer had a big personality and smile that transcended business, says Thibaut.
“He was much more than ‘Just get the job done.’ He was about who you are as a person and how the customers are treated," Thibaut says. "I don't know if there's ever been a better real estate broker I've ever met.”
Randy Mercer was born in Sanford, Florida, on Oct. 26, 1954, and was raised in Mansfield, Ohio.
He remained in Ohio until 1981, when he moved to Fort Myers to start in the real estate business, according to an official obituary posted online.
He started Mercer Investment Properties in 1986 and over the years worked and ran several other businesses. Among those was CRE Consultants, which he started with Stouder.
Over the years, while working, he served as an officer in the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investment Society, the Lee Building Industry Associates and the Lee County Executive Regulatory Oversight Committee.
Mercer left CRE Consultants and returned to Mercer Investment in January 2025 in a full-circle moment that was meant to cap his career.
For years, Mercer would tell people that he planned to work until he was 80 years old, says Kathleen Harris, the firm’s office manager and his assistant at CRE Consultants. As he approached 70, Mercer decided that the final 10 years of his career should be like the beginning.
Harris recalls him saying, “What a way to end my career, going back to my roots.”
But as much as friends and colleagues talked about Mercer’s business acumen and how he was as a person, his passion for music was a huge part of his life. He was a baritone who sang at church — and anywhere else that would allow him — and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of '70s rock and roll.
Stouder says that before there was software that would identify songs, if a song got stuck in your head, all you had to do was “brutalize a few bars” and Mercer would name the tune.
“And he wouldn't just tell you the song,” Stouder says. “He would tell you the artist, first and last name. And he probably knew the drummer and the keyboard player's first and last name. He was the Wikipedia, if you will, of music, especially from that '70s era.”
“Music,” Harris says. “Music, family and doing the real estate deals brought him a lot of joy.”
Mercer is survived by his wife Debbie Ringdahl, a Realtor, whom he married July 15, 2000, his daughter Sasha Ringdahl Iversen, son Noah (Lindsay) Ringdahl and five grandchildren.
