Firm's generation game.

When Kalmon Dolgin, a grocery store owner from Russia, decided to start a real estate brokerage business in Brooklyn, he probably had no idea that 100 years later, his great-grandson would be handling the firm's new investments.

Four generations of realtors and investors at Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates Inc. have resisted the jump across the bridge to Manhattan and stuck to Brooklyn, keeping a low profile, but amassing an impressive portfolio of commercial and industrial real estate up and down the East Coast.

For Dolgin's grandson, also named Kalmon Dolgin, 61, the key to the business's success has rested on organization and people skills.

"Most family concerns never make it past the second generation," Dolgin said. "It requires a very unique balance of interpersonal relationships, professional respect and planning in order to integrate the different skills that are necessary for each succeeding generation."

Dolgin said the firm's longevity rested on a firm's commitment to organization and expansion. The Dolgin firm's investment wing was launched in 1943, when the founder's sons, Morris and Israel Dolgin, bought their first building on Hope and Roebling streets in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

The company continued to grow, with Israel's two sons, Kalmon and Neil joining in the late '60s and '70s respectively. Their investments expanded into construction of office buildings and shopping centers, medical plazas and industrial conversions along the East Coast. Divisions were added within the firm for appraisal and third-party management.

The goal of the firm, Dolgin said, has always been "to build on the foundation, increase its stability." "And allow for an expansion in new directions that create a whole that's greater than a sum of its parts," he said. "And a lot of luck."

The company's workforce has grown from two to 60 men and women, including individuals specializing in professional support, accounting and management.

But because of commuting situations, well-spread clientele and smaller scale operations, the company has never thought of relocating to Manhattan, choosing instead to stay in Brooklyn, according to Neil Dolgin, 51, Kalmon's brother.

"We're very happy in our little situation being the big fish in the small pond," Neil Dolgin said, also noting the firm's diverse clientele.

"Every different sect you can possibly think of is situated in and around our outer boroughs."

Diverse age groups are represented within Kalmon Dolgin as well, ranging from Israel Dolgin, now 90 and still working from the firm's Richardson Street offices, to Josh Dolgin, 31, Israel's grandson.

And 2003, Kalmon added, was "one of our banner years."

"We were able to take advantage of a recovering economy and a resurgence in the outer boroughs, plus the fact that we expanded our presence in New Jersey, Florida and some other sections on the eastern seaboard."

For Josh Dolgin, who handles the firm's new acquisitions and financing, getting into the real estate business was a no-brainer from childhood.

"I was always interested in listening to my father talk about work--a lot more, I think, than my other brother and sister," he said. "I think I always knew, since I was five, that this is where I would be."