The Connection

If you drive anywhere in Burke and Springfield, you’ll see their faces on familiar red, white and blue Re/Max realty signs on lawns, at intersections, parking lots and pretty much everywhere.

When you shop at any of the major grocery stores along Old Keene Mill Road, your grocery cart probably will have that same color scheme along with a color photo of two smiling people. In the course of a year, you may see those faces a thousand times, maybe more. You don’t have to read the words because you know who that happy couple is: “Bruce & Tanya.”

Next to Washington political power couples such as the Obamas and the Clintons, Bruce and Tanya Tyburski are among the most familiar married couples in this area.

What you may not know is that there is a wonderful romance story behind those signs.

THEIR LAWN SIGNS don’t give you the full perspective: Bruce is 6-feet-6 and Tanya is 5-2, give or take the size of her high heels. Bruce is calm and a bit serious, while Tanya is like sparkling champagne, bubbly and effervescent, tossing out ideas and memories of their life together.

She grew up in Vallejo, Calif., a few miles from the famous Napa Valley vineyards and wineries. During the summer months, Tanya worked in the fruit orchards where she learned the virtues of hard work.

Meanwhile, laconic Bruce was working his way through the ranks of the Marriott Corporation, eventually becoming the youngest general manager at the company’s flagship restaurant in Berkeley, Calif.

While in college, Tanya applied to work at Bruce’s restaurant. There was an immediate attraction between the couple, but because Marriott had rules forbidding managers from dating workers, Bruce would have lost his job had their romance been discovered.

So in 1983, he fired Tanya. In 1984, he married her.

That may have been Bruce’s best decision ever.

After deciding to move back to Bruce’s native Northern Virginia, Tanya worked as a waitress at night and in the daytime she was a window designer at the Woodward and Lothrop department store.

Tanya decided to go to real estate school, where she says, “I was addicted from the very first class. I didn’t realize you didn’t have to have $112,000 cash to buy a $112,000 house.”

They had their second child, Max, in 1989 and Bruce decided he had enough of the restaurant business, as his 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. schedule made it hard for him to see their children. He took a six-month hiatus to figure out what he wanted to do. Because Tanya was doing so well in real estate, Bruce could think about his future while being a stay-at-home father.

After three months, Tanya had enough of Bruce hanging around while her business was booming, so in 1991 she convinced him to help her out. She couldn’t train him, so he went to another firm for training.

“His first year, he surpassed me in sales,” Tanya says. “That was it. We had to team up.”

THEY STARTED ADVERTISING in the Connection newspapers and the business began to boom. Then came the idea of putting their names and faces on their signs.

“Tanya’s a very visual person,” Bruce says. “The signs were successful because people could see our faces. In real life we are a ‘ying-yang’ couple because she’s 5-2 and I’m 6-6. People remember that.”

They started out finding houses for friends and acquaintances in the West Springfield and Burke areas. They have expanded, but still focus on those areas.

Tanya’s visual sense is what makes Bruce & Tanya seem like a much bigger company.

“We concentrate along Old Keene Mill and other roads in our area,” she says, but those signs are simple directional signs that guide potential buyers directly to the homes we list.

“That’s the same for the grocery carts. It seems like we have a million of them but we just target the three biggest grocery stores in our immediate area.”

“She’s a marketing genius,” Bruce says.

As their fourth and youngest child, Angela, is set to graduate high school this year, the couple is contemplating what to do with their own lives. But they are determined to remain a strong couple.

“We’re like Sonny and Cher,” Bruce says. “I got you babe!”