Written by Kathleen Hokit, Published August 11, 2026.
A teenage setup, a stolen first Christmas, a cinematic proposal, and years spent building a business together led to Nik Boone’s surprise recognition as Bakersfield’s 2026 Business Person of the Year. Still, he’ll be the first to say this has never been a one-person story.
Nik and MacKenzie Boone’s first date had all the ingredients of a teenage romantic comedy, except for one small detail.
They were dating other people.
The Bakersfield natives were 14 when a mutual friend decided the two talkative teenagers needed to meet. Their earliest conversations happened the old-fashioned way, over long phone calls.
“She caught on that we were both chatty,” MacKenzie says. “She always said we both fought for the spotlight, so I think she thought we’d be a good counterbalance to each other.”
MacKenzie’s conclusion? Nik might be perfect for her best friend.
Naturally, their first outing became a double date to the movies with different partners. Neither remembers what film they watched.
It wasn’t exactly love at first sight.
It was friendship, bad timing, and the sort of chemistry that waits patiently for the plot to catch up.
The summer that refused to end
Nik and MacKenzie remained friends for years. They liked each other, attended dances together, and collected the kind of stories couples only earn by growing up side by side.
At one school formal, MacKenzie told Nik to meet her at the limo at 9 p.m. When he stayed behind to keep dancing, she left.
“Zero tolerance,” she says.
Courtesy of the Mr. and Mrs. Boone
By summer 2010, the timing finally shifted. Nik was attending Taft College, working at Starbucks, and selling real estate. MacKenzie had graduated from North High School and was preparing to leave for California State University, Northridge.
They decided to date, but only temporarily.
“We would text each other, ‘Just for the summer,’” MacKenzie says. “That was our tagline.”
The rule sounded reasonable. Their feelings were less cooperative.
Nik accepted that she would leave.
“I didn’t want to stop her,” he says. “This was a pivotal life moment. I told her, ‘Don’t stay for me. Your life is out there.’”
MacKenzie had paid tuition, toured campus, met her roommate, and purchased dorm supplies. Then, while driving home from Northridge with her mother, the future she had arranged suddenly felt wrong.
Her family was in Bakersfield. Her best friend was staying. Nik was there. Most importantly, she couldn’t picture building her life anywhere else.
“I looked at my mom and said, ‘I don’t want to go,’” she remembers. “She pulled over, and we cried. She told me, ‘You don’t have to go.’”
Her mother had encouraged her to apply to California State University, Bakersfield as a backup, giving MacKenzie another path.
She transferred her plans home.
The summer romance had survived summer.
“We don’t do anything halfhearted,” MacKenzie says.
Love, rent, and one terrible Christmas morning
At 18, the couple moved into a small apartment on Chester Lane. Their families supplied the basics: a toaster, vacuum, and everything else two teenagers might forget they need.
They moved their belongings in on Christmas Eve, then spent the night with family.
Christmas morning was supposed to be their first day together in their first home.
Instead, they opened the door and discovered nearly everything had been stolen.
It was devastating and, in retrospect, strangely on-brand for a love story that would repeatedly ask them to start again.
They eventually moved into a two-bedroom house in Oildale. Before securing the house or its yard, they adopted an American bulldog.
“We were barely taking care of ourselves, and we got a dog,” Nik says.
Then came another dog, another move, and a house near Calloway Drive and Hageman Road that would hold nearly eight years of their story.
Each address became a chapter.
That detail would matter later.
Building Ascend before life felt stable
Nik earned his real estate license at 18 while initially pursuing pre-med studies. Organic chemistry helped convince him medicine was not his path.
Real estate already had his attention.
He switched to business administration and graduated after five years of balancing college, work, and a growing career.
MacKenzie’s path moved through psychology, general education, and an attempt to follow her mother into teaching. However, one of her most valuable lessons arrived outside the classroom.
At 18, she began working as a receptionist for a small oilfield company. When its accounts payable employee left, MacKenzie’s boss offered her the position.
“She pulled me in and said, ‘Do you think you could do it?’” MacKenzie recalls. “It was one of those moments when someone believes in you, and you think, ‘Am I getting a shot at big-girl life right now?’”
She learned accounting while helping manage the finances of a company earning millions. She also learned what supportive leadership could look like.
“When I made a mistake, I owned up to it quickly,” she says. “They treated it like it wasn’t the end of the world. We would figure it out.”
Those lessons later shaped how she and Nik treated their own employees.
After working in the mortgage industry, MacKenzie joined the company Nik was building, bringing experience in finance, bookkeeping, human resources, payroll, and marketing.
Ascend Real Estate & Property Management began taking shape in 2014.
The first year was not glamorous.
The company lost approximately $32,000. Nik continued selling homes to support the property management side and once sold his street bike so they could cover rent.
The following year, the business earned roughly what it had lost. After two years of relentless work, they had essentially broken even.
Nik handled calls, property management, and real estate sales while attending college. MacKenzie worked a traditional schedule while helping where she could.
“I had a normal 9-to-5 schedule, while he was often working from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., including nights and weekends,” she says. “We barely saw each other.”
The business grew, but so did the risks. Nik expanded into a brokerage and signed a costly office lease. Then a group of agents left at once, leaving him with rising overhead and years remaining on the lease.
Rather than chase another opportunity, Nik narrowed his focus to property management, the area offering the steadiest foundation.
That decision would later shape his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: Stop trying to become everything at once.
The breakup before the proposal
Success was not the only thing moving slowly.
After approximately eight years together, MacKenzie wanted marriage and children. Nik loved her, but he felt consumed by building the company while they were still young.
To MacKenzie, the relationship appeared stuck.
To Nik, the future felt like it was arriving faster than he could control.
They separated.
Six weeks later, Nik returned with flowers, dinner, and a much clearer understanding of what he wanted.
“I essentially came groveling back,” he says.
They reconciled, bought a house, and MacKenzie delivered a deadline.
“I told him, in not so many words, ‘Six months,’” she says. “I wanted this thing to move forward.”
Nik reminded her they had just bought a home.
MacKenzie remained unmoved.
“Six months.”
He listened.
Unfortunately, the night before his carefully planned proposal, Nik tried to convince MacKenzie to wash her hair.
This was suspicious.
He had already attempted to push her into a swimming pool, hoping an unexpected soaking would solve the problem. When that failed, he told her they would be taking pictures the next day.
Pictures for what?
Nik panicked and claimed their final unmarried friends were getting engaged.
MacKenzie was furious.
“All of our friends were getting engaged, and life was moving forward for everyone else,” she says.
She cried and argued with him while standing within arm’s reach of the engagement ring.
Nik had to protect the surprise for another 24 hours.
The next day, a limousine driver arrived at MacKenzie’s office carrying dresses, her makeup bag, and clothes in dry-cleaning bags.
“We couldn’t even afford dry cleaning back then,” she says.
Still believing the limousine was part of someone else’s proposal, MacKenzie changed and climbed inside.
The driver took her to the couple’s first apartment on Chester Lane. The driver handed her an envelope and closed the door.
Inside was a handwritten letter about the home where their life together began.
The limousine continued to their next house in Oildale, then to the Calloway-area home where they had spent years growing together. At every stop, another note revisited what they had survived, learned, and built there.
Somewhere along the route, MacKenzie realized she might be the main character after all.
“I thought, ‘This might actually be about me,’” she says.
The final stop was RiverLakes Ranch Golf Course. Nik waited near the 18th hole with flowers, a photographer, and a proposal.
Credit: The Photege
Afterward, they climbed back into the limousine for champagne. Then Nik revealed one final surprise: Their friends and family were waiting at the house for an engagement party.
They married nine months later in 2017.
A marriage built beyond the montage
The movie version might fade out there.
Real life kept rolling.
Credit: Laura Danielle Photography
Nik and MacKenzie welcomed their first son in December 2018, followed by daughters in 2021 and 2023. MacKenzie initially stepped away from the business to stay home with their son.
She treasured the time, but she also discovered that motherhood did not erase the parts of her that needed professional challenges, creative work, and adult conversation.
“I wanted my primary job to be mom, but you need something that calls your soul,” she says. “Motherhood does that in a very specific way, but it is also exhausting.”
After experiencing severe postpartum depression following two pregnancies, MacKenzie learned that taking care of herself could not remain the final item on an impossible list.
“Don’t feel guilty,” she says. “I spent so much time feeling guilty about taking care of myself. Our whole house runs more smoothly when I do.”
Reliable childcare, supportive grandparents, and a present partner gave her space to return to the business.
Her first piece of advice for women balancing motherhood, marriage, and work arrives with a laugh.
“Don’t marry a loser,” she says. “That’s very helpful.”
The joke works because the partnership behind it is serious.
Nik believes parents can love their children completely without allowing their relationship or individual identities to disappear.
“You can lose yourself, and you can lose your relationship,” he says. “You have to prioritize what created the family, which is the relationship with your spouse, while also keeping up with yourself.”
For the Boones, that means staying active, making time for each other, and demonstrating the adulthood they hope their children will build.
It has also meant couples counseling.
“We learned new skills,” MacKenzie says. “We continue to choose to do life together.”
That choice has not always been effortless.
Credit: Ethan with E+E Photography, Oahu, Hawaii. Left to Right: Remington (Remi), MacKenzie, Caprielle (Capri), Nik, and Juniper (Junie)
They have paused arguments to finish the evening with their children, then stayed awake for hours trying to find a resolution.
“We’ll say, ‘Let’s put a pin in it. Let’s finish the day with the kids,’” Nik says. “Then we’ll talk for three hours because we have to work it out.”
Their long history does not mean they have remained the same people.
It means they have kept meeting each new version of each other.
“We’re not the same people we were at 17,” MacKenzie says. “But we continue choosing to do life together.”
When the business faced its biggest test
Ascend survived its early losses and the sudden departure of its real estate team. Then March 2020 arrived.
The pandemic disrupted nearly every part of the business. Rent collections slowed. Home sales became uncertain. Maintenance workers could not freely enter occupied properties, cutting into another source of revenue.
For the second time, Nik and MacKenzie wondered whether Ascend would survive.
By then, years of saving had created breathing room. More importantly, employees were relying on them.
MacKenzie, who oversaw human resources and payroll, viewed every staff member as part of a household depending on the company’s decisions.
“We had five to eight families relying on us,” she says. “We decided we were going to see them through. We were not firing anybody. We were not letting anybody go. We would take the brunt of it.”
The company regularly surveyed employees about whether they felt comfortable returning to the office or working from home as health guidance changed.
There was no perfect business manual for the moment.
There was only a decision about the kind of employers they wanted to be.
They kept the team intact.
When business returned, it returned with force.
The award neither expected
When the Greater Bakersfield Chamber named Nik Boone its 2026 Beautiful Bakersfield Business Person of the Year, no one looked more surprised than Nik.
He had been nominated for Young Professional of the Year the previous year but did not win. So when his name appeared in an even larger category just 12 months later, he assumed history would repeat itself.
His parents were not feeling well the night of the ceremony and asked whether they should still attend. Nik told them to stay home. There would always be another year.
On the way to the event, he briefly wondered whether he should prepare a speech.
MacKenzie gently lowered his expectations.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to burst your bubble, but probably not,’” she recalls.
She did offer one piece of emergency advice.
“If you end up winning for some reason, just go up there and thank me a whole bunch of times.”
Then the Chamber called his name.
Nik, normally quick with a joke and comfortable in front of a crowd, walked to the stage without a prepared speech. So he followed MacKenzie’s instructions.
He thanked his wife.
Then he thanked her again.
Credit: April McGill
The repetition earned laughs, but it also revealed the truth beneath the honor. Nik may be Ascend Real Estate & Property Management’s founder and CEO, but the company was built inside a shared life.
MacKenzie helped shape its finances, bookkeeping, marketing, payroll, human resources, and workplace culture. She stood beside Nik when the company lost money, when he sold his street bike to help cover rent, and when the demands of the business left them feeling like “ships in the night.”
She also helped him protect the people who depended on Ascend when the pandemic threatened nearly every source of company revenue.
The award represented what the room could not see: the calls answered at all hours, the risks taken in their 20s, the setbacks that nearly changed everything, and the years when success remained a promise instead of a paycheck.
Today, Ascend manages more than 1,800 rental properties and has facilitated more than 500 home sales. The company has earned Inc. 5000 recognition and was voted Best of Bakersfield for property management in 2026.
At the time of their interview, the Boones said Ascend employed approximately 32 people.
“We have 32 families relying on that income,” Nik says. “Then we have thousands of tenants relying on the housing. We don’t take that lightly.”
Built by Bakersfield
For Nik and MacKenzie, the award was also a Bakersfield story.
Both grew up in the 93308 ZIP code. Nik spent part of his childhood near Beardsley Avenue and watched his parents work their way toward homeownership, saving and investing.
“We didn’t grow up fancy,” he says.
Their commitment to the community began long before Ascend became successful. As college students, they helped launch a Rotaract organization at CSUB. Nik has since served with local organizations connected to Mercy Hospital, Rotary, CSUB, and the Taft College Foundation.
MacKenzie has devoted years to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Kern County, including serving in board leadership. She remembers the adults who encouraged her as a teenager and wants young people across Kern County to receive that same vote of confidence.
Ascend has extended that mission through internships with the Boys & Girls Clubs and a partnership with CSUB that helps graduates find full-time opportunities in Bakersfield.
“We recognize that we probably wouldn’t be where we are if we were in a different city,” Nik says. “Everything we have is because Bakersfield gives back. Now it’s our turn to do that.”
What they learned building it all together
MacKenzie and Nik’s advice is not to avoid conflict. It is to keep coming back with the intention of finding a way forward, both in their personal life and in business.
Nik’s first rule for future business owners is simple.
“Pick a path and stick to the path.”
He has watched people jump from real estate to mortgages, solar, taxes and the next promising idea without giving themselves enough time to master any of them.
“See one thing all the way through until, without a doubt, it fails,” he says. “Then go to the next thing.”
He also believes entrepreneurs should become known for one area of expertise.
“I’m the property management guy,” he says. “If someone has a property question, they call me. Be the guy or the girl for that one thing.”
MacKenzie adds the reality that social media success stories often leave out: Working for yourself is not automatically easier than working for someone else.
“There is nothing wrong with being an 8-to-5 employee,” she says. “When you work for yourself, you may hold yourself to a higher standard than a boss ever would.”
She advises aspiring business owners to build useful skills, prepare for difficult early years and accept that progress may arrive more slowly than expected.
“You have to recognize there is a curve before things level out,” she says. “It takes time before you feel like you have your footing.”
That may be the thread connecting every part of Nik and MacKenzie’s story.
Love takes time. Trust takes work. Businesses rarely become successful overnight, and the person beside you may need room to become several different versions of themselves along the way.
What began with a teenage double date with different partners and a promise that nothing would last beyond summer became a marriage, three children, a growing Bakersfield business, and one very surprised Business Person of the Year.
“Just for the summer” was never much of a long-term plan.
As a love story, though, it worked beautifully.
Credit: Allison Claire Photography
Kern Magazine’s Signature Questions
What do you love about your community?
MacKenzie: “I truly believe the people in Bakersfield are helpers. If you are looking for hands to lift you to the next level, whether that is in your career, motherhood or anything else, there are so many resources and good-hearted people willing to help you get there. Bakersfield is a big, small town. There are well-connected people here who remain humble and accessible. You have people who are helpers.”
Nik: “I love the big-small combination. Our business can grow as large as we want without having to leave, but I can still walk into a grocery store and see a friend. I can attend an event and know half the people. The more good you can do here, the farther it reaches because the community is so connected.”
When you eat local, where do you go?
MacKenzie: “Frugatti’s. Their bread is fantastic, and it is one of my favorite places for date night.”
Nik: “KC Steak House. The food is always top-notch. It was one of our first date nights after we had kids and left the baby with the grandparents, so it is still our special-occasion place.”
Where do you go when you need to get away?
MacKenzie: “They call it Bakersfield on the beach for a reason. We love Pismo.”
Nik: “Pismo Beach. Splash Café is our son’s favorite. He always wants the bread bowl with clam chowder.”
Visit Ascend Real Estate & Property Management here or on their socials.
Credit: Laura Danielle Photography
