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‘ve saved this space to recognize some outstanding individuals in the corporate real estate profession — the seven winners of this year’s Site Selection Corporate Real Estate Leadership Awards, which were presented at the CoreNet Global Summit this past May, in Salt Lake City. With their permission, we will spotlight the work they do and the achievements recognized at the awards ceremony in future issues.
The point of the awards is to honor leadership in vexing circumstances, the ability to inspire a team to meet and exceed seemingly daunting goals and the demonstrated ability to deliver verifiable and enviable results to the bottom line. Recitation of ivory-tower platitudes doesn’t cut it. The leaders honored in Salt Lake City met all three criteria and managed to sidestep the sand trap. If you don’t already know these people, I encourage you to at least make their acquaintance, send them a note — pick their brains. I intend to.
Here they are.
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Senior Vice President Terrell Burkhart, among other things, led a team charged with rapidly executing a strategic facility plan that resulted in disposition of non-core facilities and potential savings of $25 million over five years.
Robert Hamilton, vice president, corporate real estate at CIGNA, led efforts to roll back occupancy costs through cost-containment measures and alternate workplace strategies by as much as $50 million in 2001.
Among other things, Vice President Charles McSwain of CSX leads a process-improvement team comprised of finance, design, construction and other business units that streamlines site selection, budgeting and project execution. He is behind a 20-percent reduction in lease-to-company costs over the past two years.
Tony Miele, president and CEO of Ontario Realty Corp., has introduced new workplace strategies and implemented team approaches to property asset management. He has “right-sized” a 1,200-member staff to 260 highly skilled employees; staff numbers have declined, but revenues through sales and leases are rising.
Bruce Richards, national manager, portfolio operations, at Australia Postal Corp., has, among other things, overseen productivity gains and facility consolidations that have yielded average savings of $33 million per year.
Sanford Smith, corporate manager, real estate and facilities, at Toyota Motor Sales USA, is a proven leader in managing business unit relationships and a pioneer in the application of sustainable principles to design and construction projects. And Sandy is seeding the profession by bringing interns into his shop to learn the corporate real estate ropes.
And James Winter, senior corporate real estate specialist at ALCOA Inc., has, among other things, supervised the outsourcing of real estate functions resulting in savings of 11.5 percent and overseen strategic consolidations and site closures ($3.3million in savings) and dispositions ($13.8 million).
Congratulations to all of the winners.
I want to draw your attention to another source of leadership in this industry, which you’re either reading in print form or online right now. Site Selection‘s content is increasingly recognized as the most authoritative available in the corporate real estate and economic development industries.
At press time, we were preparing to accept three Magazine Association of Georgia awards. At the risk of jinxing things, we anticipate more awards from business publishing entities in the coming weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
And I am pleased to introduce two new editors, both of whom are as committed as I am to providing the most insightful editorial content in our field. Adam Bruns’s byline should be familiar to regular readers. A skilled writer and editor, Adam joined the staff in March as managing editor; he had been a regular contributor to Site Selection since March 2001. And John McCurry joined us recently as senior editor, having worked for several years in senior editorial roles at Textile World, covering another industry in transition.
So stay tuned. We have a powerful line-up of articles planned for the rest of the year and for 2003, among other things.
Till next time,
