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t didn’t take long for the Industrial Asset Management Council to hit full stride. In just its second year, IAMC has grown to nearly 300 dues-paying members and carved out a niche in industrial corporate real estate management.
IAMC defines itself as “the premier professional association for corporate real estate executives in manufacturing and industrial environments,” but what does that mean?
Numbers alone don’t tell the whole story, but they’re worth considering:
• By mid-May 2004, the Atlanta-based organization had grown to 287 members, including senior real estate officers of these Fortune 500 companies: Chevron-Texaco, CSX, Dana Corp., Du Pont, Masco Corp., Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Unisys, United Technologies and Wal-Mart.
• Corporate membership in IAMC had achieved an annual retention rate of 93.8 percent.
• The typical corporate member of IAMC presides over the real estate of a company with $23 billion in assets and annual revenues of $7.3 billion.
• The average member company has 108,000 employees and handles 135 real estate transactions a year.
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IAMC Vision
IAMC is the world’s leading IAMC Values
We are open-minded, flexible We are an inclusive, collaborative, We lead and operate with a strong We improve knowledge and We conduct ourselves with the We focus first on the professional |
More telling, however, are the contributions that IAMC members have made to their industry in the form of this two-year-old organization. In the past 24 months, the association has held four successful conferences, culminating in March 2004 with the highest-rated and highest-attended conference so far, the five-day event in Tucson, Ariz. More than 220 professionals gathered at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in the Arizona desert to network with their peers and gain practical insights from the best practices of industry leaders.
The Tucson Forum delivered two of the highest-rated programs in the history of IAMC: A Leadership Development Seminar guided by leadership expert Mark Levin and a Research Roundtable on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance led by Cliff Fischer of Fischer & Co., Phil Hammel of Honeywell, Jeff Randolph of KPMG and Jim Gray of Freeborn Peters.
Other breakthroughs in the past year included the following:
• IAMC published a groundbreaking research study, “Outsourcing in the Corporate Real Estate Function: A Manufacturing Perspective,” which shattered many of the myths and preconceived notions about outsourcing for industrial real estate.
• IAMC delivered timely news, analysis and trend information in three publications: the bi-monthly “IAMC Insider” in Site Selection magazine; the monthly “IAMC Dispatch” newsletter and the weekly “IAMC Notes.”
• The IAMC Research & Education Committee unveiled a three-year research program that will lead to practical solutions to the challenges faced by corporate real estate executives.
• The Strategic Planning Committee refined the vision and values of IAMC (see box on p. 466) and developed strategies to implement both.
• Under the leadership of corporate member Rich L’Ecuyer of Unisys, IAMC put together a plan for the implementation of IAMC Regions — taking the benefits of the national association to the local and regional level.
• The IAMC.org Web portal underwent major changes, including an enhanced Career Center, plus new features such as Trade Tools, a Media Center and Leadership Bios.
• IAMC started an Honorarium Program to recognize outstanding leaders in corporate real estate and make it easier for them to join and attend IAMC functions.
None of this could have happened without the leadership of IAMC Chairman Bob Zane of Campbell’s Soup, Vice Chairman Charles McSwain of CSX, and the rest of the IAMC Board of Directors.
But no one at IAMC is resting on any laurels. The board gets back to work later this month for two days of meetings at IAMC Headquarters in Atlanta, followed by the upcoming Professional Forum Sept. 26?29 at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. The theme of the Fall 2004 Forum is “Corporate Real Estate in a Changing World Economy.” The focus will be on global outsourcing, manufacturing offshore and the challenges these trends create for the corporate real estate executive.
One core value of IAMC is to be “open-minded, flexible and innovative.” Expect IAMC to meet the challenges of change with an increasing array of educational opportunities, member services and value.
