Immediate past chairperson Jack Brophy, left, passes the actual gavel to incoming chairperson Bob Zane, group director, real estate operations for Campbell Soup Co.

Bob Zane, group director, global real estate operations for Campbell Soup Co., was named IAMC's chairperson for 2004, and the organization's other officers and new board members were introduced at the Fall 2003 Professional Forum held in Boston in September.
        Jack Brophy, the organization's founding chairperson, will assume the office of past chairperson.
        Other IAMC officers include vice chairperson Charles McSwain, of CSX Corp. in Jacksonville, Fla.; treasurer Bill Pearson, of BASF Corp. in Mt. Olive, N.J.; and secretary Jack Logue, retired from Argonne National Laboratories in Argonne, Ill.
        Newly elected members of the IAMC Board of Directors are Dennis Boles, of Haworth Corp., in Holland, Mich.; Scott Reed, of Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis; Greg Long, of Hallmark Cards in Kansas City; and Art Murray, of Lavista Associates in Norcross, Ga. Long is serving his second term on the board, while Murray is the chairperson of the Associate Advisory Committee.
        See “Question & Insight: IAMC's Changing of the Guard” (p. 654) of this issue of Site Selection for an in-depth interview with the new IAMC chair.

Ken Barker

Ken Barker, an IAMC member who formerly served as director of commercial real estate for Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint Corp., has taken the post of Director of Transaction and Portfolio Management for CRESA Partners' Kansas City affiliate. The 25-year veteran joins the tenant rep firm at the same time as two other corporate-side professionals. Richard S. McPherson, most recently vice president of AT&T Broadband's corporate services and real estate department in Denver, Colo., is joining CRESA's Denver office as a principal. And John R. Scoblick, whose resumé includes posts as vice president with Enron Property Company and senior business development manager at DuPont Safety Resources, will serve as senior director at CRESA's Houston office.
        Wayne C. Young, senior real estate negotiator for Barker's former employer Sprint, joined IAMC in July 2003.

IAMC members can mark their 2004 calendars and begin making travel arrangements for the Spring and Fall Professional Forums.
        The Spring Professional Forum will be held March 14-17 at the spectacular Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, Arizona. The Fall Professional Forum is slated for September 26-29 in Memphis, Tennessee.
        The theme of the Spring Forum in Tucson is "Kick It Up a Notch: Blending Best of Class Business Practices to Maximize Shareholder Wealth."
        For Site Selection's coverage of corporate real estate activity in Memphis, see the Tennessee Spotlight (p.692) of this issue.

Two major IAMC corporate players are making major moves to both the Far East and Eastern Europe.
        Dana Corp. is building a new 52,000-sq.-ft. (4,800-sq.-m.) facility in Kadan, Czech Republic, that will employ 200 people in the manufacture of heat exchangers. The site, about 60 miles (100 km.) from Prague and near the German border, was chosen because of accessibility to both skilled labor and customers. It won out over nine others in the country. The company's Thermal Products division operates 11 other plants in Canada, France and the U.S.
        Nearly simultaneous with that announcement, Dana announced the opening of fuel cell support centers in Rugby, England, and Toyohashi, Japan, where it already operates an Asian Technical Center. Dana operates similar centers in Neu-Ulm, Germany; Paris, Tennessee; and Oakville, Ontario. IAMC member Phil Zmuda is senior manager, real estate transactions, for Toledo, Ohio-based Dana Corp.
        BASF Corp. is also active in both "Easts," at the same time it takes consolidation steps in Italy. Having just laid the cornerstone of its immense polytetrahydrofuran plant in Shanghai, the company is also rolling out its new Greater China and East Asia headquarters in Hong Kong. The company currently operates four wholly-owned and eight joint venture facilities in China, where it realized a 27-percent year-over-year sales increase in 2002 and where its investment will reach US$6.3 billion by 2005.
        Eastern Europe is a hot location for BASF too. In bestowing a "Supplier of Excellence" award to the company, customer Black & Decker noted the outstanding support it received from BASF during the transfer of production operations from Spennymoor, U.K., to Usti, Czech Republic, where a new Black & Decker plant was recently completed.

IAMC associate member Kevin Beaudry, vice president of client services for Ontario commercial real estate firm J.J. Barnicke Ltd. Insignia, had to be optimistic when a Jones Lang LaSalle survey early in 2003 found that Toronto was the hottest market for commercial real estate in North America. Increased attention to the city from investors would surely follow. But SARS arrived instead. Nevertheless, says Beaudry, the impact has been minimal.
        "The recent short-lived and highly isolated SARS outbreak has not had, nor is expected to have, any noticeable effect on the stable office and industrial real estate sectors," he says, citing the stability of the Canadian economy and real estate markets. In spite of a steep drop in visitor numbers that has caused the launch of tax deferral programs for workers and marketing programs for hesitant travellers, Beaudry says "we do not forecast that the short-term revenue losses will impact longer-term real estate decision-making by tenants or hospitality owners."
        Nor does he see any danger in the institutional sector.
        "The likelihood that spin-off reactions will creep into the large institutional-driven commercial real estate markets is very low," he says.
        In China, Dr. Mark Goh, director of business development solutions, APL Logistics Asia/Middle East, says the SARS epidemic has caused an outbreak of re-sourcing.
        "Some customers have adopted a 'risk-averse' sourcing strategy by stepping up their operations in other locations, including Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean Basin and Latin America," he says. But fear of the disease is no match for the awesome power of the Chinese market.
        "While SARS has impacted new product development, for example," he says, "China's business environment is, barring another major outbreak, too attractive for companies to stay away for too long."