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What does your company manufacture?
Lockheed Martin Corporation is a leader in defense and civil government
markets principally engaged in research, design, development, manufacture
and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services.
We are ranked 47th in the 2005 Fortune 500 list of largest industrial
firms.
To whom do you report?
LMC Properties, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lockheed
Martin Corporation reporting to the Corporate Treasurer. This alignment
encourages an investment and return-on-investment perspective when
acquiring, divesting and holding real estate.
How many years have you worked in the profession?
I have been involved in plant layout, site selection, industrial operations,
facilities management, and corporate real estate for approximately
21 years.
Where and what did you study?
I graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in Industrial Engineering.
Describe the most important transaction or
project for which you were responsible.
After the merger of Lockheed Corporation and the Martin Marietta Corporation
in late 1995, realignment and integration of operating companies resulted
in excess real estate within the combined portfolio. As a result,
from 1996 to 2000 I was responsible for generating approximately $800
million in real estate dispositions. This activity required utilization
of all of my skills and past experiences in space planning, facilities
management, plant layout, real estate development, leasing, law and
negotiation and commercial and government financial analysis.
What is the biggest professional challenge
you face on a regular basis?
With an ever-changing, globalizing, and growing business environment
ensuring that the organization has the right resources, the right
organizational alignment, the right people and the right skills is
an ever-evolving challenge. We are constantly searching for best practices
within other global industrial real estate organizations, trying to
build flexibility into our organization and developing our employees
to expand their breadth and depth of knowledge and to become industry
generalists - not just leasing, site selection, etc., specialists.
How is the role of Director of Real Estate
evolving?
No longer can real estate directors simply understand the profession
or skill set of real estate transactions. They must also understand
their corporations' business, strategies, goals, customers and competitive
environment. More of management's time is spent on strategy, competitive
metrics, industry analysis and, short- and long-range financial planning.
Real estate executives are required now to make real estate decisions,
not just on the best lease rate or "cheapest dirt" price, but based
on the global business strategy, and develop solutions that are flexible,
agile, industry competitive, and offer quick delivery.
Which technology do you consider to be essential
in your professional life?
At LMCPI we use several dynamic business decision tools ranging from
a very comprehensive and robust real estate database, earned value
management tools for our construction projects, a Web-enabled and
collaborative project planning/scheduling tool and a Web-enabled long
range planning tool that integrates competitive metrics for which
we currently have a patent pending. And I must say that some of the
most basic tools providing enormous time savings are our internal
e-mail, "Blackberry" and Internet Explorer.
What is the value of IAMC membership to you?
IAMC provides a unique platform and environment for identifying and
observing best practices from a wide range of global industrial corporations;
thereby allowing the real estate executive to respond to the constantly
changing environment without always having to "reinvent the wheel"
and gain leverage, knowledge and experience from his industry colleagues.
