CREJ

Page 4 — Property Management Quarterly — July 2019 www.crej.com Perspective I went to college to be an art teacher. So how did I go from that to managing downtown office buildings? As the say- ing goes, “Life does not always turn out as planned.” It is interest- ing to ask property managers how they got into the business because there were no majors for property managers when I went to college. In fact, there still are very few anywhere in the country. For most property managers, one job led to the next until they found them- selves managing buildings. There was an oversupply of teach- ers when I graduated in 1975, and art programs were getting cut from school budgets across the coun- try. As a result, I became a graphic designer in my first career working for a publishing company, a print- ing company and an advertising agency. Then I worked as the office manager for a travel agency, where I handled advertising and promo- tions. That experience led me to a job as the office manager for the CentrePoint development in Aurora with Young Realty Corp. based in Dallas. That was my foot in the door to the real estate industry. The market was not good at the time, so Young Realty closed its Aurora office. I moved on to Trammell Crow Co., working as a retail leasing adminis- trative assistant. That was also the year I decided to get my real estate license because I thought it was an interesting business. Our technol- ogy was IBM Correcting typewriters. People would dictate letters into a small tape recorder, and their assis- tants would listen to the tapes in a dictation machine with a foot pedal that regulated the speed as they typed the letters onto letterhead. Later in 1985, I was recruited to be a leasing assistant with the Siteman Organization, based in St. Louis. My boss took me to my first Building Owners and Managers Association meeting at the Denver Athletic Club downtown. I will never forget that meeting because there were about 300 people in the ballroom – a sea of men in black suits with white shirts. I counted five women in the room including myself! Back then, there was a cash bar, because it was common for people to have a drink when they went out to lunch. In 1988, the Siteman Organization closed its office in Aurora at the same time Trammell Crow Equity Partners pur- chased The Tabor Center. I returned to Trammell Crow Co. as the assis- tant manager of the office tower and thought I was the luckiest person in the world to land at the pre- mier mixed-use property in down- town Denver. The property manag- er’s husband was transferred to Chicago by his com- pany one year later, at which time I was promoted. I first got the title “property manager” in May 1989 – 30 years ago. My seven years at One Tabor Center were growth years for me in the profession. I read lots of real estate magazines and received my Real Property Adminis- trator designation over three years through Building Owners and Man- agers Institute. I created forms and lists to make sure nothing slipped between the cracks, and then I honed and improved those docu- ments over the years. I became active in BOMA, where I initially joined the government affairs committee. My involve- ment proved invaluable as I built a network of peers and vendors to whom I could go with questions or to share information. It became my hunting grounds when I needed to hire a new employee, and I gained many personal friends through the association. During the years at One Tabor Center, I did all of the annual bud- gets on green-bar tablets that were spreadsheets with columns and rows on large ledger paper. We used calculators with paper rolls to dou- ble check our data entry, and then we transferred the numbers in pen- cil onto the ledger pages. I remem- ber the time I said to my boss that I thought we needed to get a fac- simile machine because that was the direction businesses seemed to be going. Those were also the years that federal, state and local regulations started heating up. The Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990. I purchased the BOMA ADA guide so the chief engineer and I could do the building survey floor by floor to ascertain what changes would need to be made in order to comply. We started a recycling pro- gram, and tenants would separate the recyclables and put them in bins that were located in the freight elevator vestibules on their floors. Smoking in the workplace was as common as drinking coffee. The dress code started changing in late 1994, and women were permitted to wear pantsuits on Fridays. Prior to that, women wore dresses or skirts with jackets, and hose with closed-toed high heels every day of the week. Property managers and engineers had pagers 24/7, and we returned calls via landlines. In 1995, I was recruited by Cres- cent Real Estate Equities, based in Fort Worth, Texas, to manage MCI Tower downtown, which is now known as 707 17th Street. That was the first time I had a computer at my desk, and we had email! That also was when I started doing bud- gets using Excel, which was an amazing advancement. Property managers became more efficient with these new tools, and the speed of production started ramping up. Instead of handwriting or dictating correspondence, we began typing our own letters and memos, which made us more self-sufficient. Another federal law, the Telecom- munications Act of 1996, passed, which deregulated the commu- nications industry and allowed any communications business to compete in any market against any other. Owners started negotiating and entering into telecommunica- tions license agreements and charg- ing telecom companies for bringing their equipment and backbones into buildings. We hired consultants to track and manage the equipment and cabling in buildings because the ownership from the minimum point of presence – typically the main telephone room – was now transferred to the building owner. In the late 1990s, dress codes were changing again as women could wear pants any day of the week. Business casual Friday was intro- duced, and men could go without suitcoats and ties, and women could wear blouses and sweaters without suitcoats. Remember Y2K? It stood for Year 2000, and it created a frenzy of activity in 1999 as we prepared for the turn of the century at 12:00 am on Jan. 1, 2000. The fear was that computers would stop working as the date rolled from 12/31/99 to 01/01/00 because early computers used only two digits for the year instead of four (00 versus 2000). There was speculation that comput- ers would be confused by the year “00” and simply crash. But noth- ing actually happened because the problem was realized in sufficient time to change the year to four dig- its by IT personnel and computer companies in advance. In early 2000, I was recruited by Mile High Properties to manage Qwest Tower, which is now known as 555 17th Street. At that time I had a personal digital assistant that contained my contacts and calen- dar; however, it did not have email. We operated our PDAs with thin styluses and thought they were very high-tech. The cash bar went away at BOMA lunches because it was no longer fashionable for people to have a drink at lunchtime. I was recruited by Means-Knaus Partners to manage Park Central in mid-2001. After Sept. 11, emergency preparedness came to the forefront with greater emphasis on ten- ant emergency manuals and floor warden trainings. I got my first cell phone, which replaced my pager. We were able to enter a limited number of frequently called num- bers, but it did not synch yet with contacts, calendars or email. Build- ing owners, tenants and brokers were getting more sophisticated, and as a result, more demands were made of property managers and property accountants. I subscribed to “Go To My PC,” which allowed me to log into my computer from any other computer, which meant I could work from my laptop at home and while I was on vacation. The stress factor increased, and most property managers worked beyond an eight-hour day. The state of Col- orado passed the Clean Indoor Air Act in July 2006 that banned smok- ing inside office buildings, although many employers already had adopt- ed nonsmoking policies. In mid-2007, I was recruited by Vector Property Services to man- age 1001 17th Street. That was a fun experience because the property underwent major renovations that included taking each floor back to core-and-shell condition. When I started, I had a cell phone with an antenna that had to be pulled out when in use. We were excited when we got Blackberries with the push-to- Williams reflects on 30 years as property manager Wendy Williams Retired director of property management, Vector Property Services Vector Property Services In April, Wendy Williams retired from her position as the director of property manage- ment for Vector Property Services. In mid-2007, she was recruited by the company to manage 1001 17th Street. Please see Williams, Page 21 Denver Metro BOMA Williams was an active member of the Building Owners and Managers Association throughout her career. Here she’s being sworn in as a board member. She also received BOMA’s The Office Building of the Year award twice, in 1990 and 1994, while manag- ing One Tabor Center.