Riverstone manages a portfolio of more than 700 communities and 170,000 apartment homes for leading institutions, pension funds, developers, and other major owners, with a combined asset value topping $17 billion. Located in more than 265 cities in 28 states across the nation,  assets under management include high-rise, mid-rise, and garden-style communities. Recently, we had the chance to last Megan McCoy, Vice President of Management Systems at Riverstone, a few questions. Thanks for chatting with us, Megan! What attributes about the Riverstone residential experience help the company stand out?    Riverstone Residential Group is the nation’s largest 100% third-party multifamily management firm. Our exclusive emphasis on third-party management means that we compete for clients, not with clients. As such, all aspects of our business model are client centered, and our dedicated client services group works to develop tailored solutions that meet clients’ unique needs, goals, and expectations. Our national strength, local expertise, proven processes, and technology-enabled systems allow us to successfully manage a wide variety of asset types, including  conventional, affordable, receivership, student housing, military housing, senior housing, stabilized, lease-up, mixed-use, and newly constructed communities. Bolstered by an array of supportive core services and value-added ancillary services, Riverstone combines the strength, efficiencies, resources, and operational expertise of a national organization with outstanding local market knowledge. Our local experts work to proactively gather data allowing us to respond to changing conditions and drive optimum property performance in each and every market.  Seamless transitions to Riverstone management help to prime communities for performance success. To that end, our dedicated property transitions group coordinates a precise management onboarding strategy that minimizes operational disruption and maximizes long-term performance for each new Riverstone community. Through its comprehensive oversight of all transition activities, the group ensures that best practices and...

Passage Home assists the impoverished, the previously incarcerated, and recovery program participants on their path to self-sufficiency through stable housing and life skills training. The North Carolina-based organization faces formidable odds: with unemployment hovering around 35%, nearly 90,000 Wake County residents live in poverty with more than 1,100 facing homelessness. Many of those in need are single-parent households with incomes of less than $10,000. Undaunted, the nonprofit has come up with a plan that would not just mend the problems that the community faces, but rather eradicate the problems  from their roots. “We believe in empowering people by giving a hand up, not a hand out,” says Karis Lovett Tompkins, Chief Development Officer for Passage Home. Since its inception in 1991, Passage Home has helped more than 1,000 families pursue autonomy through a series of targeted programing. The organization presents a holistic set of services that aim to empower and enlighten, thus stopping the cycle of poverty. Housing and support services, financial education, youth development, and neighborhood revitalization efforts pull together to create healthy families, healthy homes, and a healthy environment in which residents can thrive. “The ultimate goal is to have these families in a stable environment,” Karis explains. “Each family is paired with a case manager who can help them where they need it most: job training, parenting, financial literacy—creating and sticking to a budget and improving their credit. We provide a holistic approach to helping families become self-sufficient.” It is Passage Home’s emphasis on empowering marginalized residents that attracted Karis. The nonprofit furnished her with the career change that she yearned for right when she needed it.  “I worked for 12 years selling clinical research software as the head of business development for an organization. It was fine but I needed...

Lauren Chung pulls inspiration from multiple facets of her life to help clients find the proper solutions for their business needs. Everything from her background in economics to athletic training has equipped her with the skills needed to serve Yardi as a Senior Sales Executive. For Lauren, life seems to have come full circle in recent years. “My family emigrated from Korea when I was five. For the first five years or so in the US, we were living in affordable housing. It wasn’t until recently, when I began working in the industry, that I realized that we were living in affordable housing and how that had helped us. Everything has come full circle,” she says. “I’m truly able to see the benefit of having those sorts of programs that help people who are just coming to this country or getting on their feet for other reasons.” As a child, she had no idea that she would eventually find herself in a position to help families like her own. Lauren obtained her bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Maryland before making her way towards a career in multifamily housing. It was a career path that fell right into place. “I began working in mutual funds but that was short lived. Next, I worked HR and office management for VisualHOMES. The company itself began changing direction, targeting multifamily about 15 years ago, so all of us headed that way.” She joined the Yardi family after the acquisition of VisualHOMES in 2010. “I would like to have joined sooner. I like what I do now and I really enjoy working with Yardi. But everything worked out well and I’m really happy here.” Lauren’s favorite part of the job is getting to know new people,...

When it comes to pursuing the things he is passionate about, Cory Hawkes doesn’t cut any corners. Point2’s Manager of Customer Care wears his heart on his sleeve, whether he’s supporting his favorite Canadian Football League team, playing his favorite sport, or working with his top-notch team of customer care specialists. A Point2 employee since 2007, Cory worked his way up from customer care representative to manager of the department with some of the same skills that have made him one of Saskatoon’s top curlers. He’s dedicated, committed, patient and persistent. For our American readers who find curling to be a totally foreign concept, Cory describes the sport as similar to shuffleboard – but played on sheets of ice. “You’re shooting a rock, a 42-pound piece of granite, down a 100-plus foot sheet of ice and trying to get it to stop in the rings that are under the ice at the other end,” he explained. Sounds like a pleasant test of skill, but curling is in fact highly competitive, physically demanding, and very strategic. Curling is played by four-person teams, inspiring close bonding and camaraderie. An avid curler since age nine, Cory plays in three leagues during the winter months and teaches more novice curlers how to improve their skills. He’s on the ice daily, and at the time of our interview, his team was holding the first place spot in each of the three leagues. They’re past club champions, meaning they bested the top teams out of 16 leagues in Saskatoon, and have also competed strongly against other top curlers from Saskatchewan. He still has hope of taking his participation in the sport to a higher level. Curling was officially added to the sports contested at the Winter Olympic Games in 1998....

As Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities (ARMHC) enters its second phase of expansion, Atlanta families can look forward to a brighter future in children’s health care. Yardi recently joined forces with ARMHC to provide quality care for Atlanta’s families in the greatest need. ARMHC specializes in making families feel at home during their toughest hours by providing low- and no-cost housing for those who would otherwise traverse great distances to the city’s hospitals. Children are able to receive the treatment that they need for illness and injury with their families nearby. Each year, Ronald McDonald House Charities equips more than 4.5 million families with the resources that they need to reside comfortably while their young ones undergo treatment at a nearby hospital. At each home, staff members and volunteers work hard to create an atmosphere that facilitates unity and rest, allowing parents to focus on their child’s recovery rather than the daily trails of household care. More than 42,000 families have had the opportunity to stay at the Ronald McDonald Houses of Atlanta. “These houses are an absolute lifeline,” explain Carrie Bowden, Marketing and Communications Director for ARMHC. “They are a stable place, a very loving place, that provides a lot of comfort while families are going through the toughest crises in their lives.” Both Houses are located in close proximity to state-of-the-art children’s hospitals. “The facilities provide food, safe and comfortable housing, laundry services, meals and transportation. It’s just tremendous to see the benefit that the Houses provide for families.” Two Ronald McDonald Houses call Atlanta home. The Peachtree-Dunwoody house was crafted to assist families that are undergoing rehabilitation at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Scottish Rite. Demand has grown in recent years, resulting in a need for more adequate housing. The Peachtree-Dunwoody House...

It’s inspiring to hear the details of a success story, and never more so than when the person had to fight their way to the top. Talk to a female executive in commercial real estate, and chances are you’ll walk away with more than a few such inspirations. Talk to 25 of them, and you’ll be overwhelmed with good ideas, advice and insights. And regardless of whether you’re male or female, you’ll want to put them to use. Needless to say, finishing up work on Commercial Property Executive’s March 2013 feature, Top Women in Real Estate, I had more new ideas than I knew what to do with. OK, true confessions, we didn’t talk to all 25—a few were so busy we never got them on the phone. But most made themselves available, and their stories provided a lesson in perseverance, ingenuity and dedication. While these traits might be expected of such a group, some less likely characteristics also emerged during the course of our interviews. Among them was what seemed an unusually prevalent (though not omnipresent) tendency toward self awareness, an ability to recognize and admit to strengths and weaknesses that doesn’t always survive the climb to the top rungs of the career ladder. Beyond the admission, it was evident in an expressed willingness to listen and communicate, as well as to identify and emphasize the best characteristics of their team members. With self awareness can come humility and even insecurity, and while that latter trait might not seem a natural fit for aggressive dealmakers, two of the most successful brokers in New York City, Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE Group Inc. and Tara Stacom of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., admitted to it—and illustrated how they put it to good use. Another top-ranked...

They call him “Levity”. With his playful and competent manner, David LaGue is known for bringing fun and tranquility to Yardi Global Solutions clients and colleagues. He knows there is nothing clever about being unhappy, and watching him in the middle of his team, you see they’re a clever group; the nickname suits him perfectly. A former CSD manager based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, David joined Yardi eight years ago as an account manager in Client Services at the company headquarters in Santa Barbara. Initially, his focus was the large mixed portfolio of residential and commercial clients. He next moved to Yardi’s military housing product as a team lead and later as manager. Having looked after teams in Santa Barbara, Atlanta and Pune, David was a natural fit for the leadership role when it came time to open a Client Services team in Romania to provide support for Yardi’s European commercial clients. “I was ready for a new challenge professionally; in addition I had a personal interest to experience living and working in another country. And given that I had the full support of the Santa Barbara and European leadership team, the decision was easy.” In just over two years, the team that started with eight support specialists now numbers 43 members and continues to grow. With a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Olaf College where he studied Liberal Arts and Mathematics, David has continued to expand his market knowledge since landing in Romania. Although the initial plan was for him to leave Transylvania after one year, the amount of success and two ancillary services (help desk and data guardian) kept him here for longer. His focus these days is on the needs of Yardi’s European clients, leadership and escalations support, and project management planning. With...

Since its humble beginnings in 1993, Camp Twin Lakes has touched the lives of more than 50,000 disabled and sick children. New ventures for this year, its 20th anniversary, ensure that number will continue to grow as camp staff, sponsors, and partners team up to reach more youth. This spring, the camp buzzes with activities, even as the dog days of summer draw near. Since 1993, Camp Twin Lakes has offered weekend and week-long camp excursions for young Georgians with disabilities and serious illnesses. Set against the forested backdrop of Winder, Rutledge, and Warm Springs, participants are encouraged to develop skills sets that will prepare them for a productive and promising future. Over 50 organizations, or camp partners, join forces to form Camp Twin Lakes. Each offers the camp’s participants a wide range of opportunities and activities that foster physical, mental, and social development. Each camp experience is customized for the personal needs of the child attending. Through camp activities, children are encourages to form and meet goals, build confidence, develop friendships and—of course—have loads of fun. “Kids walk away transformed, especially our campers who come in from the outside world where they feel so different from other kids,” said Audrey McMenamy, grant writer for Camp Twin Lakes. “They may be the only child in their class undergoing chemo therapy, or struggle with severe asthma. The camp sessions are arranged for kids with similar conditions so kids don’t feel different, isolated. Together they gain new skills and the walk away with great friendships. They get confidence from trying new things together and not being afraid.” Kathy Russell, Communications Manager, noted how quickly the camps help children break through perceived impossibilities. “Our campers face various challenges, and they face limitations on what they can accomplish...

February is designated as National Apartment Careers Month, and while she is not officially affiliated with the NAA campaign, Riverstone Residential Group’s Stephanie Brock could very easily be a spokesperson for the property management field’s capacity to launch and cultivate a distinguished and life-changing career. Brock, who was recruited into the industry while working as a bagger at a grocery store and attending the University of Texas at Austin, is now division president, Central, at Riverstone. She oversees 160 communities in Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. By the end of 2013, that community number will be higher. As the largest third-party multifamily management firm in the United States, Riverstone will be taking on new inventory this year. These new Riverstone communities, especially those in high-demand Central division markets like Chicago, Austin, Denver, Dallas, and St. Louis, have been in the development pipeline for the last 12 to 18 months. In a shift from previous development cycles, Brock told us that developers are now seeking the insight of property managers before making final decisions on floor plans, in-unit technology, and community amenities. The anticipation of prospects’ wishes speaks to the growing power of the renting consumer. “In the past, I don’t think that developers were looking to sort out these types of details so far in advance,” observed Brock. “Today, if developers don’t have in-house management, they proactively reach out to our local experts for expertise and guidance on their target market and what consumers are going to expect or want.” After being discovered in that Austin grocery store by a property manager whose groceries she carried out to her car, Brock took a job as a leasing consultant in Austin and later moved to a property management role...

BRIDGE Housing doesn’t just build affordable homes. The longtime affordable housing provider transforms communities. And over the next five years, San Francisco-based BRIDGE, which also has offices in Irvine and San Diego, plans a huge increase in lives touched and neighborhoods changed as it doubles in size. “BRIDGE has always been committed to production, and we remain committed to that. We’ve been thinking in a forward way. We want to use the diversified platform we have built to increase our mission, and we have the capacity to do it,” said BRIDGE CEO Cynthia Parker in a recent interview. In its recently released strategic plan, BRIDGE’s executives and board outline a compelling case for the power of one housing developer – in partner with dozens of other community and government organizations – to affect real progress. And you only have to look as far as some of the BRIDGE projects completed or in progress to see what they are talking about. In San Francisco, BRIDGE is leading the effort to Rebuild Potrero, an ambitious project that will replace over 600 units of public housing in the Potrero Terrace and Annex, add new affordable and market rate homes, and fuse a connection between the vast economic gap that looms between the public housing residents and their neighbors on affluent Potrero Hill. In Los Angeles, BRIDGE is a partner in the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles’ efforts to expand and redevelop Jordan Downs, a 700-unit public housing project in Watts. The new construction will replace the existing units, bring mixed-income housing to the area, and add needed retail, industrial and community resources. In San Diego, BRIDGE developers are in progress on Comm 22, a transit-oriented infill project that is transforming four acres in Logan...

If you need a restaurant or bar recommendation for your next trip to Santa Barbara, Chad Barron is the guy you should ask. A district manager for the Santa Barbara-based Nevins Adams Lewbel Schell real estate investment firm, Barron is also immersed in the local food and beverage scene. He’s a volunteer organizer of the Santa Barbara Beer Festival, keeps an eye on the latest restaurant openings, and enjoys experimenting in the kitchen. The Beer Festival, which has grown from a small event five years ago to a major annual happening each October at Elings Park, benefits the park as well as the youth programs of the Santa Barbara Grunions Rugby Club. A former rugby athlete, Chad and his co-organizers hosted 2,000 people at the 2012 event. “I cannot believe how much it has grown, from us hoping to break even with 700 participants the first year, to selling out a week before the event this year. The brewers are great to work with, and it’s a lot of fun to see everyone have a good time,” Chad said. Don’t ask him to tell you what his favorite local brewery is, though. There are too many high-quality local contenders to select just one. “I would say it’s a really tough competition between Telegraph, Islands and the Brewhouse,” he conceded. The Brewhouse, a local favorite for happy hour and its wide-ranging dinner menu, is also on his short list of recommended restaurants – along with Cajun flavors at The Palace and locavore-inspired Julienne. When it comes to his own kitchen, Chad is always willing to try new things. His signature dish combines walnuts, bacon, and Brussels sprouts. The local Farmer’s Market is the source for many of his kitchen inspirations, from fresh citrus for experimental...

A Dos Pueblos High School program that targets students at risk of dropping out of high school has proven its success, graduating 100 percent of the students who participated from 2009-2012. As a result, The Academy at Dos Pueblos High School  is expanding, and the 32 students currently participating in the focused, supportive education experience will be joined by a second cohort of sophomores in Fall 2013. More often than not, their school life was being made challenging by difficult home lives, lack of support for their studies and sometimes conflict.  Of the 32 students who were part of the Academy’s first class, most admitted they were at risk of leaving school altogether if they stayed on a traditional track, said Kelly Choi, Academy Director. Others were likely to have become involved with gangs or drugs. “The idea was to embrace these kids and not let them fall off the radar. They need a connection here at school to make them interested in staying at school,” Choi said. The 32 Academy students stay with their classmates for all of their classes, and have the same teachers for their core classes (math, English, science and social studies) during all three years of the program. The idea of sticking with the same group of 32 for three years is unique in a high school setting, where students typically bounce from group to group in classes, clubs, sports teams, and social settings.  The Academy’s “school family” brings support and accountability, which the students may not have at home. And it requires mediating past personality conflicts so that the group can stay cohesive, a valuable life skill. For the recently graduated seniors, it was the part of the program “that they hated the most in the beginning, but...

They call the coastal California city of Goleta “the Goodland.” The opportunity to reside in apartments like The Towbes Group’s Encina Meadows are one reason why. With views of the beautiful Santa Ynez Mountains, Encina Meadows is a peaceful place to live. Residents told us that they love the nicely landscaped property, which includes mature trees, plenty of shade and green grass. Most apartment balconies face the A recent upgrade to the community amenities revamped the pool and Jacuzzi area, community center (available by reservation for special events and parties) and the gym. Residents can now enjoy that view of the mountains while BBQing on one of several gas grills available poolside.mountain range, and many residents have extended the greenery to flowers and mini-gardens on their individual patios. Nearby, a variety of restaurants, from sushi to Indian cuisine to traditional American fare, are within walking distance. Groceries, drug stores, banks, coffee shops and other conveniences are just a block away, and a movie theatre and public library are also close. With near-perfect weather and awesome area beaches and parks, residents of Encina Meadows have plenty of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. And they don’t have to go far – the community pool is a popular spot for reading, relaxing and swimming, even into the fall and winter months. Residents also told us that they love the attentive service delivered by Community Manger Nadra Ehrman and her staff, who make maintenance requests and other resident needs their No. 1 priority. With friendly neighbors and such a pleasant place to call home, it’s no wonder Encina Meadows residents enjoy the Goodland life. Ehrman, her front office team, and Encina Meadows residents participated in a photo shoot for a “Your People. Your Places. Our Priority” print ad....

James Beane is one of those rare individuals who can navigate the worlds of back end technical parlance and simple, user-friendly explanations of computing concepts with equal ease. For Yardi’s Manager of Cloud Services, communication is the most important aspect of IT. James’ job description includes answering questions from clients about how Yardi’s Application Service Provider team can make their lives easier and their businesses more efficient. He’s an expert on disaster recovery and business continuity, key processes that provide peace of mind for companies with invaluable business data stored on remote servers. Yardi has opened communication pathways between ASP and clients in recent years, making it easier for executives and administrators to pick up the phone and reach out to James or one of his colleagues on the ASP team and get their hosting questions answered. “We’ve cleared channels of communication with our ASP Hotline, for our hosted clients that have outages, ‘We cannot access Voyager; The report isn’t processing.’ We’ve implemented things like that so our clients can pick up the batline and say ‘I need help,’ and get the same service level that they would from an internal IT team,” James explained. Yardi has also greatly expanded off-site hosting services for clients that take much of the technology heavy lifting off the table for companies of all sizes. Handing hosting responsibility over to the industry leading software developer and application service provider makes good business sense. “Over the years, we’ve spent a lot of time supporting clients’ environments, with 3,000-some clients hosted and 11,000 network devices run,” James noted. “We can help our clients take the guesswork out of it and focus on what they can do really well, which is manage their properties.” Just past his ten year service mark...

For the last few years, Jay Shobe has had a technology to do list that would seem overwhelming by any standards. Yardi’s Vice President of Technology reeled it off for us, almost like it was a set list for a rock show. “Mobility – and that includes Apple, and Android. JQuery and HTML5, for multiple browsers, so IE, Firefox, Chrome, Mac. Multiple screen sizes, from a monster desktop to an iPad to an iPad mini to a phone. Sharepoint. Business intelligence. Cube design.  Data warehousing.” He paused to take a breath. “It’s been an incredible run of technology over the last two to three years. Way more than anything I had ever seen. And as always with new technology, I’m looking forward to seeing things really consolidate, and seeing all of these new technologies move forward into our different verticals.” Jay started at Yardi as a teenager back in 1985, stuffing envelopes, copying computer disks and running errands. After he graduated from Santa Barbara High and headed to Baylor University in Texas to study history, he worked fulltime at Yardi while he was home for the summer. In 1989, he moved back to Santa Barbara and began working at Yardi in client service support. The desire to try programming hit him a few years later. “I think all programmers ultimately have to do their own learning. In programming, things change constantly. It doesn’t matter what you learned yesterday. You’ve got to figure out a way to adapt and learn new technologies,” Jay said. He claims to have not been much of a student in college, but when company founder and CEO Anant Yardi gave him his first programming job to complete, he threw himself into learning how to write code for the Windows-based Enterprise...

Pathways to the world of property management are as unique as the people who travel them. For Leslie Dabi, an information systems manager for EAH Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and management company, her road into the real estate realm began in college. While studying French and international relations at UC Davis, Leslie took a part-time job at her own apartment complex. She quickly learned about the unique challenges associated with property management for student housing. “We would do about 90 move outs and move-ins over a 2 day period during our turnover time – it was crazy!” recalled the Northern California native. “I remember working 18 hour days.” After graduating from UC Davis, Leslie had originally planned to pursue a law degree. But after taking the LSATs and waiting for her applications to various law schools to be processed, another onsite position in property management came calling her name. Ultimately, she changed her mind about a lawyer lifestyle and decided to commit to a career in the real estate industry. At EAH, a nonprofit company managing 9,300 units of affordable housing in California and the Hawaii islands, she has branched into new directions. In addition to handling technology project management, database administration, and software system integrations, Leslie provides onsite and offsite training for EAH staff, and oversees the Yardi & HUD/EIV Help Desk staff. The people-focused housing corporation is committed to caring for those who live in its properties – who bridge all walks of life from seniors, families, students, people with disabilities, frail elderly and the formerly homeless – and fosters professional development among its employees as well. “I can still relate to the onsite staff, because I worked in their positions, and I know what they go through,” Leslie noted....

Sean Spinks has worked in a diverse range of industries – including the restaurant and catering business, as a college-level instructor for ministry students, and even cleaning carpets. All of these job experiences have given him a unique perspective on customer service, an area in which he excels. Sean, an employee in Yardi’s Raleigh, N.C. office, was recognized during CSD Week in November for his exemplary efforts on behalf of Yardi residential and commercial clients. But a trophy on his desk doesn’t mean mission accomplished for this Texas native. “Always be growing, always be getting better at what you do. Never think you’ve arrived. Yes, I was awarded a Customer Service Week award, but as soon as I get the statue I plan to put a note under it to say: ‘This isn’t the end,’ to remind myself, you have to do this every day. You can’t win an award once and be done with it. You have to keep asking, what can I do to be better at this than I am now?” A supportive environment for such personal growth and learning is one of the reasons that Sean loves his job at Yardi, where he has worked since February 2011. After stints on both the frontline residential and commercial teams, he’s now working on implementations for large Yardi Voyager clients, including a company using Yardi’s new Voyager plugin for single family home property management. “It’s been the best job I’ve ever had.  I truly enjoy every single day. I also enjoy time with my family, but I actually look forward to going to work,” Sean told us. “Yardi asks: what can we do to better you and help you become the most you can be? In turn, that helps the clients. It’s...