If you told a teenage Jody Bankston that he’d grow up to be an expert in business intelligence for a commercial real estate company, and spend free time doing intense CrossFit workouts that would make even a top athlete cringe, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. “My life has been a little bit strange,” says CBL & Associates’ Manager of Strategic Transformation. Jody tells us that his cool title is really just an alternative to “special projects,” but that he essentially works at the intersection of accounting, IT and property management. His experience working as a controller, business consultant and at several start-ups, as well as a MBA from Emory University, gives Jody a diverse background that makes him a perfect fit for his role at CBL. He’s based at the company’s headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn., which also happens to be where he grew up. One of Jody’s first projects at the company was to develop a data warehousing system that now provides easy access to transaction records and property data. It also makes report writing a breeze. The next step? Taking access to that data warehouse mobile. Using the BusinessObjects platform and an app called Explorer, Jody told us about how he could easily access information about a Payables check or invoice or a tenants AR balance – while out of the office at lunch and using his iPad. A big fan of Apple’s popular tablet computing device, which he has beta tested extensively for CBL use, Jody says the device has been a good solution for a large company with a small IT department. “We have to pick a platform that’s as standardized as possible. The nice thing with the iPad is you don’t have to worry about ‘which model, which carrier,...
Dylan Cline
Point2 Homes
Dylan Cline hates being the center of attention, but when it came to cutting off the long hair he’d spent over a decade growing all the way down his back, he made an exception. The customer care representative for Point2 Homes, a subsidiary of Yardi Systems based in Saskatchewan, Canada, decided to drastically change his look, extreme makeover style, for the benefit of kids with cancer. The Big Haircut ceremony featured all of the Point2 team joining Dylan and a barber down in the basement for snacks and encouragement. Picture yourself getting haircut while all your coworkers stand around, snack on cheese and sparkling juice, and watch. “That was incredibly different for me,” Dylan admitted. “I didn’t like being the main focus.” And despite all the compliments he’s gotten on his new look, it also took him awhile to realize that his lengthy locks were no longer attached to his scalp. “For the first couple days I kept reaching back to take out of the ponytail and realized that it wasn’t there anymore,” he said. Jacquelyn Bauer, Director of Point 2 Customer Care, gave us her version of the pony tale. “Ever since Dylan started working at Point2, his hair has been halfway down his back. We always teased him and asked when he would be cutting his hair, to which we received non-committal responses. “After a recent return from maternity leave, I was catching up with former team members. Dylan was sitting in my office one day chatting, and the topic turned to his hair. I asked him if thought he would ever cut it, to which he replied, ‘You know, I’ve actually been thinking I’m ready to.’ I can’t take the credit for coming up with the idea as we had a...
Computers for Families...
Bridging the digital divide
Santa Barbara County’s Computers for Families project gets students and families access to technology that helps them learn and grow. Computers have become as important today for student success as paper and pencil were just 20 years ago. The goal of CFF is to bridge the digital divide between low-income students who cannot afford technologies in the home and their more affluent peers. Through the organization’s efforts, more than 9,000 computers have been placed into the homes of low-income students, and more than 200 teachers have been trained to improve their instruction by using technologies as teaching and learning tools. Reduced cost internet access into the homes of low-income students gives them the tools that they need to learn and succeed in the modern economy. Families and students receive an orientation, information regarding Internet, and training on applications before they take their “new” computers home. The program also trains teens in the Los Prietos Boys Camp, a County-managed residential treatment program for young men committed by local courts, in computer repair. Graduates of Los Prietos say that the skills they’ve learned have helped them get jobs in the tech repair industry after they return home. Computers for Families is a project of the Santa Barbara Partners in Education (Partners), a non-profit organization with members from business, industry, government, and local schools and colleges. Partners’ mission works to yield excellence in Santa Barbara area schools, producing outstanding graduates. Yardi Systems is among the Santa Barbara businesses that proudly supports CFF with donations of equipment and funding support. Surplus computers are donated to Computers for Families for refurbishment by local businesses, organizations, and individuals. Ben Romo, Director of Community Education & Special Projects, Santa Barbara County Education Office, tells us that Yardi’s contributions have been beneficial...
Courtney Trindell-Reyes
BRE Properties
In her nearly 14 years with BRE Properties, Courtney Trindell-Reyes has worked in many aspects of property management, from her start as a leasing agent to her role today as a Senior Business Systems Analyst. Her career path has given her unique perspective on the changing face of residential property management and she feels lucky to have achieved a particularly good work-life balance while enjoying professional success. Courtney and her husband, Benjamin Reyes (a facilities engineer for BRE), have three sons, ages 3, 9, and 17, and the family is especially close. You can find them enjoying time together at the skate park in Riverside or traveling to the beach in their fifth wheel RV during school vacations. Of paramount importance to Courtney is that her family gets her full attention while she’s at home, and her company receives equal treatment at work. “This balance is really important for my family,” she said. “BRE has been just gracious and amazing to ensure that I have good balance. They’ve made sure that I’ve had it. I don’t know that I would have been able to achieve that on my own.” Her worlds collide when she uses her son’s ages to recall when certain tech transition moments took place at the office. One was especially memorable – at the end of a long SQL training session with Yardi’s Tamara Berndt, Courtney had to tell everyone she’d be unable to continue the call – her water had broken while on the phone. “Tamara and I joke that that awful SQL scripting class put me into labor,” she recalled. While her schedule doesn’t allow time for many activities that aren’t work or family related, Courtney’s an extreme couponer who managed to cut her family’s $1500 monthly grocery bill in half by careful shopping. She also spends any free time making scrapbooks for her sons so they’ll be able to look back on their childhoods. At work, she’s also a master of a balancing act. While working on multiple projects in different areas of the company simultaneously, Courtney says she enjoys handling everything from minute detail questions about technical problems for BRE staff to overseeing major upgrade projects. She uses all the information she’s collected throughout her career to contribute strong insight that benefits BRE. “I love that I can do a little bit of everything in my job every day. I don’t think I could do the same thing every day all day long. I love that I can do everything from high level support to helping somebody log in to Yardi, very basic work to a very high level work, and touch so many departments,” she said. She is fascinated by the industry’s transition to a paperless transaction system and has been a technical adviser on BRE’s implementation of automated rent collection. The company holds a portfolio of 88 multi-family communities with 25,192 units in California, Arizona, Washington and Colorado. * * * * Learn more about Courtney What is your favorite type of music? People would be surprised to hear that I love gangster rap. I don’t have the looks of someone who would like this type of music! What kinds of food do you like? I love Japanese food. I think I was Japanese in my past life (if I had a past life…) If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or historical, who would it be? Oprah What are some things on your bucket list? I want to travel to Turks and Caicos What athlete or sports figure do you most admire? Being that I am the only girl in my house with 4 boys I have to say Michael Jordan. He’s the best basketball player of all time. What online sites do you visit? I do all my shopping online always. I did all of my Christmas shopping for everyone online....
Marilyn Hansen
Yardi
Marilyn Hansen has a life she loves, from her work as a programmer at Yardi, to dedicated community volunteering efforts, and athletic achievements as an age group runner. Recently, she served coinciding presidencies, from 2009-2011, on the boards of two Santa Barbara non-profit organizations that are very important to her: the Arthritis Foundation and the American Cancer Society. “Both are very close to my heart. I’ve had a lot of friends who have had cancer,” said Marilyn, adding that she and her husband are both cancer survivors also. As a longtime organizer of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, she put together a team from Yardi Systems that raised much-needed funds for the organization. Her fundraising work is also important at the Arthritis Foundation, where she helps organize the annual Arthritis Walk and popular Taste of the Town event. “Marilyn Hansen is a dedicated, passionate, hard-working volunteer,” said Jeanne David, director of the Arthritis Foundation, Santa Barbara chapter. “We have been honored to have Marilyn serve on our board for the last 5 years. She always goes above and beyond the call of duty and is always willing to step up to new challenges.” As a longtime programmer, Marilyn has seen tremendous changes in technology since her days as a student at the University of Arizona, where she studied math and systems engineering. She compares the programming process to a creative task like painting, and says her work is something she truly enjoys. “I love coming to work every day,” said Marilyn, who has been with Yardi for 16 years. “To have someone pay you to do something that you really love – that’s amazing.” Another love in Marilyn’s life is long distance running. As an active member of the Santa Barbara distance running community, she’s been a volunteer course marshal at the annual Santa Barbara International Marathon and also holds the course record for her age group in the race. Her reasons for running are practical as well as for fitness and love of the sport. “I run to eat,” Marilyn said candidly. She hosts a weekly Sunday dinner for her family where she enjoys trying new gourmet recipes from Bon Apetit, particularly desserts. A mother of two and grandmother of two, Marilyn enjoys hiking as well as running and climbed Mt. Whitney with her husband to celebrate his 70th birthday. There’s no sign of her slowing down anytime soon. * * * * Learn more about Marilyn: What is your favorite type of music? I love classical music … especially classical guitar. What is your favorite book of all time and (optional: why)? I don’t think I can narrow it down to just one … If you have an hour of free time to spare, what do you do with it? Sit on the patio and read! What kinds of food do you like? Unfortunately I love almost everything! There are only a few foods I don’t like. If I had to decide on just a few it would be lasagna, Caprese salad, rare filet mignon, fresh ahi sashimi. Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever traveled? Tibet. My husband and I were there in 2007 just before China started making it harder for tourists to travel there. It was very interesting to see the contrast between native Tibetans and the Chinese. What do you like best about your job? I love programming! I’ve been programming for over 45 years!! I don’t think of myself as being artistic, but programming is artistic to me … a way of creating something that all fits together just right. If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or historical, who would it be? I think I would have to have a dinner party and invite more than one person! The guest list would include Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Mozart, Leonardo Da Vinci, the Dalai Lama, and Mother Theresa. ...
Tom Schneider
Waypoint Real Estate Group
“The best way to learn from anything is just to jump in” – is a motto that has carried Tom Schneider from the college football field to his work in the residential property management industry. As one of the first employees at Oakland-based Waypoint Real Estate Group, Tom’s eager approach to learning and doing has helped the company succeed. Waypoint has rehabilitated hundreds of homes and supports responsible residents achieve the dream of homeownership since its founding in 2008. Tom has been involved in many aspects of the company’s growth, from the Acquisitions team to his current job as Application Developer for Waypoint’s portfolio management team. Though he never intended to become a real estate industry professional, Tom’s transition into the industry was a natural one. His former kicking coach at Cal, Doug Brien, the Waypoint Managing Director, invited him to join their team. Coming into his senior year, Tom suffered a season-ending injury. While sitting on the sidelines, he started documenting game action with a camera and thus began what would become “Inside the Huddle,” an inside look at the life of the Cal football team in a photo-documentary coffee table book. Producing, funding, and selling the book ended up being an invaluable experience in business, he said. As starting kicker for the Cal Berkeley Bears, Tom knows a thing or two about hard work as well as managing a full plate (he maxed out on the number of units he could take as an undergrad while getting majors in Legal Studies and City Planning). Raising the bar and excelling in an otherwise depressed situation is what Tom is all about and why the mission of Waypoint fits him so well. As a lease-to-own portfolio management company, Waypoint rehabilitates homes lost to foreclosure...
Trends in Investment Management
Rob Teel Talks Commercial Real Estate
We talked to Rob Teel, Vice President, Yardi Global Solutions, about his thoughts on current trends in investment management, specifically commercial real estate portfolios. What’s hot? As a result of the global financial crisis, investors and portfolio managers are taking a heightened interest in three things: Cycle time, transparency, and risk analysis, before and after committing large amounts of capital to investment managers. Let’s break it down. Cycle time – The time between the end of the quarter and the production of investors’ returns and reports is crunch time. Shortening that cycle from weeks to days is a crucial component of keeping investors happy. Banks and investors are now asking for more frequent valuations of real property, which can be costly and time-consuming. Investors are also looking for forecasts, so they can anticipate the value of their investment in the years ahead. Yardi VMF creates full portfolio valuations, in an automated, accurate and repeatable way, quarter after quarter, or any frequency desired. Transparency – Investors and investment boards now want a heightened level of detail about how their commercial investment properties are doing, down to the level of tenant health. They aren’t satisfied with the pretty pictures of the assets traditionally included in quarterly reports, and want to drill down to find outstanding receivables and other property-specific information. Yardi Investor Portal provides a technology tool for frequently-published, data rich reports. Risk analysis – Successful investment management means monitoring a portfolio closely for potential trouble spots. Portfolio managers can choose the attributes they’ll monitor to keep close tabs on portfolio assets. Producing the best possible business intelligence platform for risk management is one of the goals of Yardi Orion, which uses Microsoft Sharepoint built on an OLAP data cube to give instant access to investment data. Wait, I can’t use Excel to manage my clients’ portfolios? In a word, no. Investors and institutional investment management boards – which oversee multi-million dollar funds on behalf of private individuals and trusts, retirement systems, and other investment entities, are asking for more intelligent business software solutions to ensure that their investments are monitored wisely. Investment managers need to account for accounting controls, risk controls, operational controls with a smart technology choice. You will not get institutional funding if you are running on an Excel spreadsheet. What’s next? The investment management industry should be focused on automating all aspects of the real estate life cycle, from end to end. That should include property operations, acquisitions, dispositions, monitoring, and risk analysis. All of the processes that are required can be automated, from the time you acquire that asset and attract new investors that help you acquire it, to the time you’re monitoring it, looking for outliers and patching up the health of your portfolio, to the time you need to dispose of it, get the right value for it and close it out....
Scott Pechersky
Alliance Residential
2011 may have been a rough year to be a Pittsburgh Steelers football fan, but Scott Pechersky of Alliance Residential in Phoenix, Ariz. sticks with the black and yellow through thick and thin. A Microsoft networking guru at the start of his career, Scott has become known in the residential real estate industry as a leader and technology expert. And he’s probably the only Steelers fan on the planet to be able to claim that he taught Mike Tyson how to wave the Terrible Towel. Scott was seated next to Tyson, rock star Kid Rock and the NBA’s LeBron James at the Steeler’s 2006 Super Bowl 21-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks. In no time at all, he got his new famous friends waving the towels in Pittsburgh’s signature cheer. Tyson was a willing participant, though not particularly skilled at the subtle nuances of towel waving. “You’ve got to make more of a circular motion, but he was more waving it back and forth,” Scott recalled, laughing. When he called his wife at halftime, he had trouble talking because he was so excited about the game and his brush with celebrity. A self-described “terrible golfer,” University of Arizona grad and dad to two sons, Scott heads up Alliance Residential’s IT and ancillary departments as the company’s vice president of technology. He shared his insight about the future of computing for residential property management: it’s going mobile, quickly. “In everything we do, we’re trying to keep our on-site management folks off the computer as much as possible,” he said. “We need to have leasing agents do more things on tablets so they’re more flexible while walking around the properties.” Alliance Residential’s properties include approximately 50,000 units, mostly in the western and southern United States. Moving...
