Michael Johnson

ALCO Management

By Leah Etling on Dec 16, 2013 in People

Michael Johnson is a veteran of the affordable housing industry. In 33 years at ALCO Management, he’s held “just about every job from Accounting Manager to CFO to COO to CAO,” he told me at Yardi’s Fall Advanced Solutions Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

But Michael loves his work, and in his current position as Chief Administrative Officer, he has the opportunity to help chart ALCO’s path to long term growth through strategic planning. Not that that’s easy.

“It’s a huge challenge,” he admitted “Some days I can’t figure out where we should be tomorrow, much less think about five years from now and how technology is going to change.”

But with a positive attitude and the willingness to seek the right tools to help his staff succeed, Johnson has thus far been gifted an anticipating the future. ALCO’s culture empowers property managers, site personnel and support staff to serve others and  celebrate teamwork.  The company places a property management team on every site – not always the practice in the affordable arena – to make sure residents get the best possible service.

Michael provided further insight on trends in technology and his role at ALCO:

What’s the current focus for ALCO Management?

We’re focused on growing our company slowly. We’re continuing to grow in the tax credit arena. We manage both conventional and affordable properties; however, the majority of our properties are affordable properties.. Right now, the way to grow in affordable housing is mainly with tax credits. We’re also doing more management of public housing units. We’re finding public housing authorities are starting to contract that out more, or there are mixed use deals where some of the units are public housing units. We’re finding a growing trend in doing more public housing unit management.

Are there any specific challenges associated with that type of growth?

One of the challenges we have been dealing with is getting Yardi’s public housing program integrated with everything else. These properties are typically layered properties. Today, what we’re seeing is not just a tax credit property or not just a Section 8 property but they’re layered with all these different programs. What we need is the ability to produce a 50059, or a 50098  or  a TIC or whatever compliance item we need, all from one place.

You’ve been at ALCO for 33 years. What do you like best about your work?

Think I’ve done every job at the company, but the job I enjoy the most is the one I’m doing now. I started out in the accounting side as an accounting manager and worked up to CFO. Then I became COO. Being on the executive team is a lot of responsibility, but it is very gratifying to be able to make strategic decisions that help lead the company.

What is your current focus?

A lot of my focus is on strategic planning. Even though I’m busy thinking about what’s happening with regulatory items, what’s going on with our current environment, my job really is to think about where will we be five years from now, and what do we need to think about, and how do we get there. It’s a huge challenge. Some days I can’t figure out where we should be tomorrow, much less think about five years from now and how technology is going to change.

Resident relationships are important in all areas of property management. How do they work at ALCO?

As a company, we interact with our residents mainly through our community manager and our regional property managers. At our sites, we have a site manager on every site. Not everyone operates this way, but we believe that to have a very good property we need to have people there. We have a full staff on every site. They are our first contact with our residents, but our regional property managers also are involved and know our residents. Our websites allows us to keep in contact with them as well as email and phone calls.. Most of the time they probably have a question or a problem. It’s nice when I get the ones that tell me what a good job someone did on site, and I get those too. That’s the most rewarding email to get.

You’ve been to many Yardi Advanced Solutions Conferences. What is notable about them?

I am so impressed with all the Yardi staff and how they know their customers, know what kind of products we have. People that work on my account may not really know me, but they come find me and speak to me, tell me what part they’ve been working on. Not a conference goes by that Anant (Yardi) hasn’t found me and asked: ‘Michael, how are things going? What’s new with you?’ And he really cares about the answers. As big as a company as this is, and as many customers as you have, he knows who I am, and I really appreciate that.

Have the Yardi products you used changed much over time?

Yes, they’ve improved. The ability to make sure we are meeting all the regulatory requirements has improved. We’ve built in checkpoints in the system that show us when something might be a violation of a regulatory requirement. That’s a huge help. That helps my people catch it sooner on site. That helps my compliance department depend on the system more, instead of having to check every little detail. The regulatory side of it is so much better over the years.

Working through software improvements isn’t always easy. What’s your perspective on it?

The Yardi people we work with,  want us to find good solutions, whether its Yardi or other providers that we work with. We’re working with good people and they want the best for us. They want us as their customer to succeed. Together, we can work through problems, look for solutions.  We don’t always agree on the way it should be done immediately, but we keep working through the issue to get to the solution, because everyone wants the same solution.

What do you want people to know about ALCO?

Affordable housing is a business and we are a for-profit business. But you don’t stay in this business if you don’t care about the people that you serve. We know that we  provide good homes for people.  Homes are well maintained and well run, and our residentsare excited to live in a place like that.

We just had a company meeting recently, and people tell stories about the crazy things that happen on site, but what we had to remind ourselves is that it is only 5-10 percent craziness. You’ve got 90 percent of people who want to do right, who want a good home, and who are appreciative of what we are providing. And that gives us joy every time.