Montie Rouze has had a long and distinguished career as an information technology expert, systems manager and implementation specialist. But she’s also been recognized for a significant contribution to her hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. In 2010, Montie was named Volunteer of the Year for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Texas. Along with her son Cameron, now a 22-year-old college student, she mentors a boy named Erick as part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. They became involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters with the support of Montie’s employer, Crescent Real Estate. The company’s Faces of Change program devotes itself to getting employees into community service. Unlike many mentorship partnerings, which can end after one to two years, Montie and Cameron are still active in Erick’s life, more than five years after they first met. Erick, a third grader when the Rouzes’ became involved in his life, will enter high school next year. “It’s been really good for Erick, and he has seen Cameron grow up, graduate from high school and go on to college,” Montie said. “He idolizes Cameron.” Cameron Rouze is now in his fifth year of a landscape architecture program at Oklahoma State University. He visits his “little brother” whenever he’s home in Texas for vacation or school breaks. Doing good things in the community is a natural fit for Montie, who has three grown kids with her husband, Don, and maintained a focused career path in information technology while her children were growing up. She told us that support for working mothers by her previous employer, Trammell Crow Company, made a big difference. She worked for Trammell Crow from 1984 to 1994, and later started her own consulting company, which she ran for 10 years. Trammell Crow Company supported...

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,...

“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...

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...