Brian's bio from the CBRE website:
CBRE-Global President, Debt &
Structured Finance
Brian oversees the global Debt &
Structured Finance practice at CBRE. Under his leadership, approximately 160
professionals have originated nearly $150 billion in loan volume since
2014. Additionally, this practice maintains a loan services
portfolio of more than $160 billion globally.
Brian has extensive experience in the
origination, structuring, placement, closing and servicing of commercial real
estate debt for life insurance companies, pension funds, banks, debt funds,
Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, FHA and Wall Street sources.
Prior to the CB Richard Ellis
acquisition of L.J. Melody in 1996, Brian was Senior Vice President and
Southwest Regional Manager for CB Commercial’s mortgage banking
division. Brian began his career with Coldwell Banker Commercial in
1981 and became a senior real estate finance officer in the firm’s La Jolla,
California office.
On our phone interview, Brian and I
were trying to remember when we met. We concluded that it was many
years ago and may have been via this column. Then, as has happened a
number of times with folks that I’ve ‘met’ through “On the Road”, we got
together. Over the years, Brian has written to me when something I
write resonates with him. It’s great to see someone with the
integrity and professionalism that Brian possesses rise in the industry to a
very senior position. While he used to be amazed at my travel
schedule, the shoe is now on the other foot as Brian has travelled lots of
miles in his global role.
Q. How did you get your
start in commercial real estate?
A. Let’s call it
serendipity. I started in the business in 1980. I went to
work for a small tenant rep broker – when I say small it was a one-man band in
Orange County in So. California. The guy found me at a lunch &
learn at Cal State Fullerton. I was pretty much working my way
through college as a grocery clerk. He did a presentation and said, “Hey, I
need some help but I can’t pay you anything” – that was my entre into the
business. Working for nothing for 6 months was table scratch but it
turned out okay.
Anyway, I ended up with a buddy
drinking beer with our dates at an international street festival in the City of
Orange where I was born and raised. My date that day my turned out
to become my wife and we’ve now been married over 33 years. My buddy
and I decided that it was far better for us to drink beer that was brewed in
Europe rather than Orange County so two weeks later we were off to Europe to
drink beer for 10 weeks. It was a soul-searching time for me and it
was during that trip that I realized I loved the commercial real estate
business but I wasn’t getting near the training or exposure that I needed.
When I came back, I embarked on a job
search and it turned out that my mother, who was a secretary at a local high
school, worked with another secretary, who happened to be a swimming teacher
who taught me how to swim when I was five. Her son was the managing
director of what was then Coldwell Banker Commercial in Denver. He
hooked me up with Personnel Director Tom Townley in Los Angeles. (they used to
call it Personnel back in the day, now they call it HR). After
a battery of 8-hours of tests, mostly psychological tests with questions like,
“Would I rather pick flowers or saw wood” kind of thing, I had 6 interviews
with Executive Vice Presidents at the company. None of the EVP’s
ever returned a phone call – that was part of the tenacity testing I was
unaware of at the time. I got hired into a yearlong training program and become
a “Wheelie”. I was one of 11 invited into the program. My fellow Wheelies
were all male, they were all white – that was the day. I was
one of just a few that were not ‘Trustafarians’ – most had ample trust funds
supporting their $1,000 / month salaries.
We rotated assignments in different
departments every three months. My second assignment was in the
corporate marketing department in downtown Los Angeles. Funny story:
I met a guy who was also in the program and we agreed to have lunch together.
We got in his new Beemer, which was parked next to my un-air conditioned Honda
sedan and went someplace for lunch. He asked me where I lived and I
said, “On my Mon’s sofa in Orange County.” I asked him where he lived and he
had just purchased a home in Bel-Air. He was obviously a Trustafarian.
That training program was
terrific. The last 3 months my assignment was in the mortgage
banking group in San Diego and that’s where I really found my passion and my
niche. It required a combination of marketing and analytics - number crunching
(I had been an accounting major at Cal State Fullerton). They
decided to hire me after that 3-month stint in San Diego and that was my real
entre into the CRE business and the rest is history – 36 years later I'm still
with CBRE.
Q. What advice would you offer someone who has been in the commercial real estate industry a short time or a
student looking for his or her start?
A. I would put a number of
ingredients into that bucket. Tenacity – don’t give up. Be persistent but
polite. Work hard at it. Be yourself – don’t be somebody who you’re
not and follow your passion.
Q. Looking back on your
career is there anything you wish you had done differently and, if so, what?
A. I don’t have many
regrets. I had many forks in the road and in retrospect, having
followed any one of those forks would have taken me in a direction that may not
have ultimately turned out as well as the path I chose. That’s part
of happiness in life - not having regrets, not looking back and not trying to
turn back the clock. We can’t turn back the clock, we must move forward. I
had a blood disease that nearly derailed me for good – I could have been dead
at 29 - and those experiences made me a better person long-term. I
believe that life changing events can be a blessing.
Q. Who have been the
greatest influences in your career and why?
A. Wow. Well if I
start – there’s been a whole series of influencers over the years both
internally, within the company and externally. My grandfather was a
great influence – a hard-working German who would handle a plow behind a horse
or a tractor. I learned a lot from him – I learned how to drink beer
from him at age 10. One at a time. My grandfather was a
self-made man, never graduated beyond 8th grade. A
hard-worker, honest as the day is long. He was genuine and never had
an enemy. That taught me a lot. I never heard him raise
his voice. He personified a hard-working, ethical human being. He
was never a wealthy man but wealth did not measure his being. He had
people driving from LA to North San Diego County to buy his produce because
they knew it was organic, unusual in the day, and he irrigated with water that
never left his property. They also raised beautiful fuchsias and
other flowers. He had a green thumb like nobody’s business and so
did my grandmother. He had the best compost piles and he was an inventor.
One day I noticed this contraption that
my grandmother had on the patio. I said, ‘Nana, what is that plastic bag
hanging out of your ceiling?” “Oh, Grandpa made me a solar hair dryer.” He was
just that kind of guy, always inventing – sort of a Rube Goldberg kind of
guy. Hard-working and solid. He tragically died of
prostate cancer that metastasized into bone cancer. He was a hearty, 5’10” and
he died at 100 pounds of skin and bones. But his mind was there until
the very end…the very, very end. I smile when I think about
him.
In my real estate career, there have
been a number of individuals who have meant a lot to me. Chris Ludeman has many
characteristics that I respect greatly. Mike Lafitte has been a wonderful role
model, personally and professionally. Bob Sulentic leads by example
and is a tireless and passionate CEO. Larry Melody, whose company we acquired
in 1996, was a great influence. Larry was iconic in the business, he
taught me a lot.
I believe a successful human being is a
compilation of not one but many characteristics found in those whose paths I’ve
witnessed. I’ve taken bits and pieces of elements lacking in my
persona and have tried to learn from what I see in others.
