Three Questions with Greg O'Brien
President, Northeast Region
The Staubach Company

Gregory P. O'Brien is President of the Northeast Region for The Staubach Company (www.staubach.net), a global real estate advisory firm that delivers cost-effective solutions for the users of office, industrial and retail space. The editors of "Managing Change" recently got his views on the federal real property management market, and his advice to improve real property performance.

Q: What does your job entail?

A: I am President of Staubach's Northeast Region, which includes responsibility for our Public Sector practice across the US. Staubach provides a broad range of real estate services focused on the user of real estate. Our Federal clients include direct agencies such as FBI, DHS, NASA and USDA, and a significant partnership with GSA to deliver transaction services for a broad cross-section of federal agencies.

We provide real property asset management plans, prospectus studies and a full range of real property related consulting and transaction support. Part of my job is to make sure that we service our clients' needs as perfectly as possible, so I spend a lot of time with our clients to make sure we are successfully solving their problems.

Q: What is your view of the interaction between real property asset management and federal fiscal responsibility?

A: As one of the largest real property holders in the world, the federal government is responsible for managing a very valuable set of assets. Clearly some federal real property is underutilized, and the current trend appears to be a desire to monetize the assets quickly.

But quick decisions made to meet financial targets, without fully considering the short- and long-term potential for the real property - may sometimes have deleterious impact on federal missions and/or the nearby communities. The increasing use of unique authorities such as Enhanced Use Leasing, Real Property Exchanges, and some of the creative Public/Private Partnership structures that have emerged over the past decades may provide great avenues for continued strategic balancing of real property actions with fiscal responsibilities.

The federal government is not alone in this balance. Our company has a large federal practice, but we also represent approximately half of the Fortune 100 companies on real property-related matters. Fiscal responsibility in all large entities starts with analysis to provide a great understanding of what you have, and consideration of alternative options to better align your real property with your current mission/business, to eliminate costs, and to create operational efficiencies where possible.

Corporations and federal entities are changing more quickly than ever due to changing missions and decreasing product, service, and program lifecycles. A comprehensive real property asset management plan (integrated into the business planning cycle) can be a very valuable tool to assure this important cost is actively managed.

Such a plan also often uncovers underutilized assets that can be disposed of, thereby lowering operating costs and generating capital. Under several federal programs such capital can often be redeployed by the controlling agency if the assets are not required long term. Stagnant and underutilized real property assets on the "balance sheet" are a major waste of the resources that companies and federal agencies desperately need!

Q: What advice would you offer for better real property asset management?

A: It is key to develop an annual plan for your real property assets, including an analysis of alternative structures and approaches to your assets that may better align with your mission, or create meaningful savings or revenue from excess assets.

Many groups may not understand everything they have in their portfolio or the emerging tools available to optimize their assets. The federal real property process can also take time, so getting after an optimal approach will require action and diligence. Based on real and active examples, there are significant hidden savings for those real property professionals that drive for a complete review, actively embrace alternative ideas and have the will to find a better solution for their agency.