Hello Blogosphere!

Hello blogosphere! This is my very first post to my very first blog. While late to the party, I hope that I can contribute to the dialog about commercial real estate during these most distressing times.

I am a commercial real estate broker who has been in the commercial real estate industry since 1986. But really, my experience is much longer. That's if I receive credit for performing maintenance and property management services in my mother's portfolio of five multi-family buildings in Baltimore City beginning in 1967. Over 42 years! And I have loved every minute of those years, though some of the experiences were not so pleasant in hindsight.

So that readers can understand my perspective, I would like to share a little about my path to this blog. I grew up in the Windsor Hills neighborhood of northwest Baltimore City, one of five children. I attended public schools, ultimately earning a high school diploma from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, A-Course, Engineering Option. Back then, I was convinced that my future lay in designing and racing automobiles. Upon entering the University of Pennsylvania, I majored in Bioengineering with a Mechanical Engineering concentration, receiving a BSE in 1981. By the time I graduated, the country was racked by runaway inflation, US hostages in Iran and 18% interest rates for car and home loans. I secured a job at Westinghouse Defense near BWI Airport as Reagan's defense buildup had resulted in great salaries for new engineers.

As the years clicked past, I became very interested in business, but couldn't satisfy this need at Westinghouse while working on classified projects. From my low level, I seldom knew the ultimate end-user, or received feedback on cost, performance, and quality. Those were critical components that every businessman ought to know. In reality, Westinghouse managers knew those facts but my clearance was not high enough and I didn't have a "need to know."

Oh, well.

I left Westinghouse after five years to earn an MBA in Finance with a concentration in Real Estate from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. My experiences at Wharton opened my eyes to a whole new world. The flow of international capital, risk adjusted returns, arbitrage! Amazing!

Next stop, USF&G Insurance where I worked my way up to running the corporate real estate department after five years. Again, my experiences were eye opening. This time in understanding national real estate submarkets, construction costs, commercial property management, asset management, and the direct impact of real estate - both used and held for investment - on the bottom line of a corporation. I also learned a thing or two about downsizing a large corporation during a recession and while in a dire financial crisis.

Next stop was a small regional brokerage shop in Baltimore for two years and then on to Cushman & Wakefield, on of the world's largest international commercial real estate brokerages. During my seven years in the Tysons Corner (McLean) Virginia office of Cushman & Wakefield, I learned every aspect of large, complex, commercial transactions. You could say I learned how to be a broker and a businessman.

Finally, in 2003 while in the middle of the dot com recession, I founded Kington Commercial to focus on commercial real estate within the region. My goal was to offer to a select group of clients - both large and small - the same quality of commercial real estate counsel demanded and enjoyed by Fortune 500 firms. That has proven to be a winning strategy.

My goal with this blog is offer thoughtful commentary to the blog's followers on current issues in Commercial Real Estate. I hope that you find this blog both interesting and informative.