For the past few years Realcomm has been selecting two industry leaders to act as Advisory Council Co-Chairmen, a role that has evolved with time to become integral to the success of our event planning for the annual North American conference. For 2010 we’re extremely proud to announce that our Advisory Council Co-Chairmen will be Chris Saah, CIO, Transwestern and Jesse Carrillo, CIO, Hines.

As Co-Chairmen, Chris and Jesse’s role will be threefold: (1) to assist in the identification of the critical issues impacting the industry, (2) development of the educational program, and (3) working with the 24 Advisory Council members to frame up the goals and objectives for the year.

This may be one of the most challenging years in Realcomm history for our Advisory Council. Since late 2008, the commercial real estate industry has been feeling the impact of an economic crisis the likes of which never have been seen in our country’s history and it is possible, likely in fact, that commercial real estate investors, owners, operators and developers will be affected far beyond 2010. In fact, at a recent real estate conference one of the attendees commented that “if you’re a real estate developer, you should consider a change of career for the next 3-5 years.” Despite that happy prognostication, many of our companies are actually figuring out how to make the most of this recession.

Realcomm’s challenge has been to help the industry operate at continually higher levels of efficiency and profitability by strategically using automation and technology to better operate our buildings, portfolios, communities and cities. Key is providing our technology execs with an opportunity to have critical discussions to identify best practices, share experiences and ultimately mitigate risk. We’re confident that our newly appointed Chairmen will provide the insight and leadership to help the industry meet this challenge.

Chris and Jesse were chosen for a number of reasons, not the least being their strong level of commitment to give back to the industry.

Chris Saah has been at Transwestern since 1995. He serves as the Team Leader of Transwestern’s IT department, a team of 34 technology professionals that manage the company’s network, develop software applications, support account applications, and provide Help Desk and on-site desktop support to over 1600 team members at over 200 corporate and management offices. Chris also serves as the company’s Business Continuity Coordinator.

Chris has been a Realcomm Advisor, speaker and moderator for the Realcomm North American conferences, CIO Roundtables and the DC area CIO luncheon forums. Chris also writes the engaging and informative ‘In the Trenches’ series for the Realcomm Advisory newsletter where he interviews key industry CIOs and discusses their approaches to many common, yet often perplexing, IT issues. Chris is also an active member of Society for Information Management (SIM) and National Association of Real Estate Companies (NAREC).

Although Jesse is relatively new to the Realcomm circles, he’s distinguished himself as one of the brightest and most innovative strategic technologists in our industry. Jesse is responsible for directing all global technology, strategy and standards at Hines. He joined Hines as a consultant in 1994 to assist in the implementation of their accounting and property management software, and came onboard full-time the following year. Today, Jesse and his team of 28 corporate and 12 regional IT staff are responsible for supporting systems for over 3,300 users world-wide. Their focus is on leveraging their new ERP system, providing additional business intelligence reporting and identifying process improvement opportunities. The team also continues to focus on sustainability projects such as data center consolidation and virtualization as well as deploying more robust collaboration tools. Jesse is a member of the CIO Executive Council and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs.

We’re very excited about the opportunity to work with both Chris and Jesse in shaping the goals, objectives, issues and programming for our 2010 events. We are confident that their exceptional perspective and insights, the quality of our events will be taken to another level.

About Transwestern:
Transwestern, one of the largest privately held commercial real estate and development firms in the U.S., is focused on creating value for our clients in each local market they serve. Transwestern’s unique business model offers fully integrated real estate services and operates through six distinct functional lines of business - agency leasing, property and facility management, investment services, tenant advisory, development and research - for a broad range of property types, including office, industrial, retail, healthcare and multifamily. Transwestern leads the industry in sustainability and has received multiple EPA ENERGY STAR® awards. They have partnered with their clients and the USGBC to pursue LEED® certification on projects across the country. www.transwestern.net.

About Hines:
Hines is a privately owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development and property management worldwide. The firm's historical and current portfolio of projects that are underway, completed, acquired and managed for third parties includes 1,111 properties representing more than 449 million square feet of office, residential, mixed-use, industrial, hotel, medical and sports facilities, as well as large, master-planned communities and land developments. With offices in more than 100 cities in 17 countries, and controlled assets valued at approximately $22.9 billion, Hines is one of the largest sustainable real estate organizations in the world. www.hines.com.