John Coe & Julie Smith
Bio
Julie A. Smith, Chief Administrative Officer, The Bozzuto Group
Show Notes
Current Role
- Currently Chief Administrative Officer for 5 yrs. now. Spent first 25 yrs. of career running Property Management. Toby Bozzuto assumed CEO role when she made the transition to CAO role (5:00)
- Suggested her role change would offer opportunities to others to run Property Management (6:00)
- Mike Schlegel is COO who runs P&L units (7:00)
- CAO role is all non operating functions (7:15)
- Vertical growth of The Bozzuto Group (9:00)
- Initial intention to manage their own assets (9:15)
- Started in 1989 and was “cash strapped” (9:30)
- An equity partner asked them to manage the property on a third party basis in the early 1990s (9:40)
- First project for institutional owners, which became a theme for third party management (11:00)
- Action steps- Focused on revenue first (11:30)
- Why wasn’t top line growing? (12:00)
- Looked at all aspects of project to increase rents and reduce vacancy (12:30)
- Setting up variable compensation to align rewards of employees (13:00)
- No control over “fixed expenses” (14:00)
- Variable expenses are “nickels on the floor” (14:20)
Origins and Education
- Grew up in Niagara Falls, NY (14:30)
- Parents were school teachers (15:00)
- Area driven by industrial activities primarily (15:20)
- Love Canal issue negatively impacted area (15:30)
- Parents grew up in 1930s (15:50)
- Dad a Principal (16:00)
- Mom was a home economics teacher- she learned about details in cooking that spilled over to her “eye for details” in most of her activities (16:30)
- Her Dad was loved by students- treated people with respect (18:00)
- Elementary school Principal who dealt well with parents of challenging students (18:45)
- Special relationship with her- all her girlfriends would share with him (19:50)
- Attended State University of New York- Oswego (20:30)
- Father went there (21:00)
- Could afford it (21:15)
- Business and Communications major (21:30)
- Spent her Junior year in Copenhagen, Denmark (21:45)
- Traveled around Europe while there (22:15)
- Became more worldly after her year there (22:30)
- Met a good friend from Pittsburgh who suggested that the two of them move to Washington, DC after graduation (23:10)
First Job
- First job at Warner Communications in the DC CBD (24:20)
- Public Affairs- Premiere of Superman with Christopher Reeve (24:50)
- Sharing a taxi with Elizabeth Dole (25:30)
- No interest in Public Affairs (26:15)
First Real Estate Positions
- Met with someone who introduced her to the B.F. Saul Co.- Worked for Roger Ellison there (26:20)
- Gave her an apartment general manager’s job in Reston, VA (27:00)
- On the job training in 1...
